Daring Dining
By the Book – Food for Thought
I really really love wheat like only a Mormon can love wheat. We’re supposed to gather a year’s supply of food which for many people ends up being several barrels of wheat stored but never used. I have hundreds of pounds of it in my garage along with other food items, working towards a year supply of everything in case of disaster or unexpected need. A few years ago I decided to actually do something with this wheat rather than storing it indefinitely, although it can store for quite some time without a problem and the 50 lb. buckets make a beautiful addition to any home décor.
With a lot of trial and error, I’ve learned to grind it to make my own fresh bread, pancakes and cereal. I even sprout it and add it to salads and cereal for a little healthy boost. Sometime soon I’ll write a detailed post on the art of lovely bread (It’s lovely most of the time except when it flops, but even that’s a daring adventure).
For now I want to tell you about a great little cookbook sent to me from the Wheat Foods Council. Apparently 2008 is a big fat anniversary year for wheat (who knew?) and they’re celebrating with the release of a cute little cookbook full of great wheat recipes.
Food for Thought is a fun propaganda piece for my favorite grain and comes complete with 35 recipes that use wheat to make everything from muffins to main dishes. Many of the recipes are simple and can be made with or by kids so get it for them and watch your Mother’s Day breakfasts improve. It’s a fun book with some fresh ideas and definitely worth the $3.50 asking price. Proceeds from the sale of the cookbooks will go towards their non-profit educational organization Spoons Across America.
“Spoons Across America works to influence the eating habits of children through hands-on-education that celebrates the connection to local farmers and the important tradition of sharing meals around the family table.” – www.wheatfoods.org
**By The Book is a series within a series where I will highlight some of my old favorite cookbooks as well as some new and interesting ones that are currently on the market. Hopefully one or two will appeal to you and we’ll all get a little more daring around the kitchen. **
A co-founder of Seattle Mom Blogs, professional blogger Kathryn Thompson writes too much at Daring Young Mom, The Parenting Post, and anywhere else people are willing to read. She enjoys eating cheese and playing high stakes Uno with 4-year-olds. If you’re cute enough, she will probably blow on your tummy unmercifully. You can contact Kathryn by email - kathryn [at] seattlemomblogs.com.
Oh my goodness, all this talk of wheat reminds me of our basement in the 70’s….and watching my mom grind wheat and then using it to bake her own bread.
Oh man, gotta love the 70’s (and Mormons).
[...] By the Book – Food for Thought I really really love wheat like only a Mormon can love wheat. We’re supposed to gather a year’s supply of food which for many people ends up being several barrels of wheat stored but never used. I have hundreds of pounds of it in my garage along with other food items, working towards [...] [...]
I’m not good at preparing and organization so my disaster recovery plan is to move next to an LDS temple. There will be a lot of quick conversions if there’s a natural disaster.
Ah memories! My parents are Mormon and I grew up in the 70’s and have great memories of the sound of the wheat grinder. It’s such a comforting sound. When we heard it, that meant there would be hot wheat bread when we got home from school with homemade apricot or plum jam from our own fruit trees. Even better were the frequent batches of fry bread, which my mom called scones, spread thick with butter and jam. She also made 6-7 loaves of bread to last our family of 8 (12 when we had foster kids)through the week and then 2-3 extra with which she would have us suprise the neighbors. It was so fun to have our gaggle of kids delivering hot bread to people on our street.
Of course, the bread was round because it was made from recycled cans of huge-mongous storage room sized Yeast. It wasn’t until I hit school that I realized all bread wasn’t round.
Now, the parents weren’t so good about rotating anything but the wheat, so the shelves of 10 year old homemade canned goods always seemed quite scary to me.