Update on the Cracked Wheat Cereal

The man of the house cracked an entire #10 can of wheat which I am very thankful to him for. The wheat is in a container in the freezer.  A few days after cracking it he made himself cereal.  It was not toasted like the first cereal we made.  He said that it tasted fine.  The next time he make cracked wheat cereal he toasted the cracked pieces of wheat.

The end result was that the toasted cracked wheat cereal tasted better.  It didn't seem to make a difference if it was toasted before or after cracking.  The toasted cereal took about 10 minutes longer to cook in water than the non-toasted cereal.

Cracked Wheat Cereal

Since I am trying to get you to use your food storage, I decided I better try using mine in more ways.  Today was the first time I have made my own cracked wheat cereal and it was really good.  I checked online to see how others had made theirs and the first one I looked at stated that the cereal tasted like flour the first time they made it, so they decided to toast the wheat the next time.  No other sites I looked at talked about toasting the wheat first.  That flour taste comment was enough to scare me away, so I decided if I was going to make it than toasting the wheat first was for me.

Here is what I did:

I put a few handfuls of wheat into a cold cast iron pan and turned it on high.  I cooked the wheat for about 3 minutes stirring occasionally.

The wheat looked dark enough, so I took a picture.

Then it started popping and I turned it off and took another picture.

Here is the can of wheat compared to the pan of toasted wheat.

The wheat grinder had to be put together, so the wheat ended up sitting in the pan for about 5 more minutes.

Here is the hand grinder my husband used.  An electric grinder will grind the wheat to fine.  It is a Victorio brand grain mill.  The knob that holds the handle on is the one that knob that adjusts the coarseness of the grind.  The handle is loose and wobbly trying to get a very coarse grind.  The final product was 1 cup of cracked wheat.

Here is a close-up so that you can see how far out the grinding part is.

Here it is cooked.  Hers and his.  We added a little sweetener and ate it.  We both loved it.  I like to add milk to my hot cereal, but this had enough liquid in it that the milk would have made it liquid.

Go here for cooking instructions.

Whole Wheat Bread

I have found the key to making whole wheat bread is to keep the dough sticky feeling and knead the dough with wet hands.  Knead the dough for a long time to get the gluten working.  By hand, kneading 30 to 45 minutes is typical for a beginner.  20 to 30 minutes if you are an experienced kneader, and 8 to 15 minutes if using a Kitchen Aid type mixer with a dough hook.

Add Dough Enhancer if you can find it.  Gluten is not the same as dough enhancer.  Many stores say that it is, but gluten is just gluten.  Dough enhancer is gluten, soy, ascorbic acid.  Probably more, but those are the things I remember.

There are several things you can add to help make wheat bread rise.  Try 1/4 teaspoon of ginger or crush a vitamin C pill into powder and add it.  My friend adds 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and I am amazed at how quickly that makes it rise, but since this is about using what you have stored I don't think cottage cheese will be available.

My whole wheat bread recipe is here.

Ready to Use What You Have Stored?

I hope you have your food storage and emergency supplies stocked up.  This year I plan to share recipes and ideas using what I have stored, made, and stocked up on from the last two years of this blog.  I do a lot of my own canning and dehydrating, so I may have a food storage supply that is a lot different than yours.  I will start with the basics to get things going.
I will put my recipes on my recipe blog.  You can go here to look at all the recipes.  I will post links to each recipe I talk about this year.