Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

$5 Family Supper Club – Join Us!

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Now introducing: our $5 Family Supper Club!

Grocery prices are on the rise. But we don’t have to despair!

We did some research, we did the math, and we came up with 10 entire tasty meals you can make for your family that will only cost $5 (or maybe even less)*.

*prices as of May 2022

Join our $5 Family Supper Club!

This is for real – we’re going to tell you how you can feed a family of four for just $5! These meals aren’t fancy, but they are delicious and easy.

Have more than 4 people in your family? Me too, times a lot! ;) No worries! The more you stretch these meals, the more you’ll save! Simply adapt these plans and recipes to suit your family’s needs.

What about allergies?

Most of these meal plans and recipes are naturally gluten-free and dairy-free or can easily be adapted without increasing much in cost. I LOVE THIS!!!

Are you ready to join the club?

We want to save you some grocery money, and we want to bless you with a little pile of resources to make it fun and easy to save. So along with the meal plans and recipes, we’ll give you these too:

 

EVERYONE is affected by the increase in grocery costs right now. Please help us spread the word about these awesome free grocery-saving resources! Join us here:

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Big Family Food: Total Grocery Spending for April 2022

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I decided to keep a running tab of all of our grocery spending for April. Ready for the great big break-down?

We are currently a household of 11. This includes 5 adults and six littles. Most days we feed extras like a fiance and a girlfriend of our boys #2 and #3. Plus any others we are blessed to enjoy at mealtime or after ball games!

Throughout the month, I typically:

  1. Head to Lincoln one time to stock up at Costco and Sam’s.
  2. Place several Walmart Pick-Up orders to supplement the fresh produce and other groceries we need.
  3. Get local milk at a farm once each week.
  4. Pick up WIC items and a few other groceries at a local grocery store close to our house.

Here are more specifics about what I bought and spent during the month of April 2022:

Walmart Pick-Up

In order to keep up with all of the fresh produce we eat at our house, I have been placing a Walmart Pick-Up order a few times each month. My friend Pam comes to help me with the kids each morning, and she is awesome enough to grab my pick-up orders when I schedule them right before her time to come over.

Walmart Pick-Up April 6: $112 

Walmart Pick-Up April 12: $167 – I was prepping for a huge Easter dinner, so this order included candy for our Easter egg hunt plus some treats to supplement our big meal.

Walmart Pick-Up April 29: $127 – Justus graduated from college on the 30th, so along with fresh produce, I ordered brats and other food we needed to feed people who came to his reception.

Local Grocery Store

We have a very nice store just a few blocks from our house. They are great, however, their prices are usually higher so it’s hard for me to justify doing much shopping there since we buy so many groceries.

I run there a couple of times each month, though, to grab a few needed items, to take advantage of sales, and to get WIC items. (Three of our foster daughters qualify for WIC, which provides them with free formula, milk, cheese, cereal, produce, and a few other items. This is a huge blessing!)

Since these trips are short and sweet, I try to take one or two littles with me so they can have a fun outing and learn a little bit about shopping and obeying at the store. Here’s a summary of our April Grand Central Trips:

Grand Central April 3: $15 – I ran in and grabbed milk because we were almost out!

Grand Central April 11: $42 – I picked up all of our WIC items for the month, plus filled in a few gaps by grabbing some buns and frozen items we needed. WIC covered most of our cart that day, praise God.

Local Farm Milk: $40 – We are in a group that takes turns picking up farm-fresh milk each Tuesday. We get 2-gallons each week, and it is incredible milk!

April Trip to Lincoln

Costco – $420

  • Bottled water
  • Olives
  • Granola Bites
  • Strawberries
  • Blueberries
  • Clementines
  • Apples
  • Pears
  • Canned chicken
  • Tortilla Chips
  • Gogurt
  • Heavenly Hunk snacks
  • Coffee
  • Olive Oil
  • Sugar
  • Brown sugar
  • Almond butter
  • Bread
  • Brat rolls
  • Croissants
  • Boxes of chips
  • Frozen pizza
  • Tilapia
  • Chicken thighs
  • Chicken nuggets
  • Mozzarella cheese
  • Cheddar jack cheese
  • Applesauce squeezies
  • Yogurt squeezies
  • Kombucha
  • Italian dressing
  • Mustard
  • Fruit bars
  • Cinnamon streusel bread
  • Pizza making kit (with four crusts and sauce)

Sam’s – $229

  • Boneless chicken thighs marked down!
  • Red grapes
  • Frozen cheese curds
  • Frozen orange chicken box
  • Case of canned baked beans
  • Case of canned corn
  • Spaghetti sauce
  • Sliced pepper jack cheese
  • Sliced colby jack cheese
  • 2-pack of whole wheat sandwich bread
  • Turkey lunch meat
  • Potato salad
  • Pepperoni
  • Mixed greens
  • Spinach x2
  • Bananas
  • Half and half
  • Sour cream
  • Hamburger patties
  • Hamburger buns
  • Applesauce
  • Spaghetti sauce
  • Fish sticks
  • Raspberries
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Apple juice

Total Grocery Spending for April

$1,152 

I try to keep our spending under $1,200 each month, so mission accomplished. We fed guests, we ate well, and as far as I can remember, we didn’t eat out at all this month.

Wait. I was sick one day so Matt ordered pizza while caring for so many littles while Mommy was in bed. :)

Care to share what your grocery spending was for April?

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Tips to Save Time in the Kitchen

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Since 2007 I’ve been sharing tips for how to save time in the kitchen. Here are some of my best!
Now that it’s 2022 and we’ve added more amazing kids to our family, I find that I continue to find more and more ways to use my time as wisely as possible.

My current favorite ways to save time in the kitchen:

Here are some additional time-saving ideas – in case you want to be awesome and make Cinnamon Rolls and Granola:

I’ve been buying granola as of late and the only cinnamon rolls we eat are ones I bought at Christmas-time from my nephew and nieces who were baking to raise money to buy more chickens for their family project. :)

So apparently that’s my newest time-saving tip: Buy it from someone else, ha. Goodness, how far I’ve come. I’m the one who used to make everything from scratch. I don’t even remember that old me anymore. :) I don’t have any guilt over this – the old me or the new me. That’s God at work, people. :)

Still, we are eating quite a lot of nourishing foods each day, even if we do compromise here and there.

What are some of your time-saving tricks?
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Add Spinach to Cake (It Tastes AMAZING!!!)

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It’s true. I add spinach to cake now. We will get greens into these kids, will we not?!

Look at this and tell me that you see spinach:

Right? And neither did he:

Now, he is a 3-year-old. Therefore, he also eats the occasional dirt or piece of tortilla that has been stuck under his car seat since last Christmas. So can he really be trusted?

Look at that face. If he can’t be trusted, who can? Though he is not to be trusted with choosing an outfit. It was snowing the day he was determined to wear these swim trunks. Why? Because they had sharks on them, which perfectly matched the sharks on his shirt. Obviously.

So about adding spinach to cake. I got the idea from Justus’ fiance.

She can absolutely be trusted. With food, with picking outfits, and of course, with picking a husband. She’s a keeper.

One day in my kitchen she saw me making these smoothies (yes, she already knows we’re weird and she still wants to marry into the Coppinger family). She was like: “Hey, did you know you can add spinach to a cake mix? I saw it on a reel!”

Fascinated, and seeing as I am in a desperate way to get as many nourishing foods into my kids as possible, I decided to pick up a cake mix the next time I was at the store. (<— Read that sentence again. Weirdest thing I’ve ever typed. Hahahahaha. Who even am I anymore?)

Yes, I picked up a cake mix. To help us eat greens. Yo. Betty Crocker gets salad into the children. We love her.

There’s the blender filled with spinach, oil, and water. If that doesn’t look like a delicious cake waiting to happen, I don’t know what does.

Then, in went eggs and cake mix.

It’s a cake mix? It’s a smoothie? No one actually knows what this is.

In fact, Malachi (our 17-year-old) watched in horror as he saw me blend this up and then pour it into a cake pan. “Mom, what are you doing??!!”

Poor kid. He knows his mom is tired. He really thought I’d lost my mind (some more). He thought I was pouring smoothie into a pan and putting it into the oven.

So then I told him what I was actually doing and he was disgusted that he’d seen the entire thing transpire. Not knowing there was spinach in the cake would have been much better, thought he. But alas, the damage had been done. He’d seen the spinach get blended into the cake. He left for soccer practice full of skepticism.

Would you look at that? It’s just a chocolate cake. Full of spinach that no one can see. Bah.

I frosted it, you know, just to add more sugar to our nourishing cake. What in the world. I then took a blurry picture.

Let’s take another look at that first taste-tester, shall we?

Can you see a slight green tint within the chocolate? No, you cannot. Only because you know it’s there do you think that you see greenish-brown.

Below you can read about how you can also put greens into your cake. We have all lost our minds. I guess we don’t care if our kids eat the sugar as long as they are also eating salad??

How to Add Spinach to CakeYum

5.0 from 4 reviews
Add Spinach to Cake (It Tastes AMAZING!!!)
 
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Author:
Serves: 15
Ingredients
  • 1 chocolate cake mix
  • 1¼ cups water
  • ⅓ cup olive oil
  • 3 eggs
  • 3-4 cups fresh spinach
Instructions
  1. Blend everything up in a high power blender.
  2. Pour the batter into a 9x13 inch baking pan.
  3. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  4. Allow cake to cool before frosting.

And that’s how it’s done.

Will this be a way I frequently get greens into my children?

I don’t think that it will. But then again, I’m kind of on a roll with thinking of new ways to add veggie nourishment to our food. Wonder what else I can add spinach to?

Oh, in case you’re wondering…

Malachi’s Response:

He loved this cake and couldn’t get over it. “It’s so good! How is it this good?!” said we, between bites of cake.

I bet he’ll never be skeptical again when I put green stuff into a cake pan.

Listen, we all loved this cake. We decided that spinach makes it extra moist. I dare you to try it. :)

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Easy Recipes and Tips to Help Keep Food Costs Down

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With grocery prices going up, we can still keep food costs down. Here’s how!

For my own sake and for yours, I decided to do some digging. I wanted to put together a thorough list of recipes and meal/snack ideas to help us all keep our food costs down.

First, do not despair

Media wants us to panic. I feel that we really have no need to worry! Sure, grocery prices are up and may still climb. But we can make this work!

Next, some ways to save big bucks:

Here are some of my initial ideas for saving some money on groceries. None of these will likely work for everyone, but maybe you can find one or two that work for you.

  1. Garden if you can. Or purchase from a gardening friend.
  2. Raise your own meat and eggs if you can. This is a no-go for most of us, but perhaps you know some local farmers you can buy from.
  3. Take advantage of any and all offers of free or inexpensive food you might have available to you. We often have friends with extra garden produce to give away. We also have friends with fruit trees and they tell us to come “have at it!”
  4. Make food from scratch if you can. See lots of great and easy recipe ideas below!
  5. Avoid processed food if you can. Packaged convenience foods can really deplete our grocery budgets. Consider other easy-to-make meals (recipes below).
  6. Buy and eat “in season” produce. The prices of fresh fruits and vegetables are still very reasonable and one of the best ways to get nourishment! Don’t buy into the lie that fruits and veggies are too expensive.
  7. Frozen fruits and vegetables are very reasonable in cost! Take advantage of this as a way to keep buying and eating healthy foods.
  8. Don’t let food go to waste. If produce is going bad, freeze it to use in broth (veggies) or smoothies (fruit). Save leftovers and be creative in how you use them up.
  9. Take advantage of “loss leaders” at grocery stores. Our local stores are still offering great sale-priced items to get us into the stores, and I bet yours are too! Take advantage of these and stock up when you find a great sale.
  10. Look for items that have been marked down. I almost always check the meat section at our grocery stores to see what might be close to expiring and therefore marked down. I save a lot of money this way and have freezer space to keep the meat good until we need it.

Easy Recipes to Help Keep Food Costs Down

I’ve noticed that the cost of prepared baked goods has gone up. Instead of buying them, I’ve been making inexpensive recipes like this for my family:

Muffins

Easy-to-Make Breakfast Breads and Bars

Cereal prices seem much higher than normal, so consider these fun ideas:

Homemade Cereal – Easier than you think!

Inexpensive Meal Ideas:

Meals you can make instead of buy:

These meals are not necessarily the cheapest to make compared to those listed above. But these are less expensive to make from scratch compared to buying them premade or compared to eating out.

Grocery Shopping Tips:

If you’re looking to save money, here are some foods you want to stock up on and some foods you might want to avoid.

Buy This:

  • Fruit that is in season and/or on sale
  • Chicken legs
  • Whole chicken
  • Boneless chicken thighs or breasts
  • Ground turkey or chicken
  • Ingredients for homemade baking: flour, sugar, honey, spices, oil, baking powder, salt
  • Oats
  • Rice
  • Potatoes
  • Pasta
  • Pasta sauce

Avoid This:

  • Fruit that is out of season
  • Ground beef (buy this when it’s on sale to use sparingly as it is significantly more than ground turkey)
  • Cheese and cream cheese (we eat a lot of cheese, but I’ve been trying to use it less in our meals overall to save a few bucks)
  • Premade baked goods (with the exception of bread and buns which are still reasonably priced)
  • Frozen meals

What are your go-to meals that are money savers?

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The Easiest Way to Make Hamburgers

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This really is the easiest way to make hamburgers. I’ll grill them in the summertime, otherwise I will forevermore do this!

The Easiest Way to Make HamburgersYum

Short answer: Bake them.

Not because we’re afraid to fry them. But because we don’t want to stand at the stove to fry them. It’s messy. It takes maintenance. We don’t have time to maintain our patties, am I right? The patties must maintain themselves.

I love buying a package of hamburger patties at Costco. I set them out all afternoon and they are semi-thawed by 4ish. I cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper and place the partially thawed patties on the pan.

I bake them at 350 for about an hour. If I remember, I flip them all over halfway through their baking time. But if I don’t, I don’t. Why? Because we don’t have time to maintain our patties. Our patties must maintain themselves.

Now. My pictures are ugly. These patties do not look done, but they are done and you’ll be able to tell that your patties are done with they are sizzly and brown.

Right out of the oven, I put some sliced cheese on the hot patties for those who prefer cheeseburgers. Some in my family like Colby jack. Some like pepper jack. I like mine cheeseless.

Dinner is served with burger fixins, fries in our air fryer, carrot sticks, pickles, and baked beans.

Leftover patties (if there are any) warm up quickly for lunches, and I’ve been known to pull one out of the fridge and eat it cold when I simply need sustenance. Apparently, not only do I have time to maintain my patties, but I barely have time to maintain myself. So a cold leftover burger patty fills my belly. With a glass of this, of course. :)

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Big Family Food: Making the Meal Stretch

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Today we’ll talk about Making the Meal Stretch as I share our Big Family Food Journey. But this post could also be titled: Feeding Picky Kids. See also: How to Add a Big Variety of Fruits and Vegetables to the Table. Sounds like we have a lot of ground to cover today!

What I am about to share will tell you how we regularly:

  • Feed our big family without making a huge portion of the main dish for every meal
  • Accommodate picky eaters, and…
  • Provide lots of fruits and veggies for our crew.
  • Bonus: This stretches the grocery budget too!

Another Bonus: This method works for families of all sizes, small and large!

Big Family Food: Making the Meal Stretch

Even though we typically feed 8-15 or more at every meal, I don’t always make a double or triple batch of our main dish. That could get really expensive! So instead, I often make one large main dish and then provide a big variety of nourishing sides to fill us up!

Here’s a list of items I might pull out to serve with the main dish we have prepared. Typically I prepare (or simply pull from the fridge or pantry) four or five of these:

For instance…

Here’s an example of some food I set out to serve with a 9×13 Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole one night. We had company, so there were 18 of us eating. (Note: Several were little ones who ate very small portions.) With our casserole, I served:

  • a pan of warm homemade rolls
  • a pot of steamed green beans
  • a pot of buttered corn
  • a plate of clementines and kiwi
  • and a plate of sliced cheese.

Not pictured from this meal: corn, rolls, and casserole. Plus the adorable face of our 2yo. :)
Everyone got full and we even had a little bit of corn and casserole leftover.

Stretch the Meal, Accommodate the Picky Eaters

If I set out 4-5 of the above-listed items to go with our meals, I tell the kids to pick 2-3 (or more if they want). This has worked so beautifully because in the case of our foster/adopted kids, letting them choose their sides gives them a sense of control when so much of their life has felt out of control.

But I don’t let them rule the show. As in, I don’t let the kids ask for something that isn’t already an offering on our buffet.

If I’ve set out the main dish, a bowl of grapes, sliced apples, steamed broccoli, and mixed greens with ranch – they don’t get to turn up their nose and ask for a pickle or a PBJ. I know what all of our kids like and don’t like. So I know that the choices I set out WILL accommodate all of the kids’ preferences in some way. I have them choose at least one fruit and one veggie from the choices provided and that’s that.

See how this stretches the meal?

I feel like I’ve talked more about accommodating picky eaters than I have about stretching the meal to feed 10-20 people. So let’s talk a little bit about how my method of serving several side dishes makes our main dish stretch farther!

If I were to make a Simple Ham and Hashbrown Casserole and serve it with a salad – we would run out of casserole after everyone had only one small or medium-sized helping. But if I make a Simple Ham and Hashbrown Casserole and set it out with:

…then everyone can help themselves to the casserole, and fill up on all/some of the sides that are available. (Just like the example I shared above when we served one casserole to 18 people.)

Yes, sometimes I make a double batch of the main dish – 2 big casseroles, an extra huge pot of soup, or several pounds of meat. But this can really eat away at our grocery budget and typically it means I fight more food battles with the littles. Making one biggish portion of our main dish and serving a big variety of sides works much better for us!

Samples of Making Our Meals Stretch

Here are some examples of what I might serve with main dishes to stretch our meals.

Roast with:

Taco Meat with:

  • Tortillas and Chips
  • Black Beans or Refried Beans
  • Stick-of-Butter-Rice
  • Corn
  • Salsa
  • Avocados
  • Lettuce
  • Tomatoes
  • Olives
  • Cheese
  • Pineapple
  • Grapes

Hearty Bean Casserole with:

  • Biscuits or Muffins
  • Apple slices
  • Clementines
  • Salad
  • Grape tomatoes

Hamburgers with:

Pizza with:

If I make these smoothies, I don’t typically set out anything else. They include greens and fruit, so that covers everything!

Spaghetti with:

  • Steamed broccoli
  • Fresh greens with ranch
  • Corn
  • Sweet peppers
  • Cantaloupe
  • Pears

Grilled Chicken with:

  • Peas
  • Fresh greens with ranch
  • Raspberries
  • Pickles
  • Bread and butter or muffins

In some ways, it might seem easier to some to make a main dish with just a couple of sides and call it good. But that doesn’t work for my family. There are too many of us and many of my little ones and teens are picky. I’ve found that I fight fewer food battles by setting out several sides. Plus most of these sides don’t take any effort to put on our counter for our kids to pick from!

It’s really very easy.

Fruit mostly just has to be washed and served. Or if I need to cut or slice it, I try to do it ahead of time and just pull out a bowl of cantaloupe or watermelon, etc. at mealtime. Veggies just have to be steamed and served. Pickles come in a jar. Muffins have already been baked – I just take the lid off the container. Easy, easy, easy!

Stay tuned for more Big Family Food posts, where I share all about how I make food for our big family!

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16 Taco Recipe Ideas You’ll Love

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Do you do Taco Tuesday at your house? Try any of these 16 taco recipe ideas for variety!

As I was searching my website for taco recipes, I came across this gem: That One Time I Had to Chase My Taco

I’d forgotten about it but it is worth remembering. It’s all about the time I had to chase my ridiculous (but precious) taco pinata across the Walmart parking lot as it flew away toward the cornfield. And I lived to write about it:
And now we’re all hungry for tacos!

16 Taco Recipe Ideas You’ll Love

  1. Taco Seasoning Mix
  2. Simple Ranch Taco Chip Dip
  3. Instant Pot Taco Pasta
  4. Skillet Taco Pasta
  5. Crock Pot Taco Pasta
  6. Simple Popcorn Chicken Tacos
  7. Easy Taco Salad
  8. Shredded Chicken for Tacos
  9. Taco Rice Dinner
  10. 20-Minute Taco Soup
  11. Chicken Taco Soup
  12. Taco Quesadillas
  13. Taco Corn Fritters
  14. Taco Potatoes
  15. Taco Potato Skillet
  16. Easy Taco Cheesy Bean Dip

As you can see, tacos aren’t just tacos. There’s taco soup, taco salad, taco potatoes, and so much more. My family loves these recipes and they are so easy!

Also? I don’t see much difference in burritos and tacos, so it is worth mentioning the fantastic Burrito Bar! When I do this (frequently!) for our family and guests, it’s like Chipotle, only so much less expensive! Check out this great idea!

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Big Family Food: What’s On Every Plate

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I’m so glad you’re following our Big Family Food journey! (Missed the first posts? Catch them here.)

I thought it would be good to follow my Great Compromise post with a post that shares what I make sure to put on every plate, no matter what.

Like I talked about here, sometimes I have no time – or very little time – to cook. Our days are full of this:

I could go on and on with pictures of the days of our lives. It’s amazing, and did I mention full? So when it comes to food, now, instead of making sure every part of our meal is the healthiest of the healthy, here is what I focus on:

I make sure there are fruits and vegetables on every plate.

This is something I recommend for everyone, no matter your family size or what season in life you are enjoying. No matter what else is on your plate, just be sure there are fruits and vegetables there too.

It’s really quite simple. In fact, I’ve found that it’s the simplest way to put together meals!

See from the pictures how there are several fruits and veggies on each plate – no matter what I serve?

The same goes for when/if all I have time to make is Mac and Cheese, Frozen Pizza, Chicken Nuggets, or PBJ. Here are some examples of “compromise” meals I might put together:

  • Mac and Cheese with peas and grapes
  • Frozen Pizza with fresh spinach dipped in ranch and apple slices
  • Chicken Nuggets with sweet potato fries and these rockin smoothies
  • PBJ with clementines and steamed broccoli

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: Matt and I survive on these smoothies. I make a blenderful every other day and we share it. They are jam-packed with nourishment and give us WAY MORE GREENS than we could ever chew. I’ve gotten to the point that I stuff my Blendtec full of spring mix (about 1/2 pound), add some frozen fruit, pour in some milk, blend it and go. We would never eat that many greens at one time. But in this smoothie? We drink it down and love it.

So Matt and I tend to drink these smoothies even while grabbing a couple of chicken nuggets or a piece of pizza on the fly. Meanwhile, I make this version for the kids.

Great fruit and vegetable choices for your plates

To make it easy for all of us, I’ve put together a list of easy-to-serve fruit and veggie choices to serve with meals:

It truly is easy to add any of these to your meal plates! It’s one of best my Big Family Food tips: always add fruit and veggies to whatever I find time to make for my family. Even if all I do is open some cans of pineapple and a bag of baby carrots!

Read here about how to have fun filling your cart with fresh produce your family will love!

Stay tuned for more Big Family Food posts, where I share all about how I make food for our big family!

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Grinding Wheat into Flour: Getting Ahead

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Using my time and energy for grinding wheat into flour has felt a little bit difficult lately. Here’s an idea I decided to try!

I love using freshly ground wheat in our baked goods. In fact, I haven’t bought flour at the store in a good long while. Years and years. Instead, I’ve bought hard wheat and soft wheat from Azure Standard. Then I grind the wheat into flour to use in baking.

There’s no comparison! Freshly ground flour is incredible and delicious! Here’s how I do it —>

How to Grind Flour in a Grain Mill! #grainmill #grindflour #wholewheatflour

Meanwhile, God has added a wagonful of littles to our home.

These sweethearts keep me from baking much at all, much less grinding my wheat into flour for baking. Often, I would think about baking something if I had a spare 10-15 minutes, only to nix the idea simply because I didn’t want to have to first grind flour for the task.

Maybe this is a season for me to buy flour instead of wheat? Maybe. But I already had several pounds of wheat in storage. I didn’t want it taking up space or going to waste. So here’s what I did one morning when I had a friend over to help with all the kids!

Grinding Flour Into Wheat: Getting Ahead

I had a marathon wheat grinding morning.

I don’t keep my Nutrimill on the countertop, so digging it out and cleaning up after myself never sounds fun during this crazy season of life. But getting my Nutrimill out to grind a bunch of flour all at once? Making ONE BIG MESS instead of many small messes? Let’s do this.

I labeled freezer bags with “Soft Wheat” and “Hard Wheat” (read more about this below), then I kept running batch after batch of wheat through the mill to grind into flour. I transferred the fresh flour to gallon-sized freezer bags, then put the bags into the freezer.

All said and done, I ended up with about 10 gallons of flour in my freezer! (And a big mess, but whatever. Better one mess than ten, right?)

So, now the flour isn’t fresh anymore?

Well, true. But since I’m keeping it in the freezer, it’ll stay good for a long time, and it will still taste great! Considering the fact I was going to buy flour from the store to get me by until I am able to grind flour again, I feel like this is still a better option: to grind my wheat into flour ahead of time and freeze it until I need it!

After this runs out, I’ll see how I’m doing. I may still feel the need to buy my flour already ground for a while. But as for now, I sure do love that I don’t have to pull out my mill for a while. When I need to bake something or make pancakes, I can just pull out the already-ground flour from my freezer!

Hard Wheat vs. Soft Wheat

Both grains grind into whole wheat flour. I like having both on hand and here’s why:

  1. Use hard wheat to make yeast bread recipes.
  2. Use soft wheat to make non-yeast recipes like muffins and pancakes.

It is possible to use hard wheat for ALL recipes. But I like soft wheat because it makes such a nice pastry flour for fluffy muffins and such. Here are some of our favorite wheat recipes:

Favorite Hard Wheat Recipes

Favorite Soft Wheat Recipes

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