My Bread

“The first time I tried organic wheat bread, I thought I was chewing on roofing material”- actor Robin Williams

Unless your food storage is a mountain of tin cans or a closet full of freeze-dried meals, odds are that you will have a few buckets of wheat for emergency use. Now what will you do with that wheat? Back during the Y2K scare we got a good price on a wheat grinder so we were able to make decent flour but had little luck making bread from scratch. Most of our baking efforts came out like bricks with very little yeast rising. We checked our yeast - it was alive but not working for us.

A few months back my wife found a bread recipe that has worked perfectly every time. We now have a new loaf every few days. The recipe was first published in the New York Times back in 2006 by baker Jim Lahey. It was an immediate success with the public and Lahey used his moment of fame to publish a baking book called, My Bread. We've tried a few recipes - we really enjoyed the no-knead olive bread with green olives, no so much a loaf containing peanuts.

The full bread recipe is a bit big for just two; the loaf sometimes goes bad before we can finish it. This won't be a problem if you have kids.

Some things about the recipe that work for us.

1. The long rise time lets the yeast do its job.

2. Use a dutch oven or cast iron pot with lid. The bread rises very little in the oven so it takes the shape of the pot. We had a lot of round low loafs before my wife switched to 2/3 recipe and a cast iron tea pot to give the loaf some height.

3. Definitely preheat the pot (without the lid). We tired once with a cold pot and the bread stuck to the pot and did not want to come out. But with a hot pot and a little corn meal tossed in before the bread, we have no sticking.

4. My wife now mostly skips mini-knead and second rise step. She lets it rise for as long as 24 hours in winter when our house is cold. Then while the pot is preheating in the oven she'll punch the bread or move it around a little inside the rising bowl if it looks too gassy.

5. As some versions of the recipe state, the hardest part is waiting for the bread to cool for one hour after de-potting. The author says this is essential and we haven't broken the rule yet.

Bottom Line

Try it - you'll like it! We liked it so much we bought the book after first borrowing it from the library.

7 Mistakes of Food Storage

"I'm lost, but I'm making record time" - Allan Lamport

There are two truisms about food storage:

1. It is absolutely essential; 3 days minimum, preferably a week or longer
2. It is quite easy to waste a lot of money on food storage

I recommend reading the article 7 Mistakes of Food Storage by Vicki Tate to learn more about what to avoid when building a food store. The mistakes include:

1. Lack of Variety
   Don't buy only wheat or just one type of meal to eat every day.
2. Lack of Staples
   Buy cooking oil, shortening, baking powder, soda, yeast, and powdered eggs so you have the basics for baking.
3. Lack of Vitamins
   Old stored food may be vitamin poor. Buy some vitamin supplements.
4. No "Fun" Foods
   It is important to have enjoyable "psychological foods" like candy bars, jello and cake mixes to chase away the blues.
5. Lack of Balance
   Don't bulk buy just one food item at a time - for example: this year we buy wheat, next year we stock up on beans. If you bulk buy like this, you may have to live on just the wheat and beans when disaster strikes before you've had time or money to purchase everything. Instead, buy a little of everything so if you have to use it now, you're ready for the short term.
6. Improper Containers
   Moisture, insects, and rodents can destroy your food storage. A bad bag of rice brought a tiny breed of moth into our house which then started eating all of our boxed pasta in "sealed" cupboards. We've also had bags chewed open by mice. Food should be stored in heavy plastic buckets/containers or steel cans/drums.
7. Never using your storage
   Use your food store before it goes bad. Also learn now how to cook what you've stored while times are good and you can practice without stress.

Bottom Line

If you are spending time and money on food storage, then make sure your time and money are well spent. Avoid the mistakes above. Buy food quality buckets and storage containers to protect your food. Buy a mix of items and include some "fun" things to eat. Don't forget the vitamins!

Rolling in the dough

"Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven."
- Yiddish proverb

For several years my wife & I avoided buying wheat in bulk because we wanted a food storage we would really eat and use. So we stocked up on boxes of pasta, jars of spaghetti sauce, and canned soup, fruits, meats and vegetables. But we also like eating fresh food in season from farmer's markets so we found that the canned supplies stayed on the shelves until winter. If we bought a year's worth of canned food but only ate it 3 months of the year, then it would take four years to eat our way through the inventory and restock. That's probably safe but we prefer not to let cans get that old.

So to reach our goal of a one year supply we had to buy bulk grains and now have a closet filled with buckets of wheat, oats, etc. Wheat if kept airtight, bug free, cool and dark will last a very long time. Still it's a good idea to eat what you store. So we had to learn - what can you do with whole wheat?

Step one was buying a wheat grinder. I'll write more about grinders another day. We choose a hand grinder so it would always work but discovered that wheat grinding is HARD work and later bought a motor attachment.

Step two is discovering wheat and wheat flour recipes. Wheat berries (the whole grain) can be tasty in soups and salads when cooked. We've also learned to bake bread and make home made spaghetti.

Bottom Line
Wheat has sustained mankind for most of its history. And wheat can be fun to use. Many people find personal satisfaction in making bread from scratch. There are so many flavors & fillings & shapes to try out. And who can resist the yeasty smell of fresh bread just baked? So give wheat a try!