Homemade Cream of Wheat (or Farina)

I love to eat......LOVE IT, and I have very fond memories of waking up for church on Sunday mornings at my grandparents' house and eating Cream of Wheat. I love Cream of Wheat, don't ask my why but I think it's delicious. I didn't realize how much it cost to buy it from the store however. I've been eating Cream of Wheat all my life and when I went to college my great grandmother (yes my great grandmother was alive, well and living in her house by herself until about 5 years ago) would send me boxes and boxes of Cream of Wheat. When she died I stopped eating Cream of Wheat and honestly I didn't realize that until about 3 weeks ago when I got a SERIOUS craving for Cream of Wheat. So I headed to Kroger to pick some up, I so happy to be going to get some until I got there. A small box is like $3.69. My thoughts were this exactly, "THESE PEOPLE ARE SMOKING CRACK ROCKS!" The box also says that it has some sort of chemical in it for quick cooking. They put that on the FRONT of the box, so just imagine what's on the side of the box. I couldn't do it, I just couldn't.  I immediately ended my phone conversation and launched my internet browser on my phone because I was determined to find how to make Cream of Wheat from scratch. I do have 75 lbs of organic wheat don't I?

I got home and after a little digging on Google I found this post on The Fresh Loaf (which is a really cool website by the way). I tweaked his recipe a little, the one person portion he made was just WAY too much. I ate it because I was excited but I couldn't eat anything else all day.

Homemade Cream of Wheat

Ingredients:
1/3 cup wheat (I used hard white wheat)
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup water

1) Mill wheat to medium coarseness, you can actually do this in a regular blender if you want. I just wouldn't suggest using whole wheat flour...........you'll end up with paste.

2) Add milk and water

3) Set timer for 15 minutes and stir occasionally

4) At exactly 14 minutes it'll be done. I stir in butter and honey for the last minute but that's just how I like mine.

So tasty and delicious. I love this because you can make it in any quantity, just decide how much wheat to use then add double that amount in water and milk. It's that simple. I calculated that it probably costs me about $0.20 per serving to make this and it's good for me. Check it out:

Nutrition Facts Homemade Cream of Wheat
Serving Size: 1 serving
Report incorrect nutrition info
Amount Per Serving
Calories		378.0
Total Fat		7.9 g
	Saturated Fat	4.7 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.3 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	2.2 g
	Trans Fat	0.0 g
Cholesterol		23.8 mg
Sodium		71.4 mg
Potassium		23.1 mg
Total Carbohydrate		71.2 g
	Dietary Fiber	4.9 g
	Sugars	42.0 g
Protein		10.8 g

Vitamin A	9.1 %
Vitamin B-12	0.1 %
Vitamin B-6	0.5 %
Vitamin C	0.9 %
Vitamin D	16.5 %
Vitamin E	0.0 %
Calcium	19.5 %
Copper	1.3 %
Folate	0.0 %
Iron	1.3 %
Magnesium	0.6 %
Manganese	1.7 %
Niacin	0.3 %
Pantothenic Acid	0.3 %
Phosphorus	0.3 %
Riboflavin	1.0 %
Selenium	0.6 %
Thiamin	0.0 %
Zinc	0.6 %

This calculation includes the butter and honey. Can't tell me this isn't a good breakfast.

Until next time,
Kellan

Cloth Toilet Paper AKA Family Cloths: Thoughts and a Tutorial

So in the quest to get rid of EVERYTHING disposable in my house I recently came across this Walk Slowly Live Wildly blog post about cloth toilet paper. I right away thought it was super cool and wanted to try it right away, I'm weird like that. But I had to convince Dj that this was a good idea before I actually tried it. Surprisingly he said he also thought it was a good idea and was willing to give it a try (I was shocked). 

I looked online to see what these things were selling for and I was a little shocked. Not to hate on anyone's hustle but these people CANNOT be serious. $11 for a dozen? I think not, especially not when I have SO MUCH fabric already at home. 

I have a quite the fabric stash, mostly because I love to buy stuff on sale. So I used this reduce, reuse, recycle flannel that I got from JoAnn's on super sale for $1.50/yd. I've had it for a while, I was initially supposed to make cloth pads out of it but hadn't gotten to that part of the stack yet.........o well. 

MAKING CLOTH TOILET PAPER (FAMILY CLOTHS OR CLOTH WIPES)

After washing and drying the fabric it obviously needs to be ironed. Could you skip this step? Yes. Would I suggest it? No. Do you honestly need to wash the fabric first? YES!

After ironing out the wrinkles fold the fabric together like a hot dog bun (selvages together in the center, rough edges on the ends). Iron on the fold. Again, could you skip this step? Yes. Would I recommend it? No. 

Next measure your fabric (it shrunk in the wash) and decide big you want each wipe to be. I don't like to waste fabric so I divided my fabric evenly into 6 in wide strips. It really helps if you have a rotary cutter for this. (If you don't have one but want one, look on eBay. I bought a Gingher rotary cutter and spring loaded shears for $15.)

I then turned each strip and cut them in half, which  ended up being 10.5 inches. If you're making 2 ply wipes you don't need to cut the areas that are on the fold but if you are making 1 ply cut the strips on the fold in half. I'm making 2 ply.

The yard of fabric yielded me a dozen wipes.

Next sew the two pieces of fabric together. I have a serger so that's what I used but if you don't have one you can use a regular sewing machine. Below is a great video on how to do this:

Now that you've sewn the wipes together you have two choices you can either wet them and put them in some sort of container to use for wet wipes OR leave them dry and just set them out. I did both so I have wet wipes and dry wipes. 

For the wet wipes, I filled my bathroom sink with water, added some essential oils, put the wipes in and then put them in the a diaper wipe warmer (that I got off craig's list for $5).

For the dry wipes, I found a cute yet simple box, folded the wipes (a little haphazardly) and threw them in.

I found this plastic office supply box to put the used ones in until wash day. And that's it.

I literally just did all this today so I haven't actually tested everything out yet but I'm excited. I'll be sure to update on the progress. 

Here is some additional info about cloth toilet paper from other bloggers:

3 Reasons to Use Cloth "Toilet Paper"

Cloth Wipes Q&A Part I and Part II

Cloth Wipe Challenge 2009

Cloth Wipes - The Good, The Bad and The Stinky

I am going to email Deanna @ Crunchy Chicken to see if she's doing the Cloth Wipe Challenge this year as well. 

Until next time...........

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits

I've been doing a lot of bread experiments lately and my most successful so far have been these whole wheat buttermilk biscuits. I didn't actually convert this recipe over from a white flour recipe (I'll explain more about that at a later date), I actually found it here on food.com.

For this recipe you'll need:
9 oz whole wheat flour (preferably from hard wheat)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda (aluminum free)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp buttermilk
6 tbsp unsalted butter, cold

I've found that it's a lot cheaper to buy organic wheat and mill my own flour. Aside from being cheaper, it is also more nutritious to mill wheat as needed. Freshly milled whole wheat flour does not have the same nutty flavor that whole wheat flour purchased at the store does. The nutty flavor is due to oxidation and rancidity setting in, not that the flour isn't any good.......it's just not fresh, but back to the recipe.

First weight 9 oz of hard wheat, in this case I'm using hard red wheat.

I mill my flour twice, I find that I get a much finer flour and it's A LOT quicker than trying to go from wheat berries to super fine flour (pastry) flour.

This is the first corse mill:

This is the second mill result:

See how light and airy that is? Which is why I weigh my ingredients because if I used a measuring cup there would be a variance which would mess up my biscuits but 9 oz is 9 oz regardless of the light and fluffy factor. Set aside 2 oz of the flour for later use.

Next add the other dry ingredients and cut up the butter into small cubes. With a fork mash the butter into the dry ingredients, if you have a food processor you could put everything in there and pulse until a crumble is achieved (I broke my food processor so I use a fork). 

Next pour in the butter milk and mix everything together. At this point the mixture is going to be very wet, sticky and look like a blob.  Turn the dough out on a floured surface.

At this point you need to sprinkle a lot of your reserved flour (the 2 oz that was set aside earlier) on the blob, then roll the blob around until a unsticky ball of dough forms. You might have to sprinkle and roll a few times before the ball of dough forms, just don't use all your reserve flour doing this. 

Next, pat the dough out into a rectangle. The thickness depends on your preferences, I like thick biscuits so I usually pat my dough out to be about 1/2 inch or so. 

Cut out your biscuits using a biscuit cutter, cookie cutter, a glass or whatever else works for you and place them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. This recipe is supposed to make 12 biscuits but I tend to make my biscuits a little larger than normal so I get about 8.5 or so. Once you've cut out as many biscuits and you can ball the dough back up and pat it out again. You might need to add a little more flour at this point as well. 

Bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes depending on your oven. I like to butter the tops when they come out the oven but I also LOVE butter.............your choice. 

Catching Up & Upcoming Posts

HEY!

So I know that I've been away for a LONG time but my life got to be rather hectic, a lot of stuff happened and for a little while I was starting to feel like everything was falling apart. Thankfully I've recently gained a lot of perspective on my life and have been getting things together. Although I haven't been blogging I have been doing experiments, I just haven't posted any of them or taken pictures for that matter. BUT I WILL BE BETTER FROM NOW ON.  Some of my upcoming posts will be the following:

• Whole wheat recipes (I've switched over completely and actually mill my own flour)
• Getting rid of everything disposal (including menstrual pads and toilet paper)
• Soapmaking

So be prepared because I have a lot of thing rattling around in my head that I want to get out there!

Homemade Strawberry Applesauce

I know it's been a while. I moved and have been QUITE busy. I'm going to start posting a lot more.....I have to remember to take pictures while I'm working on stuff (and I had to find a way to get the pics off the camera).

Now I know some of you are thinking, "Why would I want to make applesauce?" Well not only is it tasty and delicious but it MUCH better than anything that you can buy in the store. I personally like applesauce that contains other fruit like raspberries, strawberries, blackberries....etc (you get the idea).

For the purposes of this post I am making strawberry applesauce but you can put in whatever fruit you want.

Ingredients
3 lbs apples (whatever you want/have, combinations work too)
1 lb  strawberries (replace with any fruit you like)
1 juice of lemon
1 T vanilla extract
2 T ground cinnamon
3 T agave nectar (any sweetner will work)
1/4 c water

Directions

Wash, peel, core and chop apples

        

Chop strawberries

Pour in juice of lemon, vanilla extract, cinnamon, agave nectar and water.

Cook over medium low heat until soft

If you like chuky applesauce you're done. If not, you can blend it smooth (I used an immersion blender).

You can eat the applesauce warm but I personally like mine ICY cold. To me it's extra delicious after being in the frig overnight.

Until next time............

KAC

We've Got Pics

So I found a way to get my pics off my camera!!!!!!!!!! So new posts will be up soon.

Lost Camera Cord

So........I lost my camera cord. It's definitely in my house but we have one room that we have yet to fully organize from the move. I have a lot of stuff to post about my experiments, hopefully they'll be up soon. My latest experiment has been building a storage cabinet (we worked it on all last weekend). We're going to finish assembling it tonight and maybe I can get the last room organized (and find my cord) by this weekend.

Pray for me........