Week 1 of the Dark Days challengeand we’re looking ok.
Breakfast of fresh made spelt/wheat bread, our strawberry jam, bacon from Akyla Farms and our amazingly yellow backyard eggs.
Steak from Cascade Range Beef, delicata squash slices glazed with local honey, creamed kale from the garden and steak fries from blue potatoes Michael Pilarski grew for me – fried in beef tallow from when I made beef stock.
Burritos from Cascade Range Beef, tortillas I made from Lentz spelt and rendered pork lard, fresh greens and carrots from the garden, farmstead cheese from Pleasant Valley Dairy, salsa and hot sauce I made from our tomatoes, onions, garlic & cilantro with peppers from Tonamakers. I put up 3 kinds of hot sauce last summer, as well as several varieties of pickled peppers. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for that now. Little things like pickled pepperocini on an anti-pasta platter or cherry bomb peppers on a pizza make all the difference going into our eleventh month of this local pledge.
Fettucini from Blue Bird Farro. We finished these with a garlicky alfredo sauce made with Golden Glen cream and some bitter greens – a favorite combination of mine.
Pulled smoked pork sandwiches – the pork butt from Akyla Farms, buns from Lentz spelt, barbecue sauce from our tomatoes that I put up last summer, baked navy beans from Quincy using tomato sauce from our tomatoes, Akyla bacon and Rockridge Orchards apple cider, cabbage and carrot slaw with Golden Glen cream dressing since I was too lazy to make mayonnaise (plus the olive oil would have been from California)
Cheddar bacon scones with Akyla bacon, Pleasant Valley farmstead, Lentz spelt, Golden Glen butter.
I’ve been a little cocky about my ingredients but when I looked up my grain source I realized it’s actually 173 miles to Blue Bird Grains and even further to Lentz Spelt. I have to be happy with that since grains just don’t grow in Western Washington. It’s true you can buy flour from Bellingham but that grain isn’t grown there. At least by buying it as close as possible and grinding myself I’m not only saving a ton of cash but the footprint is minimized.
My soft wheat and hard wheat are from Blue Bird Grain as part of the wholesale club buy I organized last summer. I haven’t actually been using as much wheat since then, however. I’ve been using a lot more spelt and farro from Lentz Spelt Farm. By buying whole grain in 50 pound sacks there is minimal packaging and one delivery from farmer to me. I’ve shaken their hands and thanked them countless times as I go to eat the grains they’ve grown to nourish me and my family this year.
There is something to be said for personally knowing the folks who grew your food. Once you go there, there is no going back.
13 responses so far ↓
1 Aubryz // Nov 22, 2009 at 10:30 am
Hey so how are you liking baking with spelt? How does it compare to wheat or white flour? And special considerations?
2 kitsapFG // Nov 22, 2009 at 1:22 pm
It’s a good thing I just had breakfast or I would be hungry after reading through this!
Good work and nice menus.
3 admin // Nov 22, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Hi Aubryz,
I like the spelt! I’m still working on a 100% spelt bread but it works great in my soaked bread up to 50% and works great in non-yeasted things. The texture is very delicate which makes for a great muffin or Swedish pancake.
Thanks KFG!
4 Dark Days 09-10 :: Week #1 Recap « (not so) Urban Hennery // Nov 25, 2009 at 3:10 am
[...] Week 1 and Annette is feeling good. Meals included steak with fries, squash and creamed kale; beef burritos and salad; fettucini with garlicky alfredo sauce; pulled pork sandwiches and cheddar bacon scones. Wow, I know who’s house I want to invite myself to for dinner! [...]
5 Auburn // Nov 25, 2009 at 11:46 am
Hi Annette!
What a wonderfully inspiring post. Thanks a lot.
Have you posted a recipe/method for those great looking tortillas? I’d love to give them a try.
BTW, I wanted to let you know that yesterday I made Diana’s (Iowa) soaked 100% whole wheat and spelt pitas and they came out fantastic. I had to tweak the recipe, adding quite a bit more water than her recipe calls for (read the comment about this I left for her an hour ago: http://spaininiowa.blogspot.com/2009/08/soaked-whole-wheat-pita-bread.html) but, other than that, her recipe produces the loveliest, most tender pitas I’ve ever tasted. We devoured them!
6 admin // Nov 27, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Hi Auburn,
Here is the link to the tortillas: http://gnowfglins.com/2009/05/07/sprouted-spelt-tortillas/ but I used regular spelt since I haven’t sprouted mine yet. You can also use whole wheat pastry flour, kamut or emmer.
I’ll have to try Diana’s bread – I’ve been playing around with mine trying to get a denser crumb. I made pita bread last summer and still have some in the freezer – it was fun to watch it pop up and form the pockets! I’ve been thinking about pita bread lately because it makes such yummy baked chips that are perfect for dipping and tortilla chips are so much work and need to be fried to get them so light & crispy. Have you made pita chips yet?
7 Auburn // Nov 27, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Thanks a bunch for the link! No need for tortilla press (so glad because I don’t have one)
. I will make them next week.
I’ve learned so many wonderful things since I started reading your blog, Annette. I’m so grateful to you for that.
I will never be able to turn my household into a sustainability haven like yours, at least for as long as we remain in this part of the country. The growing season here is so short and, well, the North East is just so ass backwards, you know.
But, thanks to what I’ve learned from you, we are saving money and eating excellent locally grown protein AND 80% of the bread we eat is made with home-milled whole grain (the other 20% is this amazing Syrian white flat bread I am not yet ready to give up – it’s from a local bakery – and a wonderful knäckebröd from Sweden, I know, I know… sigh…) and now I’m even planning a small vegetable garden! I don’t know how successful this endeavor will be (hubby will fell a number of tall pine trees in Feb, hopefully that’ll provide a couple of more hours of direct sunlight), but I will try my best.
I will winter sow the seeds and transplant the seedlings to raised beds in early May. Wish me luck!
You are such an inspiration!
About Diana’s pitas, please do try them. She wrote about wanting to add a bit more honey and some vital wheat gluten for a better rise and softer crumb so I went ahead and added 1 tablespoon of vwg per cup of flour and about a tablespoon of honey. They turned out perfect with a crumb just dense enough (they didn’t completely deflate and made the perfect pocket for sandwiches) and very soft.
No, I’ve never made my own pita chips. For that I will have to double the recipe, I’m afraid, because the eight pitas I got from Diana’s recipe lasted exactly a day and half (and we are just two people).
Just remember to adjust the water when you make her recipe.
8 admin // Nov 27, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Hi Auburn, I struggle without knackebrod since I lived in Sweden two years and I’ve been meaning to figure out how to make it. It only has 3 ingredients so I just need to play with the quantities and technique. In old homesteads over there they all have bars hanging over the wood stoves where you stored your knack (that is why there is a hole in the middle). It kept it crisp being exposed to that heat and was the driest spot in the house. It’s a staple along with yellow split pea soup, pankakor and meatballs!
9 admin // Nov 28, 2009 at 12:12 am
Hi Auburn, do you know exactly what vital wheat gluten is and how it’s made? I typically shy away from mystery ingredients. I know it’s supposed to help with the texture of baked goods but I’d like to know more about it since King Arthur flour is so supportive. I know they are also supportive of dried milk powder though which I would never buy.
10 admin // Nov 28, 2009 at 12:16 am
One other thing too – now that I am hogging my own comments board. The biggest change we made this year isn’t replacing grocery organic veggies with homegrown ones because you can easily do that by shopping the farmer’s market. It’s cutting out any processed food and that is the hardest thing to do that will make the biggest difference in your health and your pocket book (as you are finding out.) I am so proud of you for all the changes you’ve made this year. I know it’s not easy. Hugs!
11 Auburn // Nov 28, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I’ve been cooking from scratch all my life using very little, if any at all, processed food so for us, the biggest healthful/money saving changes have been 1) making homemade yogurt, butter and cheese from the 3 half gallons of raw milk we buy for $9/week (I used to spend more than twice as much on Stoneyfield milk/yogurt/cream and Irish butter), 2) the bread making with home-milled whole bread. It was because of your fantastic bread recipe that I decided to invest on that wonderful grain mill. Each bread I make saves us at least $3 (after deducting the cost of the whole grain plus the outrageous shipping charges).
Now, unlike you, I’ve never been much of a baker (been making white flour boules and pizza for many years, but that’s about it) but, thanks to you again
, I’m now making different kinds of soaked 100% whole grain recipes. That Syrian bread is the only white flour bread we still consume. This is a huge change for us.
The Weston Price foundation and your blog have been a godsend to us.
The third huge change this year has been joining a CSA program. Your writings made me realize that we too should look into this, even if it meant having to spend more money up front.
The fourth, and extremely important health-wise, change was replacing sugar with raw honey and using virgin coconut oil. With this change we’ve gone from craving sweets like crazy just minutes after dinner to no cravings for sweet whatsoever (I’ve lost a good chunk of weight, btw). All we eat these days for dessert is fruit. Haven’t had ice cream in months.
Re: knäckebröd, I keep buying it (even though it comes all the way from Sweden
…) because I researched the brand and, from what I’ve read, this knäckebröd is supposedly made with sprouted rye. I also read that it’s the tiny holes all over the bread what gives it that distinctive crispness (with one side having deeper holes than the other).
Please excuse my very long-winded comments, I just can’t help it, it seems. 8}
I’ll post the answer to the vital wheat gluten separately.
12 Auburn // Nov 28, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Vital wheat gluten is just a fancy name for powdered gluten. This Wiki entry explains gluten nicely (the bit about the powdered form is towards the end of the article).
“When dough made with wheat flour is kneaded, gluten forms when glutenin molecules cross-link to make a sub-microscopic network and associates with gliadin, which contributes viscosity and extensibility to the mix.[5] If such dough is leavened with yeast, sugar fermentation produces bubbles of carbon dioxide which, trapped by the gluten network, cause the dough to swell or rise. Baking coagulates the gluten, which, along with starch, stabilizes the shape of the final product. [...]
Kneading promotes the formation of gluten strands and cross-links, so a baked product is chewier in proportion to how much the dough is worked. Increased wetness of the dough also enhances gluten development.[9] Shortening inhibits formation of cross-links, so it is used, along with diminished water and minimal working, when a tender and flaky product, such as pie crust, is desired.
Gluten, dried and milled to powder and added to ordinary flour dough, improves rising and increases the bread’s structural stability and chewiness,[10]. Such doughs must be worked vigorously if they are to rise to their full capacity, so a bread machine or food processor may be required for their kneading.
When cooked in broth, gluten absorbs some of the surrounding liquid (including the taste) and becomes firm to the bite, so is widely used in vegetarian, vegan and Buddhist cuisines as a meat substitute. “
13 admin // Nov 29, 2009 at 1:39 am
I’m just wondering if when they make vital wheat gluten it changes the chemical makeup of the grain in the way that hydrolyzed wheat protein is essentially msg. I’m always suspicous of foods that are not whole so I shy away from them. One nice thing about soaking is that it tends to lighten the texture without altering the health benefits. I’ve not really researched VWG though.
I’ve been looking for a dough docker to make the knackebrod but no luck yet. I think you could also do the same thing with a fork but it’s way more work. Hopefully after Christmas I’ll have more time to experiment! In the meantime if you figure out how to make it let me know! I have a recipe for limpa from an old Swedish lady sitting here just waiting for the time…
Leave a Comment