Month of Memories - December 18th

I remember when I first heard about my friend who had started grinding her own grain and making her own bread.  I thought she was a little crazy.  However, wouldn't you know it, the more I started to read and learn about our bodies the importance of the kind of foods and nutrients that go into them (and having a chronic health problem certainly makes you look carefully at many otherwise ignored things!), the more I started coming to the conclusion that perhaps this was a step our family needed to take as well.  So, a few weeks ago, I took the plunge.  I bought a grain mill, a bread machine and 150+ pounds of wheat berries and other ingredients.  It all arrived by early last week and so last Monday began the bread baking adventures in our house.

Here is are the buckets of the three different kinds of wheat I ordered: hard red, hard white and soft white.

The first adventure was trying to get the lids off!  The method suggested by the company I purchased from didn't work, so finally Caleb suggest I just cut a hole in the lids and leave the actual lid removal process for Philip when he came home.  So, that's what we did.

The next step was to grind the grain.  I bought a Nutrimill and have so far been quite happy with how it works.  You can grind up to 20 cups of flour at a time, but I have been milling only about 4-5 at a time for the particular recipe I am using.  One reason for this is that milled grain loses over 90% of it's nutrients within 72 hours of being milled, so obviously I am only milling for what we're eating imminently.  However, at the rate we're going through the bread, I may start milling enough for two loaves, rather than one.

And here, a few hours later, is the finished product.  It was SOOOO yummy!

Even the boys liked it.  I was a little worried about Joshua because the bread he had been eating wasn't so "wheaty" and I didn't know what he would think.  But, he was ok with it and has been eating it all week.  I also wasn't sure about Andrew's reaction, but before he even finished the first piece he said, "Mommy, I want more!" :)

Saturday morning Philip decided to make pancakes for the boys using the new flour.  Caleb declared "Not only is the new flour better for you, these pancakes taste better, too!"  He was right.  I don't really care for pancakes, but I have to admit these were delicious and I was eating them plain!  It is incredible the difference in taste between fresh milled wheat flour and store bought wheat flour.  There is absolutely no comparison.

So, it looks like the switch to homemade bread is going well.  We hope to begin seeing the health benefits (like getting sick less and diminished sugar cravings) soon.