Grinding Your Own Grain for Fresh Bulgars, Meals and Flours

Hi all! I thought I'd share some pictures of my grain mill attachment at work. I have a professional series Kitchen Aid mixer with the grain mill attachment. It works wonderfully. I grind my own wheat, soy, rice, quinoa, barley, corn, flax, rye...any grain I want to cook or bake with. I grind an ice cream pail size bucket of wheat, rye and corn at a time and keep it in the freezer. This helps ensure that the vitamins and minerals are still in the grain when I use it.


wheat berries in the mill

fresh ground wheat

It takes about 20 minutes to fill the bucket with fresh flour.

We'll be heading out on a vacation soon, and I'm taking a vacation from the computer as well! Please check back the beginning of April. I hope to post some fun family vacation pictures.

We've received Hattie's butterfly house, and in April I hope to order the Painted Lady larva. I'll be sharing some pictures of that project as well. Hopefully you'll be able to participate virtually in this project!

Molly has stated that she intends to raise some praying mantises. I'm still thinking about that, but we'll probably end up with some eventually. It does seem like a truly fascinating project.

Clara's Depression Bread

I made Clara's depression white bread (see yesterday's post, and follow the link), with the addition of salt. Since I was experimenting I made only one loaf. I used about 3 1/2 cups of flour (white unbleached) and 1 1/2 t. each of salt and active dry yeast. I added the salt to the flour, and did the rest of the recipe as Clara did. The dough was very fun to work with, and the bread was delicious. Sort of reminiscent of Italian or French bread. This is a real treat. For myself, I can't get over the fact that it offers so little in the form of nutritive value, so I plan on doing some further experimentation with adding whole grains to this recipe.
The finished dough (I always forget to take pictures during the process, but you can watch Clara's video).

I pushed the air bubbles out of the dough with my hands...

...rolled it into a loaf...

...and let it rise covered in the bread pan. I saw that Clara didn't grease the pans, so I didn't either. That was a first for me, but it came out perfectly!

Here's the finished product! Enjoy!

Meet the Hillbilly Housewife

You can meet the Hillbilly Housewife here Cook Some Depression Era Meals - Frugal Challenge Monday Hillbilly Housewife Blog. I highly recommend it! She's put together some wonderful material, and has a great website. You can get lots of great frugal living tips here, like this post, giving some great bread ideas. I'm always looking for ideas on using stale bread. The one drawback to making homemade bread is its relatively short shelf life. Sometimes it gets stale before we're through with the loaf. Maybe this cooked bread idea will help!

Lentil Chili

The Hillbilly Housewife has a great recipe for a truly inexpensive (I think I'm going to wear out the word frugal, so I'm looking for a replacement) and delicious recipe. Here is where you find it Lentil Chili. Enjoy!

Meet April

If you haven't yet, you have just GOT to be introduced to April. She's a laugh a minute, and has the greatest sense of humor. Plus, she has some good frugal living advice, and some excellent recipes. I highly advise trying Bierrocks. They're wonderful, with or without mustard! Here's some great coupon information. I admit that for a frugal stay at home mom of 4, I've really neglected looking into the coupon thing. Maybe this will get me started! April Showers: Let's figure out this coupon thing. Enjoy meeting April and her family, and I'm sure you'll thank me for introducing you!

Homemade Bread and Fresh Churned Butter!

Today the kids and I baked bread (honey whole wheat) and made fresh butter! It was so much fun to watch their faces as the butter began to form and float in the butter milk. I wish I'd have been thinking of this blog when I was doing the project. I hope to have step by step photos if we do this again. We decided to make butter because we had been reading Little House in the Big Woods, by Laure Ingalls Wilder. When I was a girl my mother did the same thing with us. I have warn memories of time spent with Mom as she read through the entire set of Little House books, as well as the James Herriot series. Not until I was grown did I realize how much editing Mom must have done with those Herriot stories to make wholesome reading for us!
We make at least 4 loaves of bread each week, and I haven't bought a store loaf for about 3 months now. I'm pretty sure I'm saving money this way, but it's well worth it even if I'm not. I love making bread! There's just something about it...maybe it's the way I feel connected to the pioneer women of our country, or the good feeling I have providing something wholesome and satisfying for my family, or the comfort I find in the process. I LOVE touching dough. Kneading, rolling, and shaping is so relaxing to me. I plan to add some recipes and photos of bread baking soon, and possibly I'll also document some butter churning. Have a great weekend!

Homemade Laundry Detergent, 3 cents a load!

Some of my friends have expressed interest in the homemade laundry detergent recipe that I use, so here it is. My sister gave it to me, and I've been using it for a few months now. It costs about 3 cents a load to use, and seems to work just fine for my family. It creates very little suds, but cleans well, making it ideal for front loading machines as well. Enjoy!

The ingredients!

First, save yourself a couple of clean gallon milk jugs. They work well to hold your prepared laundry detergent.

To make a batch, you will need;

1/3 bar of fels-naptha, grated
1/2 c. super washing soda
1/2 c. borax

(I was able to find all of these at Super One, but not at Walmart.)

Fill your gallon jugs with warm water. In a stock pot that will hold at least 2 gallons, pour about 6 cups of the warm water from one of the jugs. Add the grated Fels-Naptha and heat until the soap is melted. Add the washing soda and borax. Stir until dissolved and remove from heat. Add the rest of the warm water. Stir and allow to cool to luke warm. Pour your detergent into the gallon jugs. You're ready to wash! When cool, the ingredients will separate slightly. Simply shake your jug before using and all will be well! Use 1/2 cup for an average size load of laundry.


Here's one more money saving tip I've been trying out. It's for homemade dishwasher detergent. I found it at http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com . Mix equal parts borax and baking soda. Use 2 tablespoons per load in your dish washer. I've actually only done 3 loads, and I'm not quite decided about it. I like that it's a safer, greener, CHEAPER alternative, but I'm not sure how well it works yet.

I'd be interested in hearing from any of you if you try these recipes. Leave a "review" in my comments, and I'll be sure to publish it so people know what you think. Also, I'd be happy if you'd share any of your "frugal" tips with all of us! I'm hoping to share some frugal food tips/recipes with all of you soon! Happy laundry day to you all!