Grandaddy Dilmus’ Biscuits – Organic Challenge – Give a meal an easy makeover!

May 16, 2011 By Budget Saving Mom 15 Comments

Organic Challenge – Give a meal an easy makeover!

This week and last week I am taking on the challenge of choosing some of our favorite family meals to adapt and make it healthier. I am going to be replacing the traditional ingredients with organic ingredients.

Here are some tips from Healthy Child to help with this challenge:

Find deals and discounts on organic foods by using this guide.
Use one of the following tools to learn about risky chemicals in specific foods.
What’s on My Food
Brain Food Selector
There’s an app for that! Check out this app: iScan My Food- This iPhone app allows you to scan food ingredients and contains information on harmful food additives, toxic ingredients in food and genetically modified foods.

I decided to do over my Grandaddy Dilmus’ Biscuits. They are one of our family’s favorite treats! These were even more delicious when I made them with whole wheat and organic ingredients than they were with white flour and non organic ingredients.

Grandaddy Dilmus’ Biscuits Recipe – Organic Makeover:

2 heaping cups of fresh ground whole wheat (originally this was white flour)
1 t salt
2 t baking powder
enough buttermilk to make it sticky like a biscuit dough should be about 1.5 cups (I used organic)
3/4 stick of butter (I used organic)

Melt the butter in an iron skillet at 475. Mix all other ingredients together. Pour half of the melted butter into the dough and mix. Drop spoonfuls of dough into iron skillet.

Cook for 12-15 minutes or until done. Flip out the golden hot biscuits onto a plate and dig in! YUMMY!! (This was an old picture from when I made it with white flour . . . but I completely forgot to take a picture with the whole wheat. I will try to remember to switch it out next time I make these.)

What other ideas do you have? Remember that you can leave a comment at Healthy Child and be entered to win a tote full of organic goodies. You can find information about the giveaway here.

This blog post is part of the Easy Organic Living program co-hosted by Baby Center and Healthy Child Healthy World and sponsored by Stonyfield.

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Whole Wheat Bread – No Kneading – No Bread Machine Recipe

January 17, 2011 By Budget Saving Mom 9 Comments

Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

I have been playing around with recipes for those of you that wanted a recipe with no kneading and no bread machine . . . . and I must say this recipe is AWESOME!! It is one of the easiest breads I have ever made. It was so light and fluffy! Oh my goodness – it was seriously good. I seriously might have to change this recipe to my new favorite go to recipe. It is also gluten free for those of you that have wanted me to post a recipe that is gluten free. So – hopefully this recipe will meet all your requests. Really – you have to give it a try! I wish that I could give everyone a slice through the computer . . . but we aren’t quite there yet with technology. You will need a mixer for this recipe. I used my Kitchen Aid mixer. I used the dough hook, & while it mixed, I stayed in the room because there is so much dough that it needed to be babysat.

If you don’t have flaxseed or oat flour, just substitute whole wheat flour. I tried that out as well, and while not quite as nutty – it was still really good!

Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

Whole Wheat Bread Recipe, Kneading Free & Machine Free

7 cups whole wheat flour freshly ground
1/2 cup flaxseed
1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup honey
2 T olive oil
2.5 tsp yeast
2 t salt
3 3/4 cups warm water

1. Combine water, honey and yeast in your mixer.
2. Mix these together on low speed and let it rest while you get together your other ingredients.
3. Add salt and olive oil & mix.
4. Mix your whole wheat flour, flax seed & oat flour. Add these one cup at a time. Then mix on high for 5-6 minutes. Stay in the kitchen while it is mixing because if your mixer is like mine once dough is formed, you have to stick close to the mixer since it can move around on the counter. I just do dishes while it mixes.
5. Let it rest in the bowl for about 20 minutes.
6. Then take a sharp knife and cut the cough right down the middle. The dough is rather sticky and elastic, but that is why the bread is so good!
7. Get 2 greased loaf pans and place half the dough in each. Allow the bread to rise until it starts sticking out of the loaf pans. Cover both pans with a damp cloth & place in a warm location to allow it to rise. I check mine after about an hour and take the cloth off to let it finish rising.
8. Cook at 350 for 35-40 minutes. It should sound hollow when you tap on it.

I hope that your family loves this recipe as much as mine does! If you have a favorite bread recipe, feel free to share it below. (-:

I even used this recipe last night to make our pizza crusts and just added some garlic. You can just make the dough, roll it out and bake it as a crust before topping it with pizza toppings.

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Filed Under: Organic, Recipes, Wheat/Bread Tagged With: Whole Wheat Bread - No Kneading - No Bread Machine Recipe

How And Why To Sprout Wheat

January 12, 2011 By Budget Saving Mom 10 Comments

I have been talking about how our family uses wheat berries and grind the wheat for our bread and baked goods. However, wheat berries also have something called phytic acid in them that some people feel can interfere with their digestion of wheat. I have read many articles and books that say that all wheat should be soaked or sprouted, but I also ran across an interesting article that said wheat does not have to be soaked, but that sprouting is good. You can read that article here to form your own opinion.

I have been soaking or sprouting my wheat for quite some time now. I have always read that sprouting is good. There is some debate about whether or not soaking is necessary. Opinions even vary in my family with some people thinking your always should, and others thinking, why bother.

Sprouting your wheat is definitely a good thing to do though. It greatly increases the vitamins in your wheat. I am sure that many of you have heard of wheat grass. When you sprout your wheat, you are actually sprouting wheatgrass which is a super health food. Pretty neat, huh?

If you decide that you are concerned about phytic acid, it is very easy to prepare your bread so that the phytic acid is broken down and not an issue. There are two main methods to neutralize this phytic acid. One way is the soak your wheat, and the other way is to sprout your wheat. They are both really easy to do, and really don’t take that much time.

How To Soak Your Whole Wheat:

If you have decided that you should soak your wheat, or feel like your family is better off with soaked wheat, it is really easy to do. This is by far the easiest way to neutralize the phytic acid. It doesn’t really take time away from your day.

All that you do is mix the flour and water together and add all ingredients except for the yeast. You can also add a little bit of vinegar, kefir or other agent with the water to aid in the soaking. Then, allow the mixture to sit overnight or through the day. Basically, you want it to sit for 12-24 hours. When you are ready to bake your bread, add your yeast and start up your bread machine. I typically will add my ingredients to my bread machine at night after supper. In the morning, when I wake up, I start my bread machine, and the bread is done by the time that my kids get up for breakfast.

After reading the above mentioned article, I am not sure that I am going to continue to do this. I will keep on sprouting wheat, but I am not sure about the soaking. Really this is probably just me being lazy even though it is not that hard to soak your wheat. This article says I don’t need to soak my wheat, which is actually opposite of everything else I have read, so maybe I shouldn’t jump to believe it. And, like I said members of my family are in disagreement about this. So . . . we will see.

How To Sprout Wheat Berries:

Everyone is in agreement that sprouted wheat is really good for you. The vitamins are greatly increased in your wheat after sprouting. It is quite easy to sprout your own wheat, however, you have to plan in advance. Basically, I try to always have wheat in the process of sprouting so that I always have wheat to use

Here are the steps to sprout wheat berries:

1. Take your wheat and place it into a bowl. Cover the wheat with water. The wheat will really soak up the water, so I put about two times the amount of water in my bowl. I also throw a towel over the bowl to keep out the cats. (-: Leave the wheat out overnight.

Soaking Wheat Berries

2. In the morning place the wheat into a strainer, and rinse it. You will want to rinse it pretty well. I shake my wheat berries around a little to make sure that they are rinsed well. Depending on how warm your house is they wheat may already be sprouted. We keep our house pretty cool in the winter, so it takes a couple of days for mine to sprout in the winter. In the summer, the house is much warmer, and they are well sprouted the first morning. If your wheat is not sprouted the first morning, just let it sit out & rinse it again the next morning until it has sprouted.

sprouted wheat berries

3. If it is warm, my wheat berries are sometimes sprouted the next morning. If not, I just leave them in the strainer, and rinse them again the next morning when they should be sprouted. I tried to take a picture of the sprouted wheat above so that you can see what it looks like. Basically, there is a little sprout coming off the end of the wheat berry.

How to sprout wheat berries

4. You can’t grind your wheat berries if they are wet, so they need to be dehydrated. There are several ways to do this.

a. Stick the berries onto some cookie sheets turn your oven to it’s lowest setting, allow it to preheat & stick the berries into your oven & turn it off. Leave them in there overnight, and they should dehydrate.

b. While I have never tried this with cats and children, I know of some people that will just lay their wheat berries out in a sunny window and allow them to dehydrate there.

c. If my Excaliber Dehydrator is empty, I just place my wheat berries into my Excalibar Dehydrator. (Thank you Swagbucks for letting me purchase this with my Amazon gift cards for FREE!!) I allow them to dehydrate, and then grind the wheat as needed.

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Recipe For How To Bake Whole Wheat Bread – Quickly!!!

January 11, 2011 By Budget Saving Mom 2 Comments

OK, I know that baking your own bread can seem overwhelming. How can you possibly make time, etc. But . . . it can be SO quick to make! I wanted to show you guys just how quickly you can make your own bread. Honestly, I think that you can make it quicker than you could run into a store and buy some. I added all of the ingredients to make my bread plus talked to you guys in this video that is 3 minutes and 1 second. (Plus, I had to open a new bottle of honey where the lid wouldn’t come off in the middle of the video, so it could have been even faster. . . . Food Network start I am not.) My husband started laughing at me since I couldn’t get it open hence my giggling in the middle of the video. But, hey I only do one take on videos. But I digress, the point of the video is . . . even if you need four loaves of bread a week, that would only be about 12 minutes, right? Maybe you have that much time???

Just something to think about because baking your own bread is SO easy and economical, not to mention healthy. Here is the video, and the recipe follows. Enjoy!!

How To Bake Whole Wheat Bread:

Whole Wheat Bread Recipe:

4 cups freshly ground whole wheat (If you need tips on how to grind your own wheat, click here.)
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
2 t salt
2 T dough enhancer (You can substitute with lecithin and gluten as I explain in the video.)
1.5 cups hot water
1/2 cup flax seed
1 T yeast

Just add the ingredients in the order shown above, and bake on your bread machines whole wheat setting.

This is a really easy whole wheat bread recipe that our family has been using for a long time. My mom and sister use it as well. They found the recipe here. They actually taught me how to make this bread years ago. It is also super adaptable. We use this same recipe to make pizza crust. I just add a little bit of garlic and roll it out. It is SO delicious!!

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How To Grind Wheat

January 10, 2011 By Budget Saving Mom 2 Comments

I am continuing my wheat and bread series this week. This post is going to cover how to grind wheat. I even made a video showing a couple of the ways that I grind wheat.

If you missed my previous posts, you can check out how to afford wheat berries here. The reason to use whole wheat berries as opposed to white flour here. Plus a whole wheat bread recipe here.

The next few topics that I plan on covering include more recipes, how to soak your wheat, and how to sprout your wheat. But . . . . for today, let’s talk about grinding wheat.

There are many different ways that you can grind your wheat berries. Some are expensive and some are cheaper. I have used quite a few different methods over the years while saving up to purchase better gadgets to grind my wheat. I am still saving up to eventually get a top of the line wheat grinder, but what I have now works great for me.

1. If you have a Kitchen Aid mixer, they sell a grinder attachment. This attachment just attaches to the front of your Kitchen Aid mixer. You place the wheat berries into the grinder, turn your Kitchen Aid mixer on high, and grind your wheat. This is a slower method than most, but it is also quite affordable if you already have a Kitchen Aid mixer. Make sure that you grind your wheat on high or you will burn up your motor. Also, you should only grind for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, you will need to turn off the mixer and wait until it cools down to restart. Most of the time when I make bread I use about 4 cups of flour, so I typically had to grind wheat twice to get enough for a loaf of bread. I will show you how to use this method in the video below.

2. Currently, I use a Blendtec. It is amazing!! My husband gave it to me for Christmas, and I love it!! We have smoothies almost everyday, so this is something that I have been wanting for a while. It grinds the wheat very quickly and it is pretty fine. I have found that it grinds the wheat more finely than the Kitchen Aid method. I will show you how to use this method in the video below as well.

3. You can use an actual grain mill. My sister uses the Nutrimill. The Wondermill is very similar as well. She found one really inexpensively on Craigslist. This will grind your wheat really fine so that your bread will be even lighter. These are not cheap, but if you grind enough wheat, it might be something that you want to save up for. I would LOVE to have one of these one day . . . but I am saving up for other things first. If I even find a great deal on one though, I will definitely jump on it. These run around $250, so like I said they are not cheap.

4. Country Living Grain Mill. These are supposed to be the top of the line grain mills. My mom actually has one of these. The wheat can be ground so fine it looks almost like white flour. It is quite expensive and manual unless you add a motor. My parent’s friend actually built a motor for theirs so that they do not have to grind their wheat by hand. It is very difficult to grind it by hand unless you are quite strong, but it does a great job and is supposed to last for a really long time.

There are many other grain mills out there, but these are the ones that I have experience with. I would definitely research any choice that you make before your purchase them. In this case, you often get what you pay for. However, there are pretty inexpensive ones that you can start out with until you can save up for a nicer one. I used my Kitchen Aid grinder for years before I got my Blendtec. You will eventually recoup the cost by making your own breads and baked goods as well. Plus, grinding your own wheat and providing those nutrients for your family can be a blessing to them.

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