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Grinding Wheat into Flour: Getting Ahead

January 19, 2022 by Laura 2 Comments

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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 —>

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:

Use hard wheat to make yeast bread recipes.
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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Is it Worth the Money to Buy a Nutrimill?

August 15, 2019 by Laura 1 Comment

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I’ve had my Nutrimill for 14 years now. Have I used it much during those 14 years? Saved any dough (ha, see what I did there)? Have I found that it is worth the money to buy a Nutrimill?

Is it Worth the Money to Buy a Nutrimill?

Nutrimills cost around $~~249~~ $219 right now. That’s the cost of around 73 loaves of high quality 100% Whole Grain Bread from the store. So is it worth the money to buy a Nutrimill so we can make our bread instead of buying it?

Well, considering that our family can go through at least all 73 of those loaves of bread in just a few months, I’d say yes. Especially when I consider these reasons:

My Homemade Whole Grain Bread only costs around $1.50/loaf.
There are only 5 simple ingredients in my homemade bread, and I have those ingredients on hand all the time for ease.
I can make this Homemade Bread recipe with about 5 minutes of time and effort.
Bread made from freshly ground flour is the most amazing bread on the planet.

So grinding fresh flour in a Nutrimill actually makes our bread healthier, more delicious, and half the price of store-bought.

Is a Nutrimill a Must-Have?

Could I live without my Nutrimill? I guess. Does it save me time in the kitchen? Not really. But do I love having such a great appliance to help me grind fresh grain for our baked goods? Oh my goodness, YES!

I frequently grind hard and soft white wheat in my Nutrimill, which turns out the most delicious flour, which then turns out the most delicious breads, muffins, cakes, cookies, pancakes, and waffles. Now that I’m so used to baking with freshly ground flour, I’d have a hard time turning back. We’re pretty spoiled! ;)

Want more details about using flour ground in a Nutrimill:

Where do I get grain for my Nutrimill?

I order all of mine in bulk from Azure Standard. I keep a supply of Hard White Wheat (for yeast bread) and a supply of Soft White Wheat (for muffins, cookies, and cakes) on hand at all times. Then I grind it ahead and store it in an ice cream bucket in the freezer to pull out and use as needed.

I highly recommend checking to see if Azure Standard is an option near you. I’ve ordered from them for years and would have a hard time getting by without their monthly deliveries!

So is it worth the money to buy a Nutrimill? I say yes! What do you think?

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Getting Ahead in my Kitchen

January 15, 2012 by Laura 32 Comments

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It is a fact that participating in an occasional cooking/baking marathon is very therapeutic for me. (It is also a fact that I had no idea how to spell therapeutic, which is why I am very thankful for spell check options. You should have seen how I spelled it when I sounded it out. Let’s just say that I can cook better than I can spell.)

My spelling issues aside, I receive great pleasure from mixing up four or more recipes at once, getting most of my dishes dirty all at the same time, and covering every inch of counter space with a cooking project. I failed to take a picture of the kitchen chaos. Sorry about that. ;) But I did manage to take a few pictures of what I accomplished during my baking day. Looking at pics of chocolate chip cookies is much better than looking at pics of my crusty cookie sheets, so let’s focus on the chocolate, shall we?

I made a double batch Chocolate Chip Cookies to serve at high school huddle. Our family also did a little taste testing because quality control is our specialty. :)

While the cookies were baking, I mixed up a double batch of Honey Whole Wheat Bread.

While the bread was rising, I started cooking a double batch of Taco Corn Fritters. These refrigerate or freeze well and reheat easily in the oven or toaster oven.

And last but not least, I made a big batch of Sloppy Joe Meat and some Sloppy Cornbread Muffins.

Although we’ve already eaten a good portion of the food I made to try and get ahead for this week, I do feel much better having a few extras on hand to warm up quickly for meals. Healthy convenience foods rock. :)

What are your favorite healthy convenience foods to have on hand?

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