[almama]

Hi-

Grinding your own grains sounds great and would be fun and tasty. I was just looking at the prices of mills though and was a little shocked. Is there a way to try grinding flour at home without making a huge investment in a mill? I have a morter and pestle, but that would take hours. I also have a food processor, blender (low end), small coffee grinder, and we have a burr coffee grinder, but I don't know if DH would let me run flour through it

.

Any ideas would be great. Thanks!

 

[lao80]

xenabyte has a few recipes in the good eats with wheat thread. You grind with a liquid in your blender. Try out the blender pancakes.

 

[root*children]

I have no great solution. But have been wondering the same thing. Have you checked out prices on Ebay?

 

[xenabyte]

Here is the 'Good Eats with Wheat' Thread. The 'Blender Pancakes' is on page one. It is pancakes from whole wheat berries, ground in your blender, and made super fresh.

There is also an 'Ezekiel Bread' Recipe where I used a blender to do each type of grain/bean in the blender with water, then let it 'soak' a bit to help reduce phytic acid content.

Here is the thread link:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ender+pancakes

Sorry it's so long, there are several discussions in the thread with various ways we have tried to do grains without having a grinder.

Basically I always try to soak my bread overnight, so I just use the liquid I'd soak it in anyway, to grind in the blender as this 'cushions' the blender from damage. Do not do the grains DRY in the blender, unless you are looking for a reason for the DH to buy you a new one

/hugs

 

[almama]

Thanks so much everyone. We tried the blender pancakes this morning and they were really good. We are big homemade pancake eaters and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the blender method -it was so easy and cleanup was a dream. Usually we have pancake batter and flour everywhere. I want to tweek the recipe a bit and then try a head to head with store bought flour to see the difference. Sounds like a lot of fun for us!

 

[Jet4]

We did get our Whispermill by Grainmaster from Ebay about 18 months ago. It is in perfect condition and we got it for about$70 cheaper than buying new.

 

[xenabyte]

Tweek away on that recipe. I change it up, sometimes use maple syrup in the batter, or cinnamon or a bit of squished banana, or some chopped nuts....

It really is fast and clean up is easy, even more so than making them with all purpose flour.

You can use all purpose flour for them, but you will not want to blend too much, or you will get 'gluey' flour pretty quickly. And the heat setting might need to be turned up a bit for all purpose.

I goofed the link above, here is recipe if any interested:

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All you need is a blender, to make these 'fresh ground' whole wheat treats!

Blender Whole Wheat Pancakes

1 cup Whole Wheat Berries
1 1/4 cup water

Put in Blender on high speed and mix for about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes. Stop Blender and add:

1 egg
1-2 Tablespoons Honey or Rapadura sugar (can use white if you only have that)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 Tablespoons favorite cooking oil or softened butter
1/4 cup milk
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

Blend for about 20 more seconds, stop and add:

1 Tablespoon Fresh Baking Powder

Pulse blender to just mix it in. Let mixture stand about 1 minute.

Have a cast iron skillet lightly greased and heated to medium low, or use favorite pan or griddle. Cook these pancakes on a slightly lower setting than you would a 'white flour' pancake. Pour out about 1/4 cup batter, let cook until you see bubble appearing, flip, and cook for about 1 minute more. It may take a few times to get it just perfect, but they are really good! Toddler loves them plain. But good with maple syrup or a little powdered sugar.

If you are really ambitious, try the following 'hearty' sauce topping:

Caramal Pecan Sauce

1 cup unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup light corn syrup (or leave out, it's still really good)
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cup chopped, lightly toasted pecans

Melt butter in a saucepan over lowest heat setting. Add in brown sugar, salt and syrup. Cook about 5-10 minutes. Stir in cream and continue heating for about 5 minutes. (Cook really slow, so it doesn't burn or get excessively sugary). Stir in pecans. You can make sauce ahead and refridgerate/freeze. Just warm before serving. If you need it a bit thinner, just add a bit more cream or half and half.

Enjoy!

 

[BowenTherapist]

i bet that a local chapter leader of the WAPF would be able to grind you like 2-3 cups of flour to try , if you were to ask.

 

[almama]

That's a new acronynm for me. What does WAPF stand for?

 

[root*children]

Yum! We just made the pancakes this morning for breakfast. Maybe our blender isn't the best - our were crunchy, but they still tasted great. Really filling. I just had to add some extra all-purpose flour at the end so they wouldn't be so runny.

 

[xenabyte]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dready*mama Yum! We just made the pancakes this morning for breakfast. Maybe our blender isn't the best - our were crunchy, but they still tasted great. Really filling. I just had to add some extra all-purpose flour at the end so they wouldn't be so runny.

Blend them longer. That will make sure they are TOTALLY ground up. This will also 'thicken' them up. But hey, if you liked them the way you made them, ignore what I just said

haha

I kinda like them crunchy too, but DH likes them silky smooth. So I usually make sure to blend them the full 3 minutes.

Glad you liked them!

 

[xenabyte]

Quote:

Originally Posted by almama That's a new acronynm for me. What does WAPF stand for?

Weston A. Price Foundation (google for info). Most of these folks are into the 'more natural' way of eating and probably SOMEONE near you has a grinder.

 

[root*children]

I did blend em for longer than 3 min. My blender just SUCKS! It came with the house! :LOL oh well. I knew I should have used the food processor. next time