Sources for Purchasing Whole Grains

Cassandra had a question about sources for whole grains for grinding. Right now, our local health food store carries Wheat Montana. I use Bronze Chief wheat berries for bread baking, soft white wheat as a pastry flour and Prairie Gold wheat in place of all-purpose flour.

Depending on where you live in the US, Azure Standard, Something Better, Country Life Foods or Walton Feed may be a good choice for ordering whole grains in bulk. Often you can find a local buying co-oops that purchase from these companies in group orders to save on shipping costs. I buy wheat berries and whole corn in bulk for grinding. I also buy bulk rolled oats, all in 50lb bags. I'm looking into buying oat groats and a roller mill, then I can roll my own oats as I need them.

I take my bags of grain and put them in the freezer for at least 48-72 hrs to kill any bugs that might be in the grain (a whole grain fact of life). Then I store them in air-tight containers in my pantry. Wheat berries, whole corn and oat groats will last fairly indefinitely in a cool dry place.

Take A Guess...

A Thanksgiving morning project. Can you guess what my in-laws and husband were doing? Take a guess! Some of you (Ruth, Verne and Thandi ) will know.

Random Grace Notes

Simplicity Notes~ The first 2010 seed catalog came in today. I grabbed a pen and started marking up the catalog! Perhaps it is a good thing we don't own a tractor. I'd order a bit of everything and have a ball experimenting. I think this coming year I'm going to work on learning to grow potatoes and beans. I'm going to take a break from trying to grow a million tomatoes.

Keeper @ Home Notes~ Good tools and appliances make home-keeping so much easier. Nothing worse than struggling with a cheap mop or or a powerless blender! Most of my home-keeping tools are either as old as my marriage (16+ years) or were hand-me-downs. I'm slowly but surely trying to acquire quality tools and appliances. On my "save-up-for-it" list: a baking stone (cookie sheet size), an electric grain mill ( my carpal tunnel has flared up, making it nearly impossible to use my manual grain mill), and a good ironing board. Nothing is worse than a cheap ironing board!

Contented @ 35K/yr Notes ~ I want to add a few things to our budget, so it's time to cut a few things from the budget. I'm planning giving my chickens and ducks away to a good home. The monthly expense outweighs the benefits right now. The children are okay with it, because we are keeping our cat and the rabbit.

We are going to need a new new-to-us car. My car is 14 years old with 194K miles. I'm learning how to do a diagnostic on it before I leave the driveway! We recently went window shopping at a local car lot. YIKES!!!! The prices are one thing, but the thought of having a car payment hanging over our heads in this economy was just too much for me. I think I'll invest in some new car seat covers instead. As much as we need another car, we'll just keep waiting and saving up. I prayed about it and the Lord has given me peace to wait. Thank you, Lord!!


His Grace Notes ~ I've been on a spiritual roller coaster for the past few months. One of my personal mottoes is that my life and home are a "No Drama Zone!" Keep your drama to yourself, please! I had someone try to create drama in my life this summer and the Lord had to really work with me! I was very discouraged for awhile, but I can now see the blessings that the Lord had in store for me when I trusted Him to take care of things. I'm still challenged on a regular basis because I have to be around the person who caused me such heartache, but God is so good! I hope to share the lessons I've learned soon, I just have to find the right words to express them.

Fall Piano Recital

My two oldest played several pieces at their piano recital last night. I'm amazed at what they have learned in just under 10 months. We have been blessed to find a good teacher. My oldest son is still a bit challenged in being self-motivated to practice, but he has improved considerably. My daughter has really taken to piano and will practice twice a day without prompting. She is thinking that she might like to study another instrument as well. As for my 3 year old , he loves to accompany our singing at worship with his own version of "playing". He may start piano next fall, our teacher will start them at age 4.

My oldest son playing "Ferris Wheel"

My daughter playing "Finlandia"

Easy Yum- Homemade Vegan Sausages

Angela over at Harmony Hollow posted about making vegan sausage. She inspired me to get busy making my own this weekend. Oh my. How easy, how yum! And much cheaper for me than driving 2 hrs to Dallas to buy vegan sausage (and more fun too)!

The recipe mixes up in minutes. Form a log with a 1/2 cup of the mixture on a sheet of foil and roll it up like candy.

Steam them for thirty minutes. They doubled in size.

This recipe made 9 large sized sausages. Since I usually only use 1 or 2 sausages when cooking, I'm set for a while!

They are ready to eat right out of the steamer, but firm up even more when put in the fridge. Look at those lovely hunks of garlic. Next time, I'll add more.

The recipe I used from Julie Hasson is very open to variation. I did not use many of the spices listed in the recipe, but you do need to be liberal with whatever spices you use, the vital wheat gluten and chickpea flour have no real flavor. I've got some experimenting to do, I want to create a flavorful apple/potato/sage sausage.

Spicy Italian Vegetarian Sausages
Makes 8 links

2 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/4 cup chickpea flour
2 tbsp Bills Best Chik’Nish Seasoning (if using another brand which is salty, or saltier than Bill’s Best, you’ll want to greatly reduce the amount you use)
2 tbsp granulated onion
1 to 2 tbsp fennel seed, optional
2 tsp coarsely ground pepper, preferably freshly ground
2 tsp ground paprika
1 tsp dried chili flakes, optional
1 tsp ground smoked paprika
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground allspice
2 1/4 cups cool water
6 to 8 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce

1. In a large bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients. Whisk together the water, garlic, olive oil and soy sauce and using a fork, gently stir into the dry ingredients. Stir just until ingredients are mixed. If dough mixture is too dry, you can add another tablespoon of water or as needed.
2. Scoop 1/2 cup dough mixture at a time and shape into logs. Place logs on piece of aluminum foil and roll up, twisting ends. Place sausages in steamer and steam for 30 minutes. Once sausages have cooled, remove from foil and refrigerate until ready to eat. After cooling, the sausages may feel a bit dry on the outside. Don’t worry, as they will soften and firm up considerably after chilling.

Variation: You can shape the dough into little patties instead of links. If you don’t want to use aluminum foil, you can wrap the links in damp muslin or tea towel and tie ends with cotton twine.

Updating My Links

I've been adding links to my Favorite Links Pages on my sidebar. Different products, websites and information that has been helpful to us in pursuing country living, homeschooling and living a Christian life. I hope the links will be of benefit to you as well.