It Matters to Me: Like the Little Red Hen

I've been thinking that we ought to figure out how to start using the wheat we bought quite a while ago and have been hanging onto ever since. Like a long time ago. A real long time ago. We've moved number of times and hauled it with us each time. Several years ago we repacked most of it, taking it out of the metal cans it came in and repackaged it into vacuum packed bags. The cans were beginning to rust and we wanted to keep it away from the rust. At the time, food storage was a big deal in our stake and the stake had acquired a vacuum packing system and was encouraging everyone to get and store some wheat. Well, we already had the wheat but we took the opportunity to repack it. And then it all went back into storage.

So I've been thinking we ought to start using it. A few years back we bought a little wheat grinder. We went through all the gyrations of wondering whether to get a hand grinder or an electric grinder. I have used a hand grinder before. Its a lot of work. But what if there's no power when you have to dip into your food storage and grind your wheat? Yeah. In the end we got the electric. We used it a time or two and then it, also, went into the storeroom.

Then just in the last day or two we bought a bunch more wheat from some friends in the ward. So today I decided to be about it and do something.

I knew where the grinder was, I had found it (Yes, the storeroom is that bad) not too long ago. But I wasn't entirely sure where the wheat was. I wanted to use the oldest wheat, and I kind of thought it was in the garage. But I wasn't sure.

So I went out to that mess of a garage of ours and decided to start looking. Winter time, when its cold and you don't want to spend any more time out there than you have to so if you need to put anything away you just find a quick spot where it will be more or less out of the way and set it down. Yeah, that garage.

But this time my memory was pretty good. I started looking in the first place I thought it was and, when it wasn't there, I moved to a nearby spot and there it was. So I cleared off the tub it was in, grabbed a bag, and brought it in the house.

I had dug out the grinder and brought it upstairs so the next step was to open the bag and see if it was still any good.

I opened it. It looked pretty normal, like it did when we put it in the bags, as near as I remembered.

So I dug the grinder out of its box, took a quick look at the instructions, and put it together. I started it, poured a cup of wheat it, and suddenly wheat flour was spraying across the counter.

Note to self: Next time make sure the lid is on tight before pouring the wheat into the grinder.

Fortunately, the mess wasn't too big, just on the counter, my lap, and the floor a little.

So I cleaned up my mess, rechecked all the connections on the grinder, and made sure the lid was on tight. Then I turned it on again (the instructions said to turn it on before pouring any wheat in) and poured another cup of wheat in.

This time it went well, no flour flying around. The plan was to grind all the wheat in the pouch so I started pouring it in as the grinder pulled it down. The pouch held enough wheat that I had to empty the container once a little after about the half way point, and then continue.

So that left me with a little more flour than would fit in the container I had gotten. I figured that wouldn't be too much of a problem because the bread would take most of the extra.

Next step was to dig the bread maker out from its storage place At least it was upstairs and not down in the storeroom. So I dug it out, cleaned it up, and put all the ingredients in. I initially was going to just use the basic white bread recipe that I had tucked in the bread-maker but Brombeere walked in about then and saved me from myself by explaining that simply using wheat flour in a white bread recipe was not a good idea. Well, I was already a step or two into it but I quick found a basic wheat bread recipe and started over. The recipe was a little different, but still pretty simple. And still called only for ingredients that I had. So in everything went. When it was all in there I turned it on, set the settings for wheat bread, and tucked it back on the counter while it did its thing.

All I have ever made in the bread maker before was basic white bread. I was a little surprised that the wheat bread took a little longer to mix and cook. But not too much.

After about three and a half hours we had a nice looking loaf of wheat bread. Looking pretty promising, at this point.

Came out of the pan pretty good. Sometimes that's a challenge because of the little paddle in the bottom of the pan but this time it came out quite nicely.

There's few things quite as nice as fresh, warm, home made bread. For years, when I was a kid, my Mom made a big batch of bread every week. I grew up on home made bread. And one tradition that was always observed was that as soon as it came out of the oven we broke one loaf and had hot, buttered bread. Oh, so yummy.