Flowerpollen: Yes, but... You could probably collect the seed from a small number of plants and plant them next year and get a decent crop. But for the long-term 'health', viability and genetic diversity, you need to plant a decent number of plants to collect from. When plants are Open-Pollinated (OP), each plant is slightly different from the others. A bee or fly or moth will 'work' a lot of plants, picking up a bit of pollen from the plant he lands on, and depositing some of that pollen to other plants. With every tiny bit of pollen he drops, the genetic makeup of the offspring of that particular plant changes. Those tiny, tiny differences is the genetic diversity that keeps the plants strong. Fresh blood, so to speak. If you only plant a few plants and keep collecting the seed, without outside pollination, the quality of your plants will start to diminish. That said, some of the most valuable seed maintenance has been made by individuals. You don't have to be a large commercial grower to produce good seed. I don't know much about triticale, so I looked up the genetic makeup, and even though it is a hybrid (they don't usually breed true), apparently triticale is relatively stable and does breed true: "Even though triticale is a cross between wheat and rye, it is self-pollinating (similar to wheat) and not cross pollinating (like rye). Most triticales that are agronomically desirable and breed true have resulted from several cycles of improvement, but are primarily from the durum-rye crosses with some common wheat parentage occasionally involved." [Source: see link below] So, I would grow the largest stand that is feasible for you, at least a patch 10x10' or more, collect the grain and mix it well, then collect seed from that mix. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Triticale, from Purdue U.

There are plenty of things to add to grits to make them tasty, just like there are many different ways to use a tortilla. Tip on cooking grits: DO NOT FOLLOW PACKAGE INSTRUCTIONS!!! Instead, combine the quick grits with cold water and stir to combine. You can add butter, celery (this adds crunch and helps the texture), chopped bell pepper, chilies, garlic, Cajun seasoning, and your favorite salt and stir altogether before heating. Or you can just make them plain, but do NOT boil the water first! If you put the grits into cold water, you will not have any lumps, but if you add grits to boiling water, you have to whisk vigorously to prevent lumps, and this is completely unnecessary. I do not understand why anyone boils the water first, except that that is what the package instructions tell them to do. Those instructions are wrong! If you are cooking stone ground grits, you will need to soak them first in plain water - do not add salt or other ingredients until the grits have absorbed all the water. I start with two cups of water and 7/8 cup of stone ground grits. For a quick soak, bring the grits and water to a boil, constantly stirring, simmer for one minute, and then remove from heat and cover. They should absorb all of this water in one to two hours. Add additional water for cooking, if necessary. I generally use less water than package instructions because I add vegetables that have a lot of water in them, like celery and red bell pepper. I also bake the cooked grits with sausage, cheese, and egg, which I add after the grits have simmered, covered, for five minutes. I mix water with the eggs (because I held back on water in the first cooking) and add them after I add the cold sausage and cheese - therefore I do not need to temper the eggs. I made grits for breakfast this morning, and I did not have bell pepper or dried bell pepper, and so I used some dried chilies (from India) that I had not used before, for heat instead of my chili sauce. I also used some Ancho chili paste instead of salt, for a more intense chili flavor, but generally I had some Knorr chicken bouillon in place of salt. I've decided that I like this dried bouillon, despite what others may think. It's also very convenient to store. If I add dried vegetables to the grits, I also add a bit more water. The dried vegetables are very handy to have, but frozen vegetables are good too. Normally, I add frozen corn before I add the egg mixture, and this also cools down the grits.

That is a shame. You are doing your best to control ingredients and making from scratch. Like the 400 crates of fresh cilantro in August...a travel month, so anyone could pick it up and not know. The only way i suppose is to follow the FDA regularly. The Bob's flour is not listed here. Here is a link that might be useful: Recalls

I mill my own flour from a wide variety of grains/seeds/beans, so I've also learned gluten levels and how they work in baked goods. Although the 10-grain flour contains wheat flour, it's not clear how much is used in the mixture. Probably a large portion is wheat because it's much less expensive than the other grains/seeds in the mix. It's also not clear what kind of wheat - soft or hard wheat - is in the mixture, which will make a lot of difference for making bread dough. I like to mill my own mixtures so I can be sure what I'm using, and to assure I have the freshest flour possible for the highest amount of nutrition possible. Fresh is best..... You need a high portion of flour from wheat (bread flour or all-purpose flour, or whole wheat milled from hard wheat varieties), in order to have enough gluten to make a yeast-risen bread. It's also preferable to have a high-gluten flour for making pizza dough. Wheat has the highest amount of gluten of all grains. Any other grain/seed will be either low-gluten or gluten-free. Spelt is the only other grain with enough gluten to make a nice loaf of yeast bread, but even the gluten type in spelt is much different, and much lower than the gluten in wheat. The gluten level in spelt is about 5,000 parts per million. Compare that to wheat which begins at 50,000 parts per million and goes up from there. For your pizza dough you will probably be fine using 1/2 bread flour and 1/2 10-grain flour. As Teresa pointed out, you may need to add a little extra flour to get the right "feel". The low-gluten and gluten-free flour doesn't absorb as much hydration as high-gluten flour (bread flour). If you don't like the results, use a different ratio of bread flour to 10-grain flour (75% bread flour to 25% 10-grain), or add some vital wheat gluten (1 T. per cup of 10-grain flour) to make up for the low-gluten flour. If the 10-grain mixture has a lot of rye flour in it, rye flour characteristically makes dough rather sticky to work with - even with the correct hydration. People often add too much flour to compensate for the stickiness, which will make the dough too dry. There are other methods to use when working with a sticky dough, such as kneading it with wet hands (dip your hands in a small bowl of water periodically), oil your hands with vegetable oil, or placing the dough in a gallon-size freezer zip lock bag, pushing out as much air as possible before closing it, and kneading it from outside the bag (you can alter the hydration if necessary). There are also kneading gloves available that work for kneading sticky doughs. -Grainlady