Category: Healthy Living

“What do you think about me incorporating sauteed mushrooms into a bread?” I asked my daughter today. “I don’t know,” was her reply. Sighs, she was a lot of help with that, am I right?

 

I’d asked my daughter that question because of three things.

1. I had portobello mushrooms in the refrigerator that needed to be used within the next few days, or they’d go bad. I don’t particularly appreciate wasting.
2. While looking up videos on home milling, a video popped up in my recommended feed. The Youtuber made breadlogs filled with tomato sauce, pepperoni, and cheese.
3. This caused me to open up my book, The Essential Home-Ground Flour, by Sue Becker, and locate the cinnamon roll recipe.

Instead of following a recipe from that book, I decided to experiment. I was almost out of my Hard Red Wheat berries. I had a cupful of that left. I also decided to add Einkorn, and as an afterthought, I pulled my jar of soft wheat berries to turn it into a trio of multi-grains.

My MockMill Professional 200 Grain Mill made quick work of the three cups of grains, and less than two minutes later, I added my flour, salt, yeast, eggs, oat milk, and butter (but I did not add in that order) to the freshly milled flour. I mixed everything in my Ankarsrum 6230 mixer. I love that mixer, and let it knead the dough for eight minutes. The first rise was an hour. Near the end of that hour, I sauteed my mushrooms and added yellow onion, green onion, butternut squash, and tomatoes to the skillet. I cooked until soft. Guess what? The butternut squash and tomatoes came from my garden!

I was thrilled to see that the dough had risen a lot. I punched down the dough and rolled it into a sheet. I then added the sauteed veggie mixture and cheddar cheese over the spread and moved it into a log, sealing the ends. I then placed it in one of my small Pullman Loaf pans. I know I should have let the mixture cool before doing this since the heat caused it to penetrate the dough in certain spots; however, I was too impatient and decided to continue.

Since I had a small amount of dough left over, I made them into dinner rolls after creating that log. The second rise was 30 minutes. Once finished, I placed the loaf in the preheated oven (400 F) for 25 minutes.

 

The dinner rolls grew a lot and turned into these delightful baked rolls.

And look at my Cheesy Mushroom and Butternut Squash Bread!

Results? This loaf tasted terrific! The only thing I would do differently is to allow the sauteed veggies to cool before spreading them onto the loaf. However, this made a delicious, moist, and flavorful loaf of bread, and I will be making this again soon. I already have ideas for creating different varieties, and since this loaf is small, I don’t think I’ll be freezing any of this since it most likely will be gone within a few days.

 

 

My Mockmill Professional 200 Grain Mill hasn’t received much rest since it arrived last week. Today, I made another cornbread. My daughter likes it a lot. She loves mild flavors in her food. Nothing too spicy or intricate for her, thank you very much. Simple, for her, is best.

This cornbread has seven ingredients and takes less than 30 minutes. That included prep time., I decided to increase the time by five minutes to see how I liked the cornbread, it gave it a darker crust, and while it’s still moist and incredibly tender, we both agree that we much prefer the cornbread I made last week.

Regarding the grains used, I used two cups of white corn. Yes, the same as last time, and the recipe did not change. I DID ask my daughter if she would like me to add sauteed onions, mushrooms, or anything to the cornbread. “No,” was her quick response. Ok, fine, fine, fine… I’ll save the experimentation for another day.

It’s been a long time since I started something new with cooking; however, here I am when using freshly milled flour in my recipes. Excited and eager to explore much-loved recipes and see how the freshly milled grains respond to what I create. Well, it’s not entirely like starting as someone new to cooking since I have decades of experience cooking; however, I must say that it is exciting to see that freshly milled flour does not always perform like aged flour, and I like the newness of creating and experimenting with recipes that I’ve prepared for years. Even better, I don’t react to freshly milled flour as I did with the organic flour I purchased at some specialty grocery stores.

I’ve been craving a pot pie, which I’ll prepare this weekend. Pot pies, a mug of hot chocolate or herbal tea wrapped up in one of my hand-knit blankets while sitting by our woodstove is pure bliss, and while we still have a little ways to go before the cold weather hits, at least I can recreate the foods that I associate with that time of year. I’ll hold off on starting the wood stove for a bit longer.

I’m on a roll with my freshly milled flour. A few days ago, I told my daughter I would make the mini quiches I saw mentioned in The Essential Home-Ground Flour Book by Sue Becker.

Today, after purchasing the organic cheddar from the local Target store, I returned home and made them. In the recipe book, Sue used freshly milled quinoa; however, although I know I have quinoa, since I recently rearranged my supplies, I could not locate them. So, since I had soft white wheat berries, I used those.

What’s great is the zucchini came from our garden! I finely chopped my zucchini, green onions, and cheddar cheese and added them to my Wolf multi-cooker; after about 30 minutes, my three cups of freshly milled flour was added to the sausage/veggie blend and mixed well. Afterward, I placed them in my silicone muffin pans and placed both of them in the oven.

The quiche muffins were ready in 25 minutes. Results? My daughter loved these mini-quiches, so I consider this a win. I made two trays, so that was 24 mini quiches. The majority will be frozen and brought out when my brother and nephew arrive.

 

 

Today, I finally made cornbread. Towards the end of last week, I’d told my daughter that I would make cornbread, and although I’d wanted to make it, I didn’t have corn on hand to grind. Well, Wednesday, my white corn arrived from BreadBeackers, so today, I finally made the cornbread.

I used the Cornbread recipe on page 230 of The Essential Home-Ground Flour Book by Sue Becker. In that recipe, she gives the option of using soft wheat berries and corn. I chose only to use corn.

I rarely follow recipes; however, since using freshly milled flour, I have been following along; although I have made some tweaks since I’m finding that it’s not that much of a difference to use freshly milled flour, at least I have not had any issues yet. Then again, I’m still new to using newly milled flour; perhaps it might be different as I move on to other recipes. We’ll see!

I used 1.5 cups of white corn and ground which gave me the cups of ground cornmeal needed. This was not a sweet cornbread. I don’t like sweet cornbread; I much prefer savory! Instead of buttermilk, I used oat milk and added a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to mimic buttermilk.

Twenty-five minutes later and the skillet cornbread was finished. I had a slice, and I must say that I enjoyed it immensely. My daughter loved it also and commented on how flavorful and tender this was. I’ll be making this again. Tomorrow, I plan to make a quiche using produce from our garden.

I enjoyed the book so much that I purchased two copies. The spiral-bound version arrived today. I’ll keep the spiral-bound copy since I love that I can flip to a recipe I’m trying and don’t have to bend or secure to keep the page open. I’ll gift the other copy.

 

Since my MockMill Professional 200 Grain Mill arrived last Thursday, I’ve enjoyed experimenting with various flour-based items.

I have purchased a variety of grains to grind into flour. The above is hard white wheat berries.

 

 

I must say that the MockMill Professional 200 Grain Mill does a beautiful job of turning the grains into excellent flour. See above!

I’ve made cinnamon raisin drop biscuits.

I made two yeast bread, the above was made the traditional way, and the other was prepared in my Zojirushi Virtuoso Bread Machine. I made the one in the bread machine yesterday.

 

 

I also made cinnamon raisin cookies.

 

 

 

And yesterday, I made hamburger rolls!

I must say that I’m excited about my grain mill and creating healthy foods with flour. Freshly ground flour differs from store-bought flour since everything is intact—endosperm, germ, and bran. The bran and germ are removed with store-bought flour, the healthiest part of the flour.

Since eating freshly milled flour, I have noticed a few positive changes. I would experience bloating almost instantly with store-bought flour, and my nasal passages would start to get clogged, so I avoided flour-based products. I have not had that issue when using freshly milled grains.

Since we love tomatoes, I made sure I planted a lot. Before my workday started this morning, I was out in the garden, harvesting my heirloom tomatoes.

I picked a little over half of this five-gallon bucket full of tomatoes. After washing and cleaning the tomatoes, I placed a whole bucket in my large roaster.

I rinsed off these tomatoes during my break (I work from home) and added them to my large electric roaster. I’ll let them cook down overnight, and perhaps tomorrow, they’ll be ready for me to turn into spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce. Once that’s complete, I’ll be canning the tomatoes. Plenty of tomatoes are in the garden, just waiting to ripen. I’ll gather more for us; however, I’ll also share with loved ones.

About an hour ago, I saw that my MockMill Professional 200 Stone GrainMill had shipped. I should be receiving it later this week! I don’t eat too much bread or pasta, and when I do eat either, I’m very particular about the type I eat or make since most of the stuff at the typical big box grocery stores doesn’t agree with me and will make me bloated. No thanks. I don’t have that issue when preparing my bread or getting it from specialty stores where the breads are freshly ground and baked as they should be. I know that freshly ground flour that has everything is not an issue, so I’m looking forward to finally grinding my own grains.

I’ve been baking my bread for several years; after the pandemic, I increased that to baking bread several times weekly. Like many others, I had a lot of time on my hands while many of us were required to shelter in place. I’m happy that my bread-baking knowledge increased significantly because of this time, and I truly enjoyed the freshly baked bread’s welcoming smell to the home. Although I’d seriously considered purchasing a grain mill then, I didn’t. I still was unsure of what I truly wanted, and because of the pandemic, certain items like flour and products related to baking bread were hard to come by.

Years before, I was looking at Country Living and the Diamante grain mill. Reviewing my posts here on Celebrate Life, I first mentioned Country Living grain mill in 2013. That was almost ten years ago! I was planning to buy it then; however, I held off. I can sit on my wants for a long time.

Fast forward to today, a few hours ago, I purchased the Mock Mill Pro 200. Unlike the Country Living and the Diamante, which are manual, although both can have a motor added, the MockMill Pro 200 is electric. I must admit that I’m excited about grinding my grains and am especially looking forward to bringing ancient grains, quinoa, and sprouted grains that I can turn into freshly baked loaves of bread and pasta. I’m a member of a few breadmaking forums, and many who grind their flour talk about the freshness of the flour compared to flours purchased in the store, some of which have had chemicals added to them.

What will I make first? My daughter loves dinner rolls, and so that’s what it will be.