Nature's Natural Ingredients & Whole Wheat Bread w/ Potatoe Flakes

 I thoroughly enjoy preparing a meal from scratch. I could easily prepare food for 8 hours straight and not even realize how much time has gone by until I see the amazing spread of food that was just prepared. (and I feel the pain I've been ignoring in my back, which is by now..screaming at me)

I absolutely love to be able to use as many natural ingredients as possible combined with other healthy, natural ingredients—making something so tasteful and so beautiful. While this is a goal of mine, it is one that I have yet to accomplish fully and may never fully accomplish in this day and age, but that I will do the best I can with the means we have available.  Do I make my cream cheese from the cow? No. Not yet anyway. Do I even own a cow? No. I admire those who do. Do I gather eggs from my chickens each day? Yes, totally. (Ok, so we are actually in-between chickens right now, but soon I'll be gathering again.) Do I grind my wheat and other grains? Absolutely. Well, at least until my old fashioned stone grinder dies on me, I do. But, let’s just hope that my 30+ year old grinder will continue to grind for many more years so that I’ll be able to find a replacement that will match its strength, endurance and can fill that big of a container in one grinding.... If you know of a grinder that does it all, please do send me the info!

Today, we visited the Honeyville Grains store in Salt Lake City, UT.  http://www.honeyvillefarms.net/ Since I am an excel freak and love to make lists and formulas, I prepared a spreadsheet that compares the prices of 5 different stores so that we could decide which places to purchase all the items we'd like to add to our food storage. (If you're local and want a copy, I'd be happy to send it to you)  Honeyville Grains had the highest quality and good prices overall. There were only a few things that I could find at a different store that were significantly less expensive, but they are deals that will expire in a week or not as high of quality. Lately, I have been feeling like it is becoming more and more crucial for us to stock our food storage, learn more about emergency prep and canning. This doesn't just feel like a responsibility that I have, it feels like something I've been YEARINING to do for years and am SOOOO thrilled to be getting closer and better at it every day that I learn more. So, party's on people... BBQ, my backyard...end of August. We'll enjoy veggies from the garden and fresh bread...But, that's not the point for this entry... :) Ignore this and keep going...Or don't ignore it, just put it on your calendar... :)

My goal is to stock our food storage area with grains that will last longer, are healthier and can be rotated easily since we eat all these things regularly anyway. I like to stock it with basic things so that I have the ingredients to make almost anything that we would eat. Some of what I purchased in large quantities are: black beans, lentils, brown & white rice, TVP (unflavored), 6 Grain mix, 9 Grain mix, sugar, honey, white flour and of course...oxygen absorbers to put in all the food we will be storing. We got to taste some delicious bread made with Kamut flour, which has a higher protein content and is therefore, better for you. It was awesome and has a wonderful nutty flavor. Kamut is actually kind of expensive, so it won't be on my shopping list for awhile, but it is definitely something that I am glad to know more about.

We learned that Honeyville Farms offers classes each week for FREE and they look like they'll definitely be of interest to us, so I'm sure we'll be driving the hour that it takes to get there more often than we thought we would before we left this morning. The lady who helped us and gave us the bread also gave us the recipe for their whole wheat potato flake bread. I will be making this soon and posting a pic, but for now... here is another wonderful bread recipe:

1 1/4 cup warm water

1 TBS yeast

1/4 cup honey or 1/3 cup sugar

2 3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup vital wheat gluten

1 tsp salt

2 TBS powdered, non-instant milk

1 TBS oil

1 TBS vinegar

1/4 cup potatoe flakes (not pearls)

Mix ingredients in the order listed and knead for 12-15 minutes. Let rise until double in size. Gently punch down, and then shape into loaf or rolls. Let rise again until double in size and then bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes until golden brown and feels hollow when lightly tapped.