I'll experiment with those brownies!

I usually use whole wheat flour when I bake bread and pizza dough, but I haven't used the other whole grains, other than whole grain corn meal. I should, I really should, but I also want to cut back on baked goods in general - no, scratch that, I don't want to, but I need to. For some reason, a few extra pounds have been sneaking up on me. :-(

Sally

I haven't had any problems with WW flour. I use it in baking Bread and Waffles.
But I use only part of the recipe with WW and the balance is AP Flour.
I found it makes all the Baked Items more tender.

I have a great Recipe for Waffles using part WW flour.
They are light and tender.

The problem I have with weight gain is , not enough exercise and activity.
Not what I consume in Calories. Of course there are limitations.

I think most of the Diets, that are sucessfull incorporate exercise.

When I was younger I could eat 10,000 Calories a day and not gain any weight.
But every year I cut back a little on exercise but not on eating.
After a few years you ask yourself, How did I get 15 lbs. heavier.
We all know why ??? When we exercise our bodies less,
we have to exercise our mouths less, also.
That's it , I quit!!!

Want a Waffle Recipe? Great with Ice Cream and Chocolate Syrup and Fruit.
But then ,you will have to walk 20 miles.
LOU

Here's the first wheat-free bread I ever made. It uses Chickpea (Garbanzo) flour. It has a wonderful texture and a distinctive but tasty flavor. I might experiment with replacing part of the Chickpea flour with Sorghum flour, to mellow out the flavor a bit.

It's a very easy recipe to make using a stand mixer or bread maker. I use a mixer. The last few times I made it the sides sunk in a bit as it cooled - not sure why. I may have to experiment with the rising time.

Bonnie

Here is a link that might be useful: Tom's Light Bread

I just made a nice whole wheat loaf with onions and cumin and chili powder, I forget what else. It's pretty darned good as a grilled cheese, I can tell you.

I've added flax seed, whole wheat, oatmeal or 10 grain cereal to many of my recipes, I like the dense "peasant" type breads. My favorite pancakes are buckwheat, though!

{{gwi:1517147}}

Those brownies look.....well.....good enough to eat. LOL

Annie

I think alot of the value of incorporating grains other than wheat into baking, besides the nutritional worth of whole grains, is the variety. It seems that one thing most nutritional approaches agree on is that a varied diet is a good diet.

I do a lot of baking, and aim for at least a third of the total flour to be whole grain in breads I make. I have a Champion juicer with a grain mill attachment, so I can grind fresh flours from whole oats, barley, buckwheat, millet, quinoa, and rye. I don't like brown rice flour in bread. I suspect most purchased flours from these under-utilized grains just don't have the turnover to be non-rancid, so that's why I prefer home grinding. Free radicals, all all. Maybe in big cities and places like Trader Joes there's sufficient turnover to keep these flours fresh, though. Some packages are dated. I once bought some King Arthur flour that tasted so bad it was inedible when I baked it, so I wrote the company and they told me where to look for the expiration date. It was a year old.

My favorites are buckwheat pancakes and waffles, barley and quinoa breads, and cornbread that's 50/50 corn meal and whole wheat flour.

Good for you for cooking with your health in mind.

Ummmmmmmmmm BROWNIES!!!!

1. I'd have to agree with pink overalls - fresh is best when it comes to using wholegrain flours. Grains have a very long shelf-life and are easy to store. When you purchase wholegrain flour, you never know what you are getting - other than to be assured it's NOT freshly milled and it probably hasn't been kept under refrigeration or frozen. Once the bran on any grain/seed/bean is cracked open and milled into flour, the valuable nutrients and oils are exposed to oxygen and degrade immediately. After all the years I've milled wholegrain flours from a variety of grains/seeds/beans, I'd never use commercial. There's no comparison - taste or nutrition.

2. It isn't just about flour either, it's all the wonderful things you can do with the whole grain. Amaranth is an excellent grain nutritionally that I add whole. When added to muffins or quick breads, it looks and feels like a golden poppyseed. It's also an easy grain to grow. Cooked wheat can be added to all kinds of things. Then there's all the things you can do with sprouts, which can be made from grains. Check out the book, "The Splendid Grain" by Rebecca Wood for more ideas and recipes.

3. You'll often have better luck using recipes that were written using wholegrain flour/s rather than altering recipes that use bleached/unbleached flour.

4. Choose recipes where there is less flour to begin with, and more flavor from other things like chocolate, fruit, etc. Brownies are a good example for that - or bar cookies and quick breads that have a lot of flavor from fruit (banana or pumpkin bread). People are always surprised where I stick rye flour. I think it's an under-used flour choice.

5. Choose recipes where the wholegrain is a familiar one, like oatmeal.

6. Hubby makes me a German Chocolate Cake every year for my birthday. Instead of regular flour, he mills a 3:1 ratio of soft white wheat and oat groats to use as "cake" flour and makes a 100% wholegrain cake. The texture is absolutely wonderful because he chose a low-gluten combination, and no one is the wiser that it's 100% wholegrain flour. Besides, it's what's on top that counts when it comes to German Chocolate Cake (LOL). But even there, we make Coconut-Pecan Frosting with unsweetened coconut and use low-glycemic agave nectar instead of sugar. Once again, no one is the wiser.

7. My regular recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Bread uses a sponge method. Letting the sponge rest at least 2-1/2 hours, or as long as 12 hours, improves the texture and taste to the point it's hard to tell it's 100% whole wheat flour. It's NEVER heavy (a common complaint of most 100% whole wheat breads) because of the sponge method. It's never bitter because I use white wheat instead of red wheat.

7. Go slowly when switching to wholegrain flour. It took us 6 months to wean off commercial breads, and another 6 months before we decided it was okay to get rid of the light wheat loaves (part white flour and part wholegrain flour) for 100% whole wheat. It was easier to incorporate wholegrains like multi-grain cereal as an add-in to yeast breads, and wholegrain flour in "goodies", dinner rolls, pancakes/waffles, hamburger/sandwich buns than to start by messing with the bread. People just don't seem to have a problem eating a cookie made with spelt/rye/whole wheat flour. But just don't mess with their white bread (LOL)!

Check out the link below (Kansas Wheat Commission - Recipes) for lots of recipes using whole wheat flour. Their recipe for Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies (with the hint of orange flavor) is a favorite of everyone I've ever served them to. They are always surprised to find out they are made with ALL whole wheat flour.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Kansas Wheat Commission - Recipes

Grainlady, I know you live in the heart of grain country, but where do the rest of us get whole, unprocessed grains?

I've always liked the taste and texture of whole grain bread, and never liked white bread all that much.

Lou, I work anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour 5 days a week, plus work in my garden on the weekends. I've just gotten to that age where it's a lot easier to put the pounds on than to take them off.

All this baking talk has me wanting to do some baking this weekend anyway. All y'all's breads look so good.

Sally

Sally - Where indeed? I do live in the middle or wheat country and can get white and red winter wheat from a small mill just outside of town (occasionally free from friends/relatives). Another small mill will sell me white sorghum. I still get a lot of grain from several other sources. Grains are still cheap food, but it's the shipping that kills you $$$, so finding it as close to home as possible is a GOOD thing.

In the past I was involved with a whole foods co-op and could get bulk amounts at very reasonable prices through them. Check around, maybe you have one that meets in a chruch that orders once a month.

The local health food store will also order large amounts for me, but tend to be more expensive. I get some grains from them occasionally.

Some speciality items I still have to order from Bob's Red Mill - soft white wheat (for pastry flour), buckwheat/kasha, barley, oat groats, chana dal, Kamut, Triticale, golden flax, teff, amaranth, etc. Although more places are carrying Bob's Red Mill items, they never seem to carry the grains, just the milled flour. I like to experiment with a variety of things for the fun of it.

I also order organic grains from Heartland Mill (www.heartlandmill.com/) in western Kansas. That's where I get spelt, rye, and corn, and usually get those in 25# amounts once or twice a year.

In a moment of disbelief at Wal-Mart last summer, I found Wheat Montana wheat in 25# bags for $5/reg. $11 in both Bronze Chief (hard spring red wheat) and my favorite - Prairie Gold (hard spring white wheat). They would put out one or two bags of each variety at a time. I purchased several hundred pounds and put it in storage. You can order directly from Wheat Montana, or locate a distributor in your area by checking their web site.

Using the $5 Wheat Montana wheat from Wal-Mart, I figured it cost me 15 CENTS for the whole wheat flour I milled for a 1.5 pound loaf of 100% whole wheat bread.

I also visit a store that is a food co-op a few hours away (in a MUCH larger city) where they sell bulk grains at good prices. I often get things there I can only order from Bob's Red Mill.

But if you think I spend a fortune on grains, I really don't. All the grains/seeds/beans I purchase still come out of my $50/week food budget.

-Grainlady

Health food stores, natural food stores, co-ops, feed stores, whole food stores -- they'll have whole grains or can order them for you.

I'd be interested to know, Grainlady, how you store large quantities of grain, keeping them fairly cool, and away from mice, birds, squirrels and other grain-lovers. Metal garbage cans?

There's not much to add to what Grainlady says. Fresh is always better; if you have a good source (such as a natural food store that grinds its own flour) for freshly ground whole wheat flour, great; otherwise investing in a good grain mill is worthwhile.

Pleasant Hill Grain (www.pleasanthillgrain.com) carries the Nutrimill, and there are a variety of manual mills available at www.lehmans.com.

For whole wheat baking recipes and techniques, check out Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book (see the link). Another great book is "The Bread Builders" although if you read that book you may be overtaken by an overwhelming urge to build a brick oven in your back yard.

Here is a link that might be useful: bread book

pink overalls - I vacuum-seal most of it. I put lots of beans/grain/seeds I purchase in bulk amounts in 1/2-gallon and quart canning jars and vacuum seal them with the jar attachment on the FoodSaver. I also put 5-pounds of wheat in vacuum-sealed FoodSaver bags. The vacuum-sealed bags are then placed in plastic storage tubs with tight-fitting lids. They probably hold about 60-pounds (a bushel) each.

I have also used 5-gallon plastic storage buckets with gamma seal lids to store grain. It's all nicely organized and stored on one of the many tall, 5-shelf racks-on-wheels in a cool and dry room in our basement designed for surplus food storage.

I've never even had grain weevils in all the years I've stored grain, let alone "mice, birds, squirrels and other grain-lovers". I may live out in the middle of nowhere, but I still manage to keep wildlife at bay....(LOL)!

-Grainlady

This is all very good information. Thanks, Grainlady and everyone. LOL, Arley, about the brick oven!

Sally

Sally :
You are right! I guess I was thinking of things in general.
And what happened to me, thru the years
but I keep thinking I am going to exercise today.
Most of the time it don't happen.
I just accquired a set of weights, maybe that will give me an incentive.
Want to have a weight contest ??? That would be a good thing to start on the FF.
Wouldn't be fair though, ANNIE has a head start.

Grainlady:
I have trouble just keeping Corn and Sunflower Seeds in the front mud room.
If I have the outside door open and turn my back, the Chipmonk runs right inside.
Sometimes, I don't see him sneak in and close the door.
What a mess, they can be.

When they sneak into the basement, then I have a problem.
I have to set the live trap, with Peanut Butter.

Try to tell them to stay out but they won't listen.
LOU

As always, I'm learning new things from all the forum experts! Grainlady, thanks for the tutorial. I've never really considered milling my own grains as I had no idea how to even get started doing something like that or where to find grains. I live in a fairly small town, so I don't think much would be available locally.

Annie and Bonnie, both of your breads look wonderful! And Lou, feel free to pass along that waffle recipe. I have a T&T one I usually use, but I can always use another. I like mine because it does not involve separating eggs and beating egg whites and the waffles are still crispy! Can you tell I'm a lazy cook :)?

Tracey

I am..too..using other grains....those brownies look good Tracey.

I don't like anything with Garbanzo bean flour..as I've found out. LOL...but I do like White Sorghum.

I just noticed I said I work 30 minutes to an hour - uh - make that work out. I work a lot longer than that each day! ugh.

Is Garbanzo flour made from grinding up dried garbanzos? It seems obvious that's what it would be. The same with almond flour? I came across a recipe once that called for almond flour, but when I saw the price for it, I decided not to do that recipe, especially since I think it called for 1/2 cup. I figured I could grind up some almonds, maybe, and make it myself. It still would be pricey, but I wouldn't need to buy a whole expensive bag.

Sally

This thread is very timely. I've been reading Peter Rinehart's book on whole grain breads and am ready to give these a try. I have never grinded my wheat or grains, except oatmeal in a food processor, but the flour I have is frozen until used. When it gets used up, I plan to try grinding my own, a whole new experience. I have a champion juicer, would that be adequate for grinding wheat? I plan on starting a thread on milling grains. I just wanted to add, DD just ordered a huge amount of grain through a church, Mormon, it worked out to $5 for 25#, plus $5 for the driver who drove 100 miles to pick up all the orders. She says they store the grain in mylar bags as rodents cannot chew through these. It's rare around here to have a basement for storage, so huge storage is impractical at least for me. Most storage is in garages.

Sally, exactly...I buy Almond Meal at Trader Joes..best prices around. I could grind my own too..but I still need to by an extra coffee grinder. My cheesy food processor would probably make almond butter..LOL

I guess one would have to be careful not to make almond butter, but that's not entirely a bad thing. It's quite tasty, actually. :-)

Sally

You should check out King Arthur Flour's "Whole Grain Baking" book. Lots of good recipes in it, including a very good spelt flour popover recipe, and my personal favourite: deep, dark, whole wheat cinnamon rolls.

Second the KAF "Whole Grain Baking." As with any recipe book, you won't necessarily like everything you try, but there's a wealth of information on whole grains, some helpful strategies for incorporating them into your baking and tips on other amendments (like orange juice) which can counteract the bitterness of some grains.

I also second Grainlady's recommendation for the Kansas site. Just allow enough time for your visit; it's a rich resource.

I'm fortunate to be an hour's drive from Bob's Red Mill, which is a great resource. I've also found them to be very meticulous about the flour they shelve in stores. I've never run across a rancid bag yet. That's handy for something like a flour you might use infrequently (like garbanzo) or a new flour you just want to try.

Another source I've found is brewing suppliers. Of course, you have to be in or near a metropolitan center, but I've found a wonderful variety of malted grains perfect for English-style Granary loaves. It's fun to browse the bins "taste-testing" different grains.

Carol

Grainlady:
I hit the Submit again, before I could ask more Questions about storage.
I think I have all of them answered.

Carol: Hello !
Seems like I'll have to move to Kansas.

Sally2: I thought there was something wrong there.

Tracy: The Waffles involve beating the egg whites.
But, what is a couple more minutes, if you may make something a little better.
I don't think you will want to try the recipe.

Terri : Hello to you too!!!

LOU