For C-dub, because I aim to please...

I had never heard of kamut grain before a coworker of my husband mentioned the great deal they had gotten on it. He let us purchase a 25 lb bag at his cost and we haven't looked back.

It looks like a giant-sized wheat grain but has a higher protein and lipid content. It has a buttery flavor to it, almost nutty. All I know is before I started using it in my bread, I had to make it half white flour/half wheat flour in order for my kids to eat it. Now my bread is half kamut/half wheat and the kids eat it like it's candy. It doesn't raise as high so I add a little more gluten to compensate.

I also sneeze any time I grind red or white wheat, but never when I grind kamut. It turns out it's supposed to be better for those who have wheat allergies, I don't think it has been tested for those with gluten intolerance though.

We are trying to buy more because we've really enjoyed it. I used to only make bread once every 10 days or so and would end up throwing a little bit out. Now I make it on Mondays and Thursdays because the kids go through it so fast. I guess you could say we like it.

Here are a couple oflinks
origin of kamut
recipes
wiki disclaimer

A doughy nirvana

I've been baking a lot lately - due mostly to a new bread recipe that promises

"One recipe, a hundred ways to use it"

I've made it twice so far and used it 7 ways
1. Italian bread sticks
2. Pizza crust
3. Rolls
4. Soup bowls
5. Pizza rolls
6. Cinnamon cream cheese braid
7. Mini french bread loaf

It's different from the breadstuffs I usually make because instead of oil, it uses lecithin. Believe it or not those breadsticks are 50% kamut flour and 50% white flour. The kids have eaten everything I've made with the exception of the soup bowls and rolls which I hid to use for meals later in the week.

It is an easy enough recipe to follow and makes enough for 4 loaves. I haven't actually baked sandwich bread with it yet or tried it with whole wheat - those are my next objectives.


Pantry Secrets Bread Recipe
10 ½ cups white unbleached bread flour
½ cup sugar (I used honey)
1 tablespoon salt
3 rounded tablespoons saf-instant yeast
3 tablespoons liquid lecithin*
4 cups hot tap water

Mix dry ingredients. Add lecithin and water. Mix for 1 minute and check consistency. If dough is too dry, add more water. If dough is too moist, add more flour. Mix for 5 minutes. (Do not add water or flour to the dough after it has finished mixing.) Spray counter and pans with cooking spray. Remove the dough from the mixer, knead four times. Shape loaves and cover with a dish towel. Let rise 25 minutes. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes. This recipe makes four loaves of bread.

* Squeeze or pour approximately 3 tablespoons of lecithin directly into the bowl. Do not measure.


I'll probably do a post with pictures so you can see what the dough should look like.

Here is the garden in progress

We have removed a large patch of sod in preparation for double digging the soil and adding in compost. Today that same patch of soil was buried under 3 inches of snow. Thank heavens I brought in the forsythia branches last week after I pruned the bush, because now I have a little bit of Spring in the house.

Another shot of the breadsticks. I rolled the dough out to the size of a jelly roll pan, cut it in half lengthwise, and then cut one inch strips. I brushed the whole thing with butter, grated Parmesan and sprinkled Mediterranean sea salt over the top, and then put two strips together (cheese in the middle), pinched the ends together and twisted them. They baked at 350 for about 17 minutes.

Am I drooling?

I suppose this is part of it - plenty of crafting eye candy and food, glorious food

Enjoy!

Let's talk about the eggs, shall we?

Or maybe a moment of silence is more fitting. We have just started getting these eggs (some are for my neighbor) from my cousin Alisha.

Before that, we were trying to find eggs that had been produced by hens in a cage-free environment who had not been given antibiotics and who had been vegetarian-fed. That was a tall order, and there was only one company that seemed to promise all those things. I say seemed, because even though the birds were in a cage-free environment, that doesn't necessarily mean that they were treated humanely.

My cousin, on the other hand, adores her chickens and feeds them a perfect diet. That white egg in the center is a duck egg and it was huge (and tasty). The other eggs range from light to dark brown with brown speckles, as well as lovely shades of blue-green.

I only wished we lived closer so she and Ed could teach us all they know!

Why Organic?

Well, to make a long, possibly boring story shorter - Organic appeals to me in two ways:

1. It is suggestive of something that "develops in a manner analogous to the natural growth and evolution characteristic of living organisms; arising as a natural outgrowth."

meaning, that it reflects my attention span as evolving rather than as non-existant. I am always trying new things (ask my kids or my mother and their eyes might just roll so far back in their heads that they stick there) and all that adventureous-ness can look like ADHD on crack. But really, it is just my love of hands-on living, which brings me to the second reason.

2. We've recently taken anew interest in just how far removed we've become from our food. Do you really know what's on (or in) your vegetables, meat, and packaged foods? Do you want to know or do you suffer from a case of "Ignorance is bliss"? We've read several books lately that have told us far more than we thought we wanted to know about the actual costs (health, environmental, and otherwise) of eating the way most Americans do. For our family, it's time to make some changes.

Over the past few months we've begun planning our garden and eliminating commercially produced beef and pork from our diets. We still eat wild-caught fish and some chicken, but for the most part we are trying to eat more fresh vegetables, fresh-from-the-farm eggs and milk, as well as using olive oil (rather than vegetable oil) in our cooking.

This blog isn't just about gardening, it's about living life - naturally. There will be recipes, garden ideas (and possibly failures), projects, crafts, of course numerous posts on the kids' perspective, and maybe even some eye-rolling.

I will still post over at Ty's Triumph any news about Ty and our journey with him, but mostly, I will be posting here. I hope you'll join us.