What a Sunday

Isn't this awesome? I love rainbows. Too bad I've never found that pot of gold, we could all use one of those, couldn't we? Now if it just wasn't so darn muddy........

No milk to make cheese this morning, the cow folks "forgot" to save me some so I'm going to make sure they remember tonight. I'll be up late doing it but I gotta have some cheese. So, today I'm baking a cherry and a pumpkin pie. the pumpkin ended up going on a cheesecake pan since 2 of my pie pans have mysteriously disappeared. That happens around here every now and then, don't know where stuff gets away to.

Grinding Flour

I've been looking thru the archives at all the things i've written since I started this blog and I noticed that I've talked a bit about growing wheat but nothing at all about using what I've grown. Baking with flour you've ground yourself isn't very hard at all. You can use just about any kind of grinder to make flour with. i've even talked to people that claim they can grind good flour with a coffee grinder. Now, I'm not saying I would do that, I'm just saying I've heard people claim that they can.

I have a Diamant grain grinder. It is super heavy duty, it has to be bolted down, it's hand operated and has stone burrs. I love it.

So, the top picture is the wheat I started with today. It's just plain old hand cleaned wheat berries that I grew. the wheat gets run thru the grinder for the first time and then it is sifted. The second picture is of the sifted wheat after the first run thru the grinder. The top bowl is the outer hulls of the wheat berries and what I intend to cast off and mix into the chicken feed. It is mostly the high fiber part of the wheat berry. The bottom bowl is the loosely sifted ground flour. Now, i could have used a finer screen in the first sift and the flour would be darn near white already but this flour is intended for our every day bread and I don't need to be so picky on the sifting.

Now, this bottom picture is the flour after it has been sent thru the grinder at least 3 times. It is the consistency of baby powder and is ready to set a couple weeks and "mature". After a couple of weeks, it will be ready to bake the wonderful bread you see on this blog.

Another Sweet Kick

I had a rough night, didn't sleep real well expecting the employment call to come in today. It didn't, I don't know why right now. So, I spent the late morning brushing horses and thinking about what I was going to make for supper. I decided on making a meal with some of the venison and beef scraps I have in the freezer. So, while that was thawing out, I ground up some wheat, some corn and a handful of oats to make some fresh cornbread and a couple sweet breads. I dug out some of the dehydrated bannanas, ground them up for some nanner bread, pulled out some dehydrated blueberries and got them soaking and worked up my batters. I should have checked how many eggs I had before I started, now I don't have enough for breakfast. Guess I'll have to make pancakes. As you can see, the sweet breads don't hardly get cooled off before they get sampled around here. I jumped the gun on the cornbread and pulled it out of the pan before it cooled completely and it broke on me. Oh well, it still tastes good.

Now I've got my meat scraps all cut up and browned in a pan of olive oil and chopped onion. When the meat was nice and browned, I pulled the meat out, added a couple cups of beef stock and a couple shots of lemon jiuce, brought that to a boil and poured it over the meat to simmer for a while on the stove. After about an hour of simmering, I'll add some home grown barley and parsley to it. when the barley softens up, I'll serve it over flour dumplings and home made egg noodles.

In Baking Mode

Why is it Christmas always makes me want to bake everything and anything? Cookies, pies, pastires, breads, LOL, pretty soon my kitchen will be over flowing and I can feel my butt getting bigger by the second!

Back in early summer, my Mom had a catalog sent to me from King Arthur Flour Company. There's a few things I'd love to have from them but I can't afford them and I won't ask my Mom to buy them for me. But what I think is the most impressive about the company and they're website is the recipe section. Just trying out a few of the recipes posted there (for free no less) makes one a better baker. Plus, think of all the money you can save by just taking the time to do it for yourself! I like Italian and French breads. If I drive 70 miles round trip to a grocery store to buy those breads for anywhere between $3 and $5 a loaf, that's quite a bit of time and money I just spent. For pennies on the dollar, I could easily spend that drive time waiting for my dough to rise and bake that bread myself! Instead of having to be out in the traffic and crowds, I get to tend my plants or read something on homesteading or work on any number of projects I have going. For me, that's double benefit! My time is so stretched anymore, it's just easier for me to do it for myself. Not only does it allow me to get a few more things done and save money, but I am comforted in knowing I'm eating healthier. Which, of course, is the whole point of becoming self sustained.

Later today I will post some pictures of the goodies my kitchen is producing today ;) In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

self sustained living with home made bread

I've been baking my own bread for several years now but for some people, the thought of baking bread can be a bit scary. It really isn't and the rewards outweigh any fears you ever had.

While searching the web for some variations on what I've been baking, I came across this wonderful website, the Hillbilly Housewife.

It's full of frugal living tips and baking recipes and easy, step by step bread baking! A well put together site full of great tips and tricks.