NT Mamas January Thread! - Page 2

[macytoedt]

soaking rice?

i have been following this thread and am totally convinced to get the NT book (just don't have money right now to buy it) , ....we already do alot just trying to eat better but i have a question,

what is the advantage to soaking grains?....i'm actually trying get a good recipe to make homeade rice milk....i found a few recipes on the forums and internet but some say to soak the grains first then cook (and i do not know if that is in the soak water or not) and some just say cook the rice etc....

do you soak all grains before cooking? and do you use the soak water or not...

any rice milk recipes would be great, i've read some recipes use white rice which i do not understand why you would do that instead of brown (long or short?)

thank you for this thread, i love the support that is here at MDC.

peace,
macy

[HerthElde]

Originally Posted by Danesmama

Another question - my dh is pretty sensitive to sour food tastes - are there any recipes you could recommend to start us on the NT path that are milder in flavor? I made the soaked oatmeal porridge the other morning and he was pretty grossed out. We usually eat oatmeal that is just soaked for 5 min in boling water, so the sticky sour grains were not appealing to him.

Try different things to soak the oatmeal - whey, kefir, yogurt, vinegar, and lemon juice all contribute different flavours to the final oatmeal. I'm really partial to kefir lately, but also have really good results with yogurt. I've found that the milder the yogurt, the milder the oatmeal, too, so try different brands.

HTH

[xenabyte]

Originally Posted by mountain mom

However, this way, the only drawback is that your grains will not reproduce. They will just age, without producing anymore babies. Its like I have post-menopausal grains!

:LOL

...just read that part and it cracked me up...post menopausal grains..heheh

[Brisen]

For the kitchen, a warm place for fermenting/sprouting seeds (I think this was mentioned, actually) plus a cool dark place for storing jarred fermented stuff after the bac have done enough. Large freezer for stock, bulk meats. Also a cool space is nice for keeping butter. Place to hang cheesecloth for making whey.

Actually, if it were me, I would make space elsewhere in the house for things that need to be cool. I've read that food shouldn't be stored in the kitchen if possible because it is too warm and damp to keep things well.

[toraji]

macytoedt, you want to soak all your grains/beans/nuts/seeds to deactivate the phytates, which block mineral absorption. A diet high in phytates can lead to mineral deficiency.

Here are a couple links that talk about it:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ad.php?t=90923
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=170538

I can't remember who was asking on our last thread about making bread in a bread machine, but I think all you would need to do is run the dough cycle, let the dough ferment to neutralize the phytates, then do the punch down/rise/bake cycle. I've never tried it though, but it sounds like it should work. The fermenting part is the important step, not who (or what) does the kneading and baking!

[mountain mom]

Bread Makers

Since starting a sourdough starter and making bread by: boosting the starter then making dough, and letting it rise for 12 - 24 hours then punching and shaping and letting rise again for 6 hours I have not used my bread machine at all.

Its one of those appliances I will now get rid of. Kneading the dough before the first rise only takes me about 10 minutes. The next kneading and shaping only takes me about 5 minutes.

I suppose I could use the machine for the initial mixing and kneading but then I have one more thing to wash....:LOL

HTH

[BowenTherapist]

so i got, and tried out, my family grain mill.
very quiet, but the flour that it makes is very course. before i got this i had a manual stone grinder, that made very nice flour! but it took me like 30 min to do 2 cups of flour, good exercise though
over all it seems like a good buy though

i made the raisin cookies from the snack food section, anyone else make these before? they came out very flat and melted into each other. anyone know what i did wroing? or just expect them to come out like that

[AJP]

Originally Posted by BowenTherapist

so i got, and tried out, my family grain mill.
very quiet, but the flour that it makes is very course.

I have a Family grain mill, not the Kitchenaid attachment kind but the one with the Jupiter motor, and it the flour it makes seems to be as fine as whole grain flour from the store.

BTW, hi to all. I don't think I've posted to any of the NT threads yet here at MDC, but have been using NT for 3+ years now.

About the kitchen remodel, when I got a new stove I chose one that has a warming drawer below the oven, and I use it all the time for drying and soaking things. I definitely recommend it, works great, and I'm so glad I got it. If the food is in a vessel that won't fit in the warming drawer, I put it in the oven and the heat rises from the drawer (I find just the light isn't enough to dry out nuts or sprouted grains, my old oven with a pilot light worked for that with only the pilot heat, but new ovens all seem to be pilot-less). The oven only goes down to 170, but the warming drawer from low to high ranges from about 100 to 150. Perfect. One note, though - the drawer is heated from below so anything put directly on the bottom of the drawer will get hot where it touches (I guess there's an electric heating element below the drawer, the stove is gas but the warming drawer is electric), so I leave the broiler pan that came with the oven in there and place sheet pans on top of that, so there's a buffer zone.

[Illuviel]

Oven Temp Adjustment

Hi all; I'm subscribing to this thread.

Originally Posted by dharmama

An oven that goes down to at least 150 degrees (for dehydrating). Mine only goes as low as 170....

Many ovens' thermostats are adjustable. Check your owner's manual for instructions. For example, I can adjust mine by removing the temperature control button on the front and changing the position of a little metal indicator (each notch is a 10 degree F shift).

This is also a good way to ~raise~ the temperature of an oven for baking breads, if that's desired.

[Catarina]

I thought that my oven only went down to 170, but when I put a tray of nuts on the floor of the oven, an oven thermometre on the tray reads 150. Sometimes I get impatient at the end and toast them on a higher temperature. I'm not really concerned about preserving enzymes in our food, we eat most things cooked.

I'm going to put some seed to soak on right now. I use a mixture including flax and the fiber from the flax helps them to clump together into a kind of savoury granola.

I'm getting to grips with my breadmaker - I still feel really ambivalent about it, but we certainly have been eating a lot of home-produced bread since I got it. I noticed that one of the references that Toraji gave about soaking flours said that wheat requires 2 hours, rye 3. I know that's a lot less than NT usually says, but it makes me feel better about breadmaker bread - counting kneading and rising, the flour has 5 1/2 hours to soak in a warm setting. Not acidic, though. Despite that, I'm experimenting with soaking the flour beforehand

I have been making lovely scones and pancakes for breakfast by soaking spelt or wheat flour in kefir for 24 hours.

[HerthElde]

Orangina?

Is it supposed to taste so bitter? Also, it's really not becoming carbonated at all - is it supposed to be? Should I add some more whey? Instead of yogurt whey, would I have more success with kefir whey? It's pretty cold in my kitchen, so I've let it go a bit longer (I have an airlock on it), but it's been four days, so I'm starting to wonder . . .
TIA

[gardenmommy]

I am trying to make the transition to a NT-type of diet. It seems like a whole lot of work, though, and I feel overwhelmed by it. What are some easy things to do first? What are some easy ways to transition to this type of eating?

Thanks!

[Gale Force]

Thanks for the oven ideas gals. I have been thinking a lot about a warming drawer. I hadn't thought of it for nuts and such. That makes it more attractive. One of our problems is that our house is so cold that dishes out of the cupboard in the winter are like ice. If the woodstove has been stoked, it's too hot for the plates -- they woould crack. I think we definitely need a warming drawer.

[mountain mom]

Garden mama...When I began the converstion I started by making youghurt. Then straining that youghurt through cheesecloth to make youghurt creme cheese and whey.

Once I had that rythym down, I began to soak grains before cooking then I began to soak flour for baking, then I started a sourdough starter for bread etc.

I took it step by step. Each time I prepared food I consulted the NT cookbook to see how Sally suggested to prepare it and then I consulted with the women here to see how they did things.

Each day I do about 1 hour of NT related tasks.

Now I have on hand at all times...crispy nuts of different variety, soaked and/or cooked grains, fermented veg, kefir drinks, youghurt and youghurt cheese, sourdough starter and/or bread. Each is prepared every couple of days and I try to only to 1 or 2 tasks daily.

It really has changed my life, I am a different person with food. After feeling afraid of food for most of my life, suffering from eating disorders, limiting my diet by following a strict vegan diet and not understanding the value of minerals and vitamins and how to unlock them, I have been empowered by this transistion.

The new "phrase" in our house is "Is it femented?" :LOL

HTH

[Danesmama]

Mountain Mom - I like your procession into a NT cooking routine - you made it sound very do-able! I need to start putting some of her ideas into practise because often I never get out of the thinking about doing something stage.

Has anyone ever made the cultured butter? I know that is a strange place to start, but when I lived in Maine we used organic cultured butter. Back then I only knew that it was different - I didn't understand what cultured really meant. Anyhow, cultured butter always tasted so good and I was disappointed not to find it in Colorado. So I thought I might try to make a batch. It still impresses me how wonderful that butter tasted - and cookies etc made with it were heavenly.

[Queen Gwen]

Subscribing to this thread...I have been soooo out of touch with NT, and, boy, am I feeling it. I just ordered a book Sally Fallon contributed to (Fourfold Path of Healing) and one of Mary Enig's (I think it's Eat Fat Lose Fat -- it's about coconut oil) with my Amazon gift certificate. I'm hoping these will inspire me right out of my downward spiral.

[myjo]

I just wanted to subscribe to this thread. I foolishly started another thread looking for you ladies without doing a search first. I should have known!

Anyway, I'm only about a month and a half into transitioning to an NT diet. There's still a lot of things I haven't tried yet. One great thing is that my dh is in favor of us getting two dairy goats! I'm really excited because I love dairy, but pasturized cow's milk is a no no for me. I can't wait to start making cheese and yogurt and kefir!

What I've been able to accomplish so far is I learned to make beef broth, I found a source of goat's milk yogurt and raw cheese, I've made crispy nuts a couple of times, and we already ate sprouted grain bread, but I really want to learn to make sourdough now. Getting the process down is essential for me because I can't tolerate gluten. And hopefully soon our freezer will be full of grass fed limousine beef.

Glad I found you ladies!

[dharmama]

About the kitchen remodel, when I got a new stove I chose one that has a warming drawer below the oven, and I use it all the time for drying and soaking things.

I have one and I never even thought of that. How perfect.

My aunt gave me some sourdough starter today.

She created a new NT-inspired bread recipe...oatmeal-wheat-sourdough. I will retype and post. had some today.

We've both found that we don't like the bread recipes in NT very much so we're trying to use NT methods to make better tasting bread/muffins/scones etc.

I made the buttermilk biscuits and the basic muffins this week and they came out like flavorless hockey pucks. Oh well. My chickens and sheep enjoyed them.

[intentfulady]

grass fed beef experts?

Well, I've located a cow. Grass fed only in a field. He's mine and I can have him butchered.

The butcher is beside himself. He's sure I won't like the flavor without at least a little grain. I've looked around a little, which is how much time I have to spend on computer.

Mercola site reccommends a few weeks of grain.

I can't keep the whole cow. I need to split it, and it's unlikely I will find any NT folks as I'm new in a tiny town. Although I have some buyers if it tastes good.

I'm curious about the details. The cow is also on the lean side as its January in CAnada.

Any thoughts or advice. should I wait till fall?
TIA

[gardenmommy]

nak. can't do dairy,bothers the babe. exception: have added very small amounts of kefir, and she does ok with that. am interested in soaking, need to learn more of the details about that. I made chicken noodle soup, and lamb stew; a hit with my family. very hard to do that after such a long time vegetarian.