I don't know about spelt being "healthier", because there are health benefits to consuming whole grains in general, and all whole grains have their redeeming qualities over refined flour. I only use freshly-milled spelt because that's the only way to get all the nutrients available in the grain - Fresh Is Best.... I use a large variety of freshly-milled grains/seeds/beans in baked goods. This link will give you a nutritional comparison: http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=dailytip&dbid=148&utm_source=rss_reader&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_feed Spelt is a little lower on the glycemic index of foods than wheat, probably because it hasn't been hybridized like wheat has and it has a higher protein level than wheat. Spelt is the ancient form of our modern red wheat varieties, while kamut is the ancient form of durum wheat (used for pasta/noodles). Spelt has a great nutritional profile and is often easier to digest for some people who find wheat difficult to digest. I like to feed my sourdough starter spelt flour because it is higher in carbohydrates than wheat flour. I use spelt (freshly-milled at home) mostly in baked goods like quick breads and cookies where I don't need a lot of gluten development. In fact, there are 100% spelt sugar cookies in the cookie jar this weekend. In bread recipes, I use spelt like I would other low-gluten flours (rye, barley, kamut, etc.), substituting it for 20-30 percent of the flour PLUS 1-2 T. vital wheat gluten, but there are plenty of recipes for 100% spelt bread. Vital wheat gluten is unnecessary in 100% whole wheat bread because I mill grain that is 13.1% protein, which is more than enough gluten to get a high rise. Adding too much vital wheat gluten will make bread tough. There are benefits using a sponge method when making 100% whole wheat breads, over using the more modern quick method (straight- or direct-dough method). When making whole wheat bread in the Zo, I use a sponge of at least 2-1/2 hours, but generally an overnight sponge. The loaves are as high-rising and nearly as light in texture as any white bread. However, I never bake breads in the Zo. The gluten level of spelt, and the type of gluten protein in spelt, is much different from wheat. Gluten in spelt is around 5,000 parts per million compared to wheat which begins at 50,000 parts per million and go up from there. Gluten in wheat is like a sponge in your dough soaking up hydration, so when using spelt in a recipe designed for wheat flour, you will either use less liquid or more flour to get the correct hydration using spelt. The gluten in spelt also takes less time to develop, so not as much kneading is required. If you like using spelt, I'd suggest the book "The Spelt Cookbook" by Helga Hughes. She uses wholegrain spelt flour and "white" spelt flour (with the bran and germ removed) in the book. For people who have difficulty digesting wheat (this doesn't include people who are gluten intolerant), you may find you can use sprouted spelt flour (link below), or other sprouted flours. Recipe for a bread machine... SPELT BREAD (source: Bread Machines For Dummies - by Glenna Vance and Tom Lacalamita) 1-1/2# loaf with changes for 2# in (----) 3/4 c. (1 c. + 1 T.) water 2 T. (3 T.) vegetable oil 2 T. (3 T.) sugar 1 t. (1-1/2 t.) salt 3 c. (4 c.) spelt flour 2-1/4 t. (1 T.) Active Dry Yeast 1. Have all the ingredients at room temperature. 2. Place the ingredients in the pan in the order listed. 3. Select a Basic, White, or Normal cycle and a medium crust color. Press Start. Variation: You can make a cinnamon raisin bread with this recipe by adding 2 t. of cinnamon and 3/4 c. raisins to the 1-1/2-pound loaf. If you are making the 2-pound loaf, use the same amount of cinnamon but increase the raisins to 1 c. Be sure the raisins are a bit dry or they will disintegrate in the bread. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Summers Sprouted Flours

Terri- Do you have the book, "Cooking with Coconut Flour"? I use many recipes out of that book. I also use Chana dal (immature garbanzo beans - looks like split peas) instead of garbanzo beans because they are low-glycemic and don't raise blood sugar and are milder-tasting than garbanzo beans. They can be milled into flour and used instead of garbanzo flour. You usually find garbanzo bean flour mixed with fava bean flour. You might try your GF Mix in these recipes instead of the white sorghum flour since it takes so little and the peanut butter in the first recipe, and the almond flavoring in the second, might mask the bean flavor. These are a couple of my original GF recipes. WHITE SORGHUM PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES 1/2 c. Natural Peanut Butter 1/2 c. butter 1/4 c. white sugar 1/4 c. brown sugar 1 egg 1/2 c. white sorghum flour 1/2 c. dried potato flakes 1/2 c. flaxmeal 1/2 T. cornstarch 1 t. baking soda 1 t. baking powder 1/2 t. salt Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer until light and creamy. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy. Beat in the egg just until mixed. In a medium bowl, combine the white sorghum flour, dried potato flakes, flaxmeal, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. By hand, mix into peanut butter mixture, only until ingredients are incoporated. Refrigerate dough for 20 minutes. Using a portion scoop, make dough into 1-inch balls. Place on prepared cookie sheets and press with a fork dipped into turbinado sugar. Bake 8-10 minutes in a preheated 350°F oven. Remove cookie sheets from the oven and allow the cookies to rest on the sheet for 1-2 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. WHITE SORGHUM and ALMOND FLOUR COOKIES 1/2 c. butter 1/3 c. brown sugar 1 t. almond extract 1 egg 1/2 c. white sorghum flour 1/2 c. almond flour 1/4 c. dried potato flakes 3/4 t. baking powder 3/4 t. baking soda 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 2. Cream butter. Add brown sugar and blend until light and fluffy. Add almond extract and egg. Beat well. 3. Stir dry ingredients together and mix well. 4. Mix dry ingredients into creamed mixture and mix only until blended. 5. Allow dough to chill in refrigerator for 20 minutes and keep in refrigerator between use. 6. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place on a parchment paper lined sheet. Press dough balls with a fork to flatten slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly browned and set to touch. 7. Allow cookies to sit for 1-2 minutes on baking sheets before removing and place on a wire rack to cool. Yield: 33 cookies -Grainlady

Sue- Is it the wisdom of the ages or science from the experts? This is what I've read from "experts" - I'm just the person sitting behind the keyboard typing after I've gathered a stack of books by my side. According to Shirley Corriher in "Cookwise", salt plays three roles in dough: It enhances flavor, controls bacteria, and strengthens dough by tightening gluten. She even suggests if the water you are using in your breads is soft (low mineral content), you'll want to be sure to add high-mineral salt - which are natural sea salts, not table salt. The minerals in natural sea salt also play into yeast activity. But what is too much salt... As little as 1/3 t. of salt per cup of flour can be enough to noticeably slow yeast growth. Salt can be added intentionally to slow yeast growth. More salt may be added to dough, such as in a bakery setting when you would want to slow down fermentation until the next shift of workers comes on. The small amount of salt we add to yeast and naturally-leavened breads doesn't really give a salty taste, nor does it contribute largely to the daily sodium intake in a normal diet or normal sodium amounts for people who aren't watching sodium intake, but salt helps to bring out the flavor of the fermentation. As anyone who has ever left the salt out of a recipe can attest, bread without salt is somewhat insipid - but that's because our taste is often trained to like salt and salty flavors. Then there's all the hub-bub about when to add salt. I wait to add salt towards the end of the kneading, along with the fat. I only add the fat early if I want a close crumb - or an almost cake-like texture (for sandwich bread as an example - breads that need to hold together when held in your hands and keep spreads from dripping through). The gluten will have an easier time developing, and will develop quicker (meaning you will need to spend less time mixing and kneading) when you wait to add the salt after gluten development. Once you add the salt, the gluten really tightens up. You can actually feel the difference in the dough. Peter Barham in "The Science of Cooking" says "...the salt acts to modify and control the action of the yeast. Harold McGee in "Keys to Good Cooking A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes" and "On Food and Cooking": Salt contributes to a balanced taste and intensifies aroma in bread, but it also affects structure and texture. Salt makes a dough less sticky, and gluten more stretchy, and the finished loaf lighter. In sourdoughs, salt helps control the growth of acid-producing, gluten-weakening bacteria. [So there's that bacteria mentioned by Shirley Corriher as well.] Salt isn't a leavening agent, but it helps control the leavening agent, as you thought. You can make perfectly good bread with very little or no salt at all (other than the naturally occurring salts in water, other ingredients, etc. - there is always a source for some sodium, even without added salt). But as one book pointed out, when it came to taste tests, people liked breads with more salt than less salt. As a person who doesn't use a lot of salt in their diet, I'd choose less salty flavor - so flavor is subjective. When using less salt in breads, you just need to watch the rise because it will be faster than normal. Peter Barham, in his book, intentionally made bread with lower salt amounts to see how little it could actually be, and he came to the conclusion you didn't need salt at all and that the bread tasted fine. "Fine" isn't what most people expect homemade bread to taste like, however. So you can use a long cold rise to develop flavors, instead of adding salt, or as much salt. And there is the old rule of thumb... If you reduce the salt in a bread recipe, be sure to reduce the yeast as well. So if you cut the salt by 50%, reduce the yeast by 50%. I was also taught in cooking and baking classes that a little salt makes sweet things taste sweeter, hence the ever-present "pinch of salt" in things you wonder what difference did that small amount actually make? There are a lot of factors to keeping bread fresh. Choose enriched breads and sourdough, instead of lean doughs. If you want your bread to stay fresh longer add fenugreek or rosemary because these ingredients are antioxidants, "they prevent oxygen in the air from combining with compounds in the dough, thus acting as a preservative by preventing chemical changes in the dough." I add an acid ingredient to whole wheat breads in the form of ascorbic acid, which is another antioxidant you can add to aid keeping bread fresher longer, but also counteracts the effects of Glutathione in wheat germ, which can damage the gluten strands. Yeast also works better in a mildly acidic mixture. But don't add an acid to naturally-leavened breads because they are already acid enough. My personal favorites for keeping bread fresher longer are coconut oil, agave nectar, and chia seeds - and you won't find these ingredients discussed in any books by "experts". Coconut oil was used in commercial baked goods until the mid-20th century because it helped lengthen shelf-life. As a medium-chain fat, coconut oil doesn't go rancid as quickly as polyunsaturated oils. When pressure was put on the market to use hydrogenated fats and polyunsaturated fats, the shelf-life was shortened, foods went rancid quickly, and they had to find new stabilizers and chemicals to use instead of coconut oil. Coconut oil was used for popping corn at the movies and sports stadiums. They popped large amounts long before it was needed and packed into containers to be used later, and using coconut oil in it kept it fresher longer. Nobody likes stale popcorn.... Coconut oil aids in slowing down mold growth as well. Agave nectar does an excellent job of holding moisture in baked goods, as does chia seeds. Both keep moisture in the crumb of breads from migrating through the crust, so they slow staling - which is an interesting read in and of itself. If you are going to freeze your bread, there is a lot of science about using honey in your breads instead of sugar. The honey will aid in keeping the moisture in the crumb, and I suspect agave nectar has a similar quality. Hope the experts have given you the answers you were looking for. -Grainlady

Could be - I don't make pie so I wouldn't know. It's from a Biltmore Estate Chef's Selection Cookbook I bought when I was there and the photo looks absolutely delicious so I thought I'd give it a try. I have a few days off from work over the Labor Day holiday and the weather's yucky so thought I'd make some things I've never tried before. For some reason I'm interested in pie - a healthy Key Lime pie recipe from Cooking LIght and this one which is not healthy. Not sure what I'm going to do with all this stuff - not having enough guests for two piesÂ..and I don't want to eat it all.