Wheat Grinding

I recently took the plunge and bought a wheat grinder. I bought a Nutrimill with the money I received for my birthday. I guess fortieth birthdays net one a bit more money than run-of-the- mill-ordinary birthdays.I received the grain mill and promptly put it downstairs in our fruit room where it stayed for about six weeks. I didn't have any wheat to grind. This seems impossible with two wheat farming uncles, but it was the situation in which I found myself. In all honesty, my Uncle Keith had given me a bucket of hard white spring wheat, but try as I might, I couldn't figure out an efficient way to clean it, so I quite trying. I also knew that our family would prefer hard red winter wheat for bread making.

I looked all over online for wheat, but the prices were a bit steep, mostly because of the cost of shipping. I have a friend from high school (Hi, Becky!) who offered to take me to her church's bulk food store, but the store is only open to the public on Wednesday evenings. Right now, because it's Lent, we're attending church every Wednesday evening, so I knew it would be awhile before I could get to that store.I finally got the bright idea to call the local health food store to see if they carry wheat and sure enough, they do. Problem solved. Grace and I pulled the mill out of its box and read the instructions--fairly straight forward. We ground our first batch of hard red winter wheat and we were pleased with the results the mill produced.Grace's first batch of bread with the freshly ground flour turned out loaves with a little less lift than we wanted. She added more wheat gluten to the next batch of dough and that seemed to help. I've read that a lot of gals use the hard white spring wheat for their bread baking, which eliminates the rising problem, but results in a less hearty loaf. We like our loaves hearty around here.

I also ground some hard white spring wheat to use in waffles, muffins, etc. Using the flour right after grinding it is the ideal, as no nutritional benefits are lost. However, I don't think that's always going to be possible for me, especially if I just decide to whip up a batch of muffins in between assigning school work and doing a load of laundry. I think Grace will continue to grind the wheat she uses for her bread baking as she needs it. She has definitely spoiled us with her fresh bread.

Does eating a whole loaf of bread with the kids when it just comes out of the oven count as health food? Because if it does, we've been doing some healthy eating lately. Yummy!