Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

The Promised Letter to Your Husbands about Why They Should Buy You a Grain Mill

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Dear Husbands of Heavenly Homemakers Readers,

First and foremost, let me tell you that you all have fantastic wives. They are among some of my most favorite people ever. Way to go and congratulations on choosing such a fine woman to be your help-meet.

And now I’d like to take a moment to encourage you to strongly consider purchasing a Grain Mill for your wife (for Christmas, or tomorrow would also be fine). I know how much she’d like one. I know how much she’d use it. 

And the best news for you…I know how much you’d like the breads and other foods she’d make for you with the freshly ground flour her Grain Mill produces.

What? You don’t like whole wheat? I understand. But listen…the whole wheat flour that your wife’s new grain mill creates is like NONE other you have ever had. You’re likely to not even recognize that your bread is whole wheat. I promise.

Just think. After your wife serves you some hot homemade bread straight from the oven, she can experiment with other delicious whole wheat recipes like these whole wheat pretzels…whole wheat cinnamon rolls…whole wheat donuts…cinnamon swirl bread…

And while you think that you couldn’t possibly love your wife more than you do at this very minute…I think you will fall even more in love with her (even if she does have streaks of flour in her hair) after she bakes these delightful treats for you.

One of the best parts of owning a grain mill is how much MONEY it saves. Your wife knows how much you love to save your hard earned money. She’d be happy to use her new Grain Mill to help you save money.

Don’t know where to start looking for a Grain Mill or which Grain Mill to get? No problem.  Just go read this.  Don’t know where to buy the grain for your Grain Mill? Gotcha covered. Go read this.

Have more questions? Email my husband (coppinger6 at gmail dot com). He will tell you everything you need to know. He’s really, really happy that we got a Grain Mill. I think he also thinks I look cute with flour in my hair. 

Or maybe he’s just used to it.

Sincerely,
Laura at Heavenly Homemakers

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Grain Mills Pt. 3: What Grains to Use and Where to Find Them

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In this little Grain Mill Series, we’ve talked about whether or not you should buy a grain mill…and if so…which one should you get and where should you get it? Now we’ll talk about which grains to use and where you can find them!

Which Grain to Use:

  • I try to find organic or chemical free grain.
  • My very favorite grain to use is Hard White Organic Wheat. I like it much better than Hard Red Wheat. It has the same nutritional value, but when you use hard white wheat, it hardly seems like you’re eating whole wheat at all! Hard red wheat seems to make my recipes a bit heavier.
  • You can use Soft White Wheat to make pastry flour (for use in cookies and muffins) and Hard White Wheat for yeast breads. BUT I just use my hard white wheat for everything. It’s just simpler…I only have to have one kind of wheat on hand…and it just tastes good.
  • I also love kamut and spelt…but don’t use them as much, usually because they cost a bit more.
  • I grind my own corn into corn meal. This makes the BEST cornbread and cornbread muffins. I love freshly ground corn!
  • You can grind rice and make rice flour if you like. It is actually recommended that you grind a cup or so of rice every few months through your mill just to clean it out! (I’ve GOT to remember to do that!)

Where to Find Good Quality Grains:

  • First check around locally. Check out Local Harvest to find out if there is a good source of grains near you.
  • I almost always order my wheat, corn and rice from Azure Standard. If you live in an area where there is an Azure Standard co-op delivery, I highly recommend purchasing this high quality grain from them. You can still order independently from Azure Standard, but shipping may be high.
  • Tropical Traditions has several varieties of very high quality grains. Watch for “free shipping” days and take advantage!
  • Paula’s Bread sells a few different varieties of grain on her site. She’ll ship it to you, or you can go pick it up if you live near her in Oklahoma.
  • Pleasant Hill Grain happens to be right up the road from me!! I was excited to see the shipping is FREE on orders over $99!!!!
  • Wheat Montana has great prices on wonderful wheat (I used to be able to get their wheat from Wal-mart for a great price). Shipping from their site is pretty pricey.
  • Healthy Food Mall is worth checking into. Their costs are higher for the grain, but shipping seemed more reasonable.
  • Don’t forget Amazon. I’ve never bought grain from them because shipping is high, but I keep checking there to see if there’s a reasonable option.

Grain will last for a long time. If you come upon a good resource for wheat, I say buy a LOT. It will store safely for years without going bad!

Okay everyone with a grain mill!! Share where buy your grain and where you live so that others in your area can learn from you!
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This post is linked to Frugal Fridays.

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Grain Mills Pt. 2: Which Ones Do I Recommend? Where Should You Buy One?

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If you missed the first post of this series where I try to convince you that you SHOULD buy a grain mill because it saves a lot of money and is more nutritious and all of your baked foods taste better, go here. For fewer run-on sentences…keep reading. :)

Now…IF you decide to invest in a grain mill…which one should you buy? There are all kinds of varieties out there. Here are a few that I know something about:

I have a Nutrimill.

I’ve never had a different kind of grain mill, so I don’t have much to compare it to…but I LOVE my Nutrimill. Everyone I’ve talked to that has one LOVES them. The only complaint I’ve ever heard about Nutrimills is that it is a bit hard to clean them. My answer to that is:  Clean them?

While I do clean mine occasionally…I find it hardly worth the effort. I use mine almost daily and while I sort of wipe off the outside a bit after each use…I don’t find it necessary to thoroughly clean it very often. (Also, if you run rice through them occasionally, that will clean the inside!)

While the Nutrimill grinds the flour it does not heat the grain in the process, preserving all of the nutrients in the grain. I’ve ground wheat (hard and soft), spelt, kamut, buckwheat, rye, corn and rice with my Nutrimill. It does give the option of grinding at a finer or coarser setting…although I’ve never found that changing the setting makes much difference. My flour is usually quite fine and I love it.

A friend of mine has a Whisper Mill.

If you own a Whisper Mill maybe you can offer a different opinion about it, BUT my friend really DOESN’T like it. She says, “It takes up a LOT of space. The two pieces make it hard to store… you have to hook up the ‘bucket’  with a plastic arm that breaks easily. Mine has never ground anything bigger than wheat very well.” Anyone else have an opinion on the Whisper Mill?

If you have a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer, you can purchase this attachment for it.

Any of you grind your flour this way?

I’m also very interested in investing in a hand grinder…just in case we would ever need to grind grain without electricity. Here’s one I’m looking at. Do any of you have experience with hand grinders and want to recommend one?

Several of you mentioned a Vitamix on this post.

Sounds like there are mixed reviews on this one. It seems that if you grind a large amount of flour, it takes too long in the Vitamix. On the other hand, you can do other things with the Vitamix, making it a more multi-purpose investment. Read the comments here if you’re interested in learning more about the Vitamix.

Where should I buy my Grain Mill?

I would recommend looking at your options of grain mills at Amazon (you can maybe even find a used one) OR check out Paula’s Bread.

Paula’s Bread has ALL kinds of great kitchen products and several varieties of grain mills. Read about Paula’s family here and consider supporting her business if you’re looking to purchase a grain mill! Her prices are very reasonable. I’m very impressed with all of the products she carries. (Side note:  Paula’s Bread is a sponsor of mine, but she did not pay me anything extra to write this. I just really love her site and wanted to point you there in case you hadn’t seen her ad on my sidebar!)
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If you have a grain mill, please share what kind you have and why you like it or dislike it!!!

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Grain Mills Pt. 1: Should You Buy One? Does it Save Money?

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I’ve been grinding my own flour for about four years now and I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!! I can’t say enough good about freshly ground whole grain flour. The taste is NOTHING like store bought whole wheat flour. The freshness is unbeatable. Because it is fresh, the nutritional value is much higher. I love my grain mill!

If you do a lot of baking and you want to bake with whole grains…I very much recommend saving up for a grain mill. (I sold baked goods at our farmer’s market one year to pay for mine!)

Here’s the investment payoff I calculated:

I have a Nutrimill, which cost me about $250…

I buy organic hard white wheat berries, 50 pounds for about $33.00, which lasts me about two months. I make all of our bread, tortillas, muffins, rolls, pretzels, crackers, cookies, cakes…everything that requires flour.

If I were to go to the store and buy the amount of bread and tortillas our family of six needs in two months, my rough calculating tells me that I would spend about $56.00. JUST ON BREAD AND TORTILLAS. That doesn’t include all the muffins and other grain products I make with my $33.00 bag of grain in two months.

AND…the products I bake are a bajillion (scientifically proven  :) ) times healthier than what I can buy at the store.

Looking at those figures…it would seem that my grain mill paid for itself in about 10 months…although it’s really much less than that because again, my figures only included the cost of bread and tortillas and I get MANY MORE baked goods out of my bag of grain than just those (plus I was being conservative in my calculations).

So, I would say my grain mill paid for itself in about six months…and the savings just keep on keeping on! In fact, while I had my calculator out I figured out that I’ve saved approximately $552 in four years by grinding my own flour and baking whole grain food from scratch for my family. THAT was exciting to calculate!

There now. Would you like me to write a letter to your husbands, convincing them to buy you a grain mill for Christmas? I’d do it. :)

This post begins a short little series on Grain Mills and grinding and baking with whole grain flour. Coming up I’ll share about:

  • Different kinds of grain mills, which ones I recommend and where to purchase them
  • Where to buy grain and what kind to buy
  • Tips on baking with whole grains
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Feeding the Family: More Organic Food Resources

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It’s been quite a while since I wrote a “Feeding the Family” post. Apparently I’ve been too busy feeding my family to write about it. You can catch up on the rest of this series here.
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Way back when (give or take) I talked about some of my favorite online or co-op resources for organic whole foods. I’ve been doing a little more research to see what other options are available. I love that it IS possible to feed our families good, whole foods without breaking the bank (or travelling 400 miles)!

Here are a few whole foods sources I’d like to highlight today…

Azure Standard

I know I mention them often, but Azure Standard is my favorite source for ordering food. This link will tell you if Azure Standard delivers to your area. And guess what?! This fall they are working to expand to parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas. I’d recommend looking into this more if you live in any of these states!

Quail Cove Farms

Quail Cove Farms is a family owned farm specializing in natural and organic foods. They supply free-range meats and eggs, hormone-free cheeses and butters, and organic produce. If you live in Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, and North Carolina you should check them out!

Country Life Natural Foods

Country Life Natural Foods is a wholesale and retail distributor of natural, organic and vegetarian foods. They are located in Pullman, MI. It seems that you don’t have to be a part of their food co-op to order, but that you can just have your items sent to you through UPS.

Peapod

Peapod is an online grocery store for those of you who live in:  Chicagoland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York,  New Jersey, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia…and I think they have expanded to Wisconsin! I love that you simply place your Peapod order and they deliver your food right to your door! They do charge a small delivery fee but it is very reasonable (it’s less than what I pay for Azure to deliver).

Peapod has a whole line of organic products. I looked through their fresh organic produce and couldn’t believe all the great selection!!! I would LOVE to have that kind of variety of organic fruits and veggies at my fingertips. They also have quite a few choices of frozen fruits and vegetables…some natural sweeteners…and several other things that I would definitely buy if indeed they would be willing to drive to my doorstep in Nebraska. You’ll receive free delivery for the first 60 days after placing your first order. Plus…get $10 off your first order at Peapod. Click Here!

Amazon

Amazon is a great place to shop for organic groceries. Yesterday I spent some time looking through their grocery section and couldn’t believe all the pages and pages of organic foods. Most of their food items qualify for “super saver shipping” (which is free) because the cases of food are over $25. (And because the food is new, not used. I’m always much more inclined to eat food that isn’t used, aren’t you?)  Spend some time looking through all the Amazon grocery options.

Frontier Co-op

Frontier offers many varieties of spices, herbs and teas, plus quite a few toiletry items. You can order directly from Frontier, but I recommend starting a food co-op with your friends so that you can receive their products at wholesale prices and receive free shipping. As far as I understand it, Frontier will deliver anywhere in the US.

Okay everyone. Help us all out with more great online and/or co-op resources. I know we all live in different places so please leave comments telling us all what resources you have in YOUR area so that we’ll all know what is available to us wherever we are.
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This post is linked to Frugal Fridays.

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Guest Post: Healthy Eating for Wimps

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I’m so grateful for this guest post from Amy at Finer Things. Not only can I now go spend time finding a shovel so that I can dig out my kitchen and once again have a clean dish to cook with….this post is just so well written and helpful. Thank you Amy! And just so you know…I don’t think you are a wimp.  :)
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I’ve learned a lot about healthy eating over the past few years. Mainly, that healthy eating isn’t what I thought it was! While soaking my grains and making my own yogurt and buying everything organic still seems a bit out of reach for me, I am making strides. 

You can, too! Feeling wimpy about your healthy choices? Overwhelmed about a 180°  turn in your eating habits? Here are some of the things I’ve done; painless baby steps if you will.  

  • I make all of our own bread in the bread machine. The machine does the work, then I shape and bake the loaves.
  • I’m gradually increasing the amount of whole wheat in my recipes, rarely making anything with just white flour. We are all adjusting beautifully to the heartier taste and texture of whole wheat, and find it very difficult to eat plain white.
  • We only eat natural peanut butter. That’s an easy fix. It doesn’t cost much more than the partially hydrogenated scary stuff, and it tastes great!
  • I work constantly to reduce the amount of sugar in recipes, especially muffins and sweet breads. Substituting applesauce or mashed bananas for some of the sugar (and oil) works nicely. I also add other fruits to the mix, cutting the sugar nearly in half. We don’t miss it!
  • No more margarine or shortening in my house. It’s all butter here. After I got over the price shock, it was an easy switch. I’ve learned to stock up and freeze butter when it’s on sale.
  • We recently found a farm for our eggs and milk. It completely blechs me out to eat a pale yellow store-bought egg now, and the milk? No more infertility-causing skim milk for us. I had no idea! Did you?!
  • While I still buy the occasional granola bar or box of cereal, those items are stored in our basement “out of site, out of mind.” They are saved for our ballgame bag (can’t be any less healthy than concession stand food!) or spur-of-the-moment road trips.

 

See? Small changes can lead to healthy strides in your wimpy eating! 

What changes are you ready to make?

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Feeding the Family: Buying in Bulk (or…The Promised Post About My Oats)

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Thanks for being so patient with me. I know all of you have been dying to look at my bag of oats for the past several weeks and have probably lost sleep over wondering when I would finally get to it.

And now, without further ado (wow, I had no idea how to spell ado…adu?..adoooo?…adew?)  Anyway, without further ado…my bag of oats:

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I think in this post I called it a 50 pound bag of oats. It is in fact, only a 25 pound bag of oats. (Hopefully, the bag wasn’t offended when I overshot her weight.)  Twenty five pounds of oats is quite large enough for me to handle at once. And…it lasts us well over half the year.

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Last week, in my Azure Standard order, I got a 25 pound bag of oats…a 50 pound bag of Sucanat…and a 50 pound bag of wheat. Malachi played “king of the bulk purchases pile” until Matt was home and could move them for me.

I LOVE buying in bulk. It makes me feel all “Ma Ingalls-ish”. The only difference is that my bags are made of thick paper instead of cloth…so I can’t use them to make my new bloomers. Yep, that’s the only difference.

Buying in bulk does save money. But actually, that’s not my favorite part of buying big bags of food. My really favorite part about buying bulk bags is that it just makes life simpler for me. I don’t have to buy a little bag of rice or oats or pasta or whatever every month. I have lots of big bags of everything I need, giving me oh so many cooking options.

Yes, big bags of bulk are my friends.

I’m thankful to have the storage space to make buying in bulk feasible. It saves me money, time, energy and brain power.

More about how I store my bulk purchases here and here.

Do you buy in bulk? How do you store your bulk food purchases?
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This post is linked to Frugal Fridays at Life as Mom.

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Feeding the Family: Lunchtime

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Several of you have asked (or perhaps wanted to ask) how we have time and afford to eat a big meal at lunchtime as well as dinnertime.

If you look at my menus…you’ll notice that often our lunches are just as big as our dinners. There are several reasons for that:

  1. Matt works all day putting on new roofs, tearing out and rebuilding bathrooms, working on people’s yards, you name it. The guy is hungry when he comes home for lunch. (and dirty…but that has nothing to do with this post)
  2. Our four boys are….hungry….always.
  3. I’ve found that it actually costs more to feed my family sandwiches and chips for lunch than it does to fix them a cooked meal…and it doesn’t take much more time to prepare.

Here’s a little research and number crunching I did to see how much it costs to feed my family of six a meal of sandwiches:

100% whole wheat bread…$2.00 on sale if I’m lucky
Two packages of Hormel Naturals Deli meat (the only kind easily available to us that I sort of feel okay about eating)…$2.98 each…$5.96 total
Mayo and mustard…50¢ (just a conservative guess…we go through a lot of it on a whole loaf of bread)

Total…$8.46

And that’s just the sandwiches.

We do, without a doubt, finish the entire loaf of bread and the entire contents of both packages of deli meat. Add fruit and carrots to that…and milk to drink…it can really add up!

Now, could I buy the cheaper bread and a package of bologna and save money? Sure. But…blech. (and I mean that in the kindest way possible)

And…I usually make my own 100% whole wheat bread…which is less expensive (and WAY better for us) than store bought…but…I’m just trying to make a point here. ;)

A typical lunch at our house might be something that uses a package of SmartChicken (which I buy on sale for $2.49ish/pound)…or a pound of hamburger meat (which costs me $4.35/pound because it’s from cows that are allowed to graze on organic grass and have college degrees). But look at that! Even my “expensive” high quality hamburger meat is less money than the mediocre-quality lunch meat.

Wow…I’m getting worked up here. I’ve never actually added it up before today. I knew I was saving money…but wow. This is exciting.

I have just succeeded in making myself very happy. I’m glad I did the math on that. It’s exciting to know that I’m feeding us good, filling lunches for much less than sandwich lunches.

Oh, and does it really take much extra time to fix a lunch, compared to the time it takes to make sandwiches? Maybe a little. But not much. Our lunches are often a High Five Recipe, which are quick to make, or something I’ve made ahead of time to throw into the oven.

Because many of you have asked about good lunchtime recipes and options…I’ll continue to share ideas as I can. Be watching for more High Five Recipes that are great quick and healthy lunches…plus…look through my menu plans for ideas on what we eat for lunch.

What do you usually eat for lunches? What works best at your house?
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Feeding the Family: Hey, Mr. Produce Man!

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I’ve shared how I order many of my groceries through health food coops and buy many organic foods from local farmers. And I’ve heard from many of you that you just don’t have many of these resources available where you live.

Here’s another great way I have been able purchase organic foods at bulk or discounted rates:  I talk to my grocery store managers.

Most store managers are happy to order you boxes of food. And they’ll usually sell it to you for less than the shelf price. You know why?  Because when you order a case of something…they know the entire case is going to walk out of the store. It won’t go bad while it’s waiting to be sold and have to be thrown out.  And he won’t have to pay anyone to put it on the shelf. Everyone wins!

I can now call my local grocery store’s produce manager (who knows me now on a first name basis) and order cases of organic apples and carrots and mushrooms and broccoli…and many other items. If it is available to him, he’ll order it for me. When I order on a Monday, it comes in on Wednesday. Talk about instant gratification!

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I paid just over a dollar per pound on these organic Fuji apples. The price of the non-organic Fuji apples for sale in the store? 99 cents a pound. I’d say I got a pretty good deal.

Now, our family can generally go through all 36 pounds of apples before they go bad…but sometimes I ask around to see if any of my friends want a nice bag or two of organic apples. Sometimes…we even coordinate and buy bulk produce every couple of weeks, then just split the cases. If you don’t think your family could tackle a whole case of produce…split it with your friends! 

What do you think? Have you ever tried this idea?  I think it’s a wonderful option for those of you who have limited health food resources! Be brave…give it a try!
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This post is linked to Frugal Friday.

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Feeding the Family: Eating Out

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Throughout the Feeding the Family series that I’ve been doing (and before I even started it) I’ve had many of you ask if our family EVER eats out since you never see it on my menu plans.

As I’ve mentioned before, our food budget for our family of six is between $500-$550 each month. That amount includes everything we eat for the month…so there really isn’t any room in there for eating out. 

Yeah, we’re pretty sad and deprived around here. Instead of eating out, we are forced to choke down steamy pot roasts with carrots, potatoes and gravy…or homemade popcorn chicken with ranch potato wedges…or delicious homemade pizza, made to order. It’s a tough life, but somehow, we’ll try to deal with it. :)

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YES, there ARE times that I’m worn out, tired and JUST DON’T FEEL LIKE COOKING.  I know, you’re shocked. The Heavenly Homemaker doesn’t always feel like putting on her happy little apron and cooking a delicious meal for her adoring family. 

Even when I don’t feel like cooking, grabbing fast food for our family is just really not an option. Even “cheap” fast food can cost $25-$35 to fill the boys’ hollow legs (and yes, that’s without drinks, and with coupons).

WHEN I don’t feel like cooking, we scrounge around for leftovers…or throw some  peanut butter and honey on a tortilla, eat an apple, drink a glass of milk and call it a meal. Or I just quickly make a batch of pancakes and scrambled eggs (which everyone feels is a treat at night anyway!). 

OR every once in a while, we’ll grab a couple of take and bake pizzas from Walmart for $7 each. 

Our kids do enjoy eating out and get excited about the possibilty when the opportunity arises. That means that when we actually do go to Pizza Hut to redeem their Book It coupons…our time out with them is a treasure.

Here are a few of my thoughts on eating out…or not eating out:

  • Food from restaurants is addicting. That’s because it’s often loaded with MSG and sugar, which makes you think that the french fries you’re eating are SO the best thing in the world. The next day…you’re likely to be craving more. That’s how I felt when we used to eat out a little more often. The more we ate out…..the more I wanted to eat out. Now that we practically never go out to eat, I don’t even want to anymore. (It did take me a while to get to that point, though.)
  • In my opinion…by the time we get our kids ready and out the door, into the van, buckled in, drive to the restaurant, get everyone out of the car and safely through the parking lot, find a table big enough for all of us, sit down, figure out who gets to sit by Daddy (since there are only two sides of him), figure out what we’re ordering, wait for the food, try to sit patiently while we wait for the food, try to keep everyone from spilling the food, (do I need to go on, because I’m getting tired and flustered writing this)….we may as well have stayed home and cooked a simple meal. It’s far less work.
  • Very rarely (if ever) do I walk away from a restaurant and say, “THAT was the best meal I’ve ever had”. Instead, I’m usually bummed out that I just spent $12 on a plate of something that will likely make my stomach hurt later.
  • Our boys think it is SO much fun when I decide to open “Mama’s Kitchen” for the night. That’s usually on a night we have hamburgers and onion rings or homemade chicken nuggets and fries. Justus, my assistant chef, gets out a tray and puts straws in our water (or homemade chocolate milk shakes!) and delivers them around the table. They pretend they’re getting a kids meal from “the best restaurant ever”. (I do not pay them to say that. On the contrary, usually I charge monopoly money for the meal.)

Sooo, I hope that helped to answer your questions. What are your feelings on eating out? I know some people really do enjoy it. It just doesn’t work for our family. How do you handle eating out?  What are some of your “I don’t feel like cooking but everyone needs to eat” solutions?
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This post is linked to Frugal Fridays.

P.S. Be sure to join us on Saturday for The little Green Project…and a GIVEAWAY!

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