Emergency Preparedness Month- Cracked Wheat

The blender wheat pancakes inspired me to try and find other ways to eat unground wheat.  Here's what I ended up trying.

So, Everyday Food Storage has a little video about cracking your own wheat in your blender.  She also has a recipe for a jello salad (yuck!) with cracked wheat, but I really wanted to try just eating it for breakfast plain as I would eat cereal- with fruit and/or yogurt etc.  Here's a picture of what my wheat looked like after I cracked it.  Who knows if that's what it should look like... I felt like if I did this long enough, I might even get some flour out of the deal, because there was definitely a lot of powder clouding my view inside and floating out the top when I peaked in.  I decided to strain that away before cooking.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm terribly impatient and I loath tedious activities (which is why I hate making cut out cookies...) so I'm pretty sure the cracked wheat in the blender thing is not going to be a regular occurrence around here.  If I could set my blender to pulse it automatically for a set time, while I did other stuff, I definitely would.  OR if I could get my kids to do it.  But it took way too long for me.  I'm not sure how long it took, but it felt like forever.  I would probably pulse for a minute at a time and then look at it and wonder if anything had even happened yet, and then keep going.  Repeat 7ish times?  Perhaps I had too much in my blender?  I used about 1/3 of a cup.

Which is another thing-  if I'm going to do something tedious, it would have to be for big results, and 1/3 cup is not big enough for me.

Despite this, I cracked a full cup of wheat (in 3 batches) and cooked them in two different ways.

what my cracked wheat looks like.  not very uniform...

#1- The microwave method:
I put 1/3 cup in a 4 c pyrex measuring cup with 2/3 c water and microwaved for
6 minutes.  Still liquid.
2 more minutes.  Very slight liquid and still very very chewy.
2 more minutes.  No liquid and it was all getting hard and stuck together.  Yikes!  I added another 1/3 c and put it back in for
2 minutes.  still liquid. still chewy
1 more minute.  The liquid looked adequately gone and though chewy, it wasn't bad.
I gave some to Peach and she said it was yummy.  (but she's quite forgiving to my cooking.)
I added about 1 T of honey and stirred it up and gave some to Jay (with a scrunched look on his face) who decided he could eat that for breakfast and The Frog said it was gross before I even got it past his lips.

The verdict?  5 minutes of pulsing in a blender + 13 minutes in the microwave is on the verge of not fast enough for this mamma.  I could easily have pancakes ready in that time, so it probably won't happen around these parts much.

Way #2: rice cooker method
I put 2/3 c cracked wheat in the rice cooker with 1 1/3 c water.  I didn't watch it closely, but they were done when I checked on it about 30 minutes later.

cracked wheat from the rice cooker looked fluffier than the microwaved counter-part

I made several bowls with different toppings to try them different ways- banana and coconut milk, raisins and honey and (coconut) milk, maple syrup, agave, and (coconut) yogurt.  I think my favorite was the raisins and honey- the texture of the dried fruit just blended in very nicely.

The verdict?  I think I'm more likely to do it in the rice cooker, where I feel more comfortable leaving it unattended.  I could get it started and then go take a shower.  However, I would consider another method of cracking them, or even buying them cracked.  I do like the texture and it makes a nice alternative to oatmeal, but the blender cracking is just too tedious for me.

Emergency Preparedness Month- Whole Wheat

Did you know that wheat berries, when stored under the right conditions, can easily last up to 30 years without going bad? (and this may be a Mormon wives-tale, but I have heard that some wheat was found in the tomb of King Tut and it was still able to sprout!  Don't know if it's true, but it's kind of believable, right?)

This is one of the reasons why it is such a staple for emergency preparedness.  If you're intimidated by it, you can always store it and never use it.  OR, hopefully, you won't feel the pressure to use it all up in a couple of years.  You have plenty of time to rotate it.

I grew up with a mom who subbed and snuck home-ground whole wheat into everything, so for me it feels quite natural.  And actually, I grew up with whole wheat pancakes and to me, white pancakes are not nearly as good.  They must have syrup to have any flavor and they turn into paste in your mouth.  GROSS.  I love pancakes, but rarely get them at a restaurant because white ones are far inferior to their whole wheat counterpart.  (and much less nutritious besides!)

Anyway, most things, wheat works as a fine substitute but there are always slight changes.  First, I'm going to link to two Everyday Food Storage links on whole wheat.  The second gives you some guidelines for knowing when it works best in baked goods.

Now, I'm going to tell you a bit of what I've learned.

The two main kinds you can buy are Hard Turkey Red, and White Whole Wheat- a newer invention.  The fact that it is genetically engineered, makes me a bit twitchy, but it does work so much better as a white flour substitute that I use it anyway.

Rather than having to store two different kinds of wheat flour for different things, I always grind half Turkey Red, and half White Wheat, every time I grind.  (I just dump both kinds of berries in the grinder at once.)  You get the most nutrition from your wheat flour if it is freshly ground, because the nutrients begin to deteriorate from the moment it is ground, but you can slow the process by storing the flour in your fridge or freezer.  (and this is another reason why it's better to grind your own wheat, rather than buying whole wheat flour at the store.)  However, I don't give up precious fridge space to something like that.  Rather, I just keep a small-ish container in my cabinet so that I must grind every week. (usually Saturday mornings, in time for pancakes :D)  I find having a mix of half red and half white gives me the nice flavor of the red, with the versatility and lightness of the white.  Honestly, though, I still prefer my pancakes made with all Turkey Red ground wheat.

Wheat flour can be easily substituted (particularly white wheat) in pretty much everything- especially if it's a recipe with more brown sugar than white (or you can just substitute brown for white).  The main difference is your baked goods will not be as white (duh) and will have a slightly stronger wheaty flavor.  Also, if you use it to make a roux, it will give your white sauce a bit of speckliness, which may turn people off.  You're call.  It's totally fine for flouring chicken, though.  No difference, whatsoever.

With yeast breads, you must be the most careful- the wheat flour is much heavier and will change the texture quite a bit.  Usually you don't need as much liquid if you use wheat flour.  People will often add gluten or dough enhancer to help out.  I find you can usually get away with subbing about half the flour for a yeast bread, and even less for dinner rolls.  Your best bet, though, is to just follow a wheat bread recipe.

Here is the recipe I grew up with.  Its fantastic fresh out of the oven with butter or jam, but as a kid, I always loathed when my mom made sandwiches with it.  It dries out pretty easily, and the crust gets really hard. (Though, I've since realized that's probably because my mom never wrapped it in anything.)

Here is the Everyday Food Storage Recipe I've been meaning to try, but I haven't yet been able to get my hands on some potato flakes.  It's especially great because she has included videos, for someone who has really never made bread before.  It can give you that extra boost of confidence.  She also shows you how you can "trick" people into thinking it's not whole wheat by not letting it brown (and therefore keeping it a lighter color)

Here is my French bread recipe- I usually do 1/3 wheat when I'm giving it away, but I'll do 1/2 wheat for my family.  This one is particularly good if you don't own a mixer.

I'm going to try out cracked wheat next week and report back on it.

Where do you get wheat?  
Well, I can get the big 45 lb buckets at Costco, but probably ones outside Utah won't carry it.  I can even get it at the Macey's grocery stores- in 45 lb buckets or 50 lb bags.  However, the rest of you can buy it online.  The cheapest place to get it, already packaged for long-term use being the LDS cannery online store.

How do you turn it into flour?
Wheat grinders:
  I use the Blendtec Kitchen Mill on recommendation from my mom, that I actually bought directly from them, since they are a company based in Orem, UT.  You can also buy one online or at a Bosch store.  I've never used any other one and don't go around talking about wheat grinders with all my friends (despite how it may look here :D) so I don't really know much about any other one.  But this one has worked great for us!

I also just got a hand wheat grinder, in case of emergency and no electricity. I haven't used it yet, but am committing to try it out next week as well.  I'll tell you how it goes.

Anyone have any favorite whole wheat recipes, tips or tricks?