Most excellent!

NICE!!!👍🏻

So cool !

Wow!

Wow! I'm so impressed, you've been a busy bee. I think you're becoming my hero.

BTW, the crumb is quite impressive and the salad....yum.

You are a very productive lady. Hope the Lexington sun shone longer than the Cville sun did yesterday and maybe it will break free from the fog today.

Is that beet hummus on your salad plate?

Thank you @orchidrain I get stuff done in bursts so I can mess around the rest of the time.

@lisaam it didn’t last but it is beautiful today. It is beet hummus. A first try and it was delicious. I made a large batch and froze half. It freezes beautifully.

I buy lovely big beets, wash, peel, cut in bite size cubes place in a oiled glass baking dish salt and a little sprinkle of sugar cover tightly with foil and bake at 325° about 90 min til tender ( I use my toaster oven) leave covered and let cool in the turned off oven. Refrigerate and can also freeze. They keep very well.

I have never understood cooking beets whole and peeling after! what a supreme mess .

I make my own Tahini as well. I think I have described how on here before. It is very simple and tastes amazing. Keeps forever and can be frozen.

I love bulk cooking and time saving techniques 😊👍c

What a great idea, beet hummus ! I'll try that - 'guilty' of roasting beets whole, I find them easier to peel afterwards... my cutting board is kind of pink now, haha

I've tried making my own tahini but it just doesn't get smooth in my cheapo food processor - do you add oil ? I can make peanut butter though, and other nut butters - I start with the plastic doohicky that's not really a blade (haven't really known what it's for but it helps with nut butters to start breaking up the nuts) and then put on the real blade to finish to creamy.

Now I need... sous vide, instant pot, and a better food processor ? and I've contemplated a pullman pan before but now I remember I bought a cast iron terrine I need to find uses for.

I think I'll hold off on the grain flaker (is that what's used to make 'rolled' oats?)

I do have a hand-crank grain mill from my in-laws which hasn't seen use in awhile. You're inspiring me ! Your round loaf is fantastic, and the crumb looks delectable - I need to up my game for sure :)) Off to the store for more local milk and a new batch of yogurt soon.

Lat62, if you can get close enough to Santa Claus fo ra whisper in his ear, I *highly* recommend the Breville Sous Chef food processor. Is designed for people to use rather than as a commodity for box stores. There are threads here and in Appliances about it. The Peel & Dice mosdel is nice, especially if you're cooking for dozens, but the regular model is fine. I had a Cuisniart before, and a Sunbeam before that. Night and day. The sous vide circulator and Instant Pot are things you don't have an a smaller investment, but if you're going to actually replace a working food processor, do check out the Breville. (I was given the Breville version of Instant Pot, and I love it, but I've heard nothing against Instant Pot and there are a ton of accessories for it.

i have a Nutrimill Classic electric grain mill, which used to cost a lot less than the last reported price, and I don't think they make them any more. If you want to get past the crank, however, ther eare some better priced metal ones now. I guess post-Pandemic a lot more people are milling their own. The thing is, a lot say "high speed". That's not good as the flour then heats, and I'm too tired to remember why it's bad beyond killing the natural yeast, but there's probably a message from Grainlady that says. The Nutrimill has an easy adjustment for the speed it goes as well as coarser or finer. Without those, I say what's the point? A Pullman pan should cost a lot less than any of these appliances. :)

@lat62:

1) The sous vide I got is less than $40. No instant pot needed. Just a regular stock pot.

2) My Cuisinart is from the 1970’s works perfectly. To make tahini you put the hulled white sesame seeds in a thin layer in a large non stick skillet set on a low temp. Move them around constantly with a wooden spoon. As soon as they get light light beige and barely fragrant STOP pour out on plate to cool. If they get very toasted they will be bitter.

Place in food processor with metal blade. . IT TAKES 7-10 min ! Yes . I’ve been making it for years. DONOT ADD OIL. They will grind up and then they will clump and you can scrape down . Then resume. At about 8 min they are warm enough and they are suddenly smooth tahini. Every single time . No special equipment. You didn’t wait long enough.

The plastic food processor blade is for bread dough. The metal blade is for nut butters etc. Pulse to chop then just let it run to get a smooth butter.

3) There is no better flour mill than the Mock Mill. I mill all my grains weekly and have used it for more than 7 yrs.

4) The key to flaking grains is pre treatment. A hand turned flaker works perfectly if you use the 2tsp water per cup of grain. rest covered overnight. They will pass through and look like my picture. You must store frozen once flaked. They will mold in the fridge . Yes rolled oats is the equivalent of flaked. The problem is most rolled / flaked grains have been treated and have had the nutritious germ removed.

I think thats all 😊👍🙏 c

The Instant Pot is for cooking other than sous vide (pressure, slow cook, etc., other thread). I think the old Cuisinarts were likely a lot better than mine from 25 years ago.

Trailrunner, thanks for the info about making techinah and flaking.

Wow, that is amazing information trailrunner, much appreciated ! I will try tahini again, and I now feel very sorry for dissing my food processor, which is a 7-cup cuisinart from the 1990s with a replacement blade provided a decade ago.. (the Breville does sound tempting at some point). I will be patient and let it run and run , with breaks in case it gets too hot.

Thanks for the info that the plastic 'blade' is for bread dough. I wouldn't have thought to do bread dough in that machine but good to know! Using the plastic blade for my peanut butter has been helpful as it makes the metal blade more effective as a second stage... otherwise I end up scraping and scraping the nuts back down into the blade area. Anyway, that's my recent experience, is that it aids the process.

My son loves his rolled oats lately (he doesn't enjoy the steel-cut it seems), so maybe he'll be interested to tackle processing his own, so thanks for the news about the flaker

I appreciate your willingness to share !

Those loaves looks scrumptious!

I'm impressed you mill your own grains. I have a couple family members who do that but I never got into it. Maybe someday when I have more time.

I've been debating getting a pullman loaf pan, DH likes perfectly square slices while I don't care - but to make him happy I've been considering it.

@porkchop_z5b_MI I love my USA pan with lid. It is the 13”. Don’t buy any other brand. . Also ignore any reviews that mention the lid not sliding on easily! It’s because the buyers are not very bright… sorry but it is true. The lid is meant to go on ONE way. When you look at the top you can see the difference. Lol… Anyway they have a forever warranty which you won’t need. I treat mine very well. I butter it , all areas including lid , never ever use PAM etc. I clean and dry in the hot oven. It looks brand new and I have had it for years.

The pans take more weight to fill to the top after its baked , the more whole grains you use . I made that WW loaf and it was 1400g of dough. If you make an all white loaf it will be considerably less dough . Also Sourdough vs yeast makes a difference , yeast takes less.

The bake should be 375° 15 min lid on then slide the lid off and finish approx 25 min. I use a thermoprobe 190-200° is done.

Let me know if you decide to get one. 🙏

I was thinking of getting the one from King Arthur Flour website.

Trailrunner, you have indeed been very productive, wow!

I have a grain mill but not a flaker, that looks interesting but probably not enough to buy one, LOL. My mill is electric, a Jupiter and it works OK, but I have to grind wheatberries a couple of times to get them to the consistency I want. Corn is the same way, and it doesn't like the really hard corn. It still does what I want, though.

I have a brand spanking new KitchenAid food processor and don't like it nearly as much as I did my old one, but I broke the metal blade on the old one after about 20 years and they don't have a replacement. I like the peeling option on the Breville but couldn't justify the price, so there we are.

Time to grind some wheat and pull out my Pullman pan. I just got mine in a $2 auction box, so I don't even know what brand it is, but it works. It's shorter and taller than yours, though, so doesn't make as nicely sized sandwich slices as yours does.

You've definitely been putting in the baking time!

Annie

@porkchop_z5b_MI wow the price has gone way up on the Pullman pans. The King Arthur is the USA pan. Since they are all the same price I would get it direct from USA.

You can see how the lip on the lid is different on the 2 ends. It only goes on one way.

Hope you enjoy!

@annie1992- that is a shame about your mill. The Mock Mill is the most incredible work horse. I replaced my stones a month or so ago after all these years. It mills perfectly on the first pass allgrains and dent corn as well. I mill fine for corn meal, coarser for polenta and coarsest for grits . I barely use any store bought AP or Bread flour because I have become so happy with diverse grains and I have gotten to where I can make everything we like with my starters + milled grains.

Barton Springs in Texas and Breadtopia are my main suppliers. They have good sales near Thsnksgiving/ Christmas. Shipping is always high most grains run around $3.15-3.50 # with shipping. I know there are cheaper sources but I get amazing quality from them.

I am busy. I posted over on Decorating Conversations my beginning spring garden clean up! I don’t have all the amazing food that you and Elery have just flowers and shrubs. 🙏

Thanks, I'm off to explore Breadtopia and Barton Springs. I get most of my grain from Palouse, and they have some very interesting recipes. I just saw a "healthy" carrot cake made with whole wheat flour and lentils, I'm still turning that over in my brain, LOL.

I've been cleaning up the garden too and I planted my onion and leek seeds under lights, but I also planted some flowers. Carnations and snapdragons are already coming up after three days, I didn't expect that so I hope I'm not too early with those. I tell Elery they are necessary for the pollinators so our garden does better. He just smiles and says "uh huh". (grin)

It feels good to be busy with spring "stuff", though.

Annie

I have 7 yrds of mulch coming tomorrow.I have almost everything cleared to start spreading . i have 2 huge wire pens for composting leaves and food scraps. I just throw a 5 gallon bucket’s worth of veggie and fruit stuff in spread it around and cover with dirt and leaves from the 2nd bin. It is past time to open it up and set the empty up and turn it all over. It is the only way to get the good stuff out . I tried other methods but this one is the easiest except for the big turnover. I have to get the mulch done 1st.

Would love to see pics of your gardens when thry are in full swing. 🙏 c

We should do a "show your garden" thread when ya all have something to post...I would also love to see what's blooming and add MY contribution!

My mulch delivery was postponed til next week. So I finished a bunch of weeding and then turned the compost bin. I have the bottom half that is soil now so will be spreading that on the shrubs etc in-between rain showers.

Almost all the 150 allium bulbs are really showing. There are a few that I think the squirrels dug up and ate. Since they multiply rapidly I will just divide next year.

We will be back in the 20’s at night Thurs and then Mon and Tues next week.

Since this conversation, I have successfully made tahini today, my sous vide tool came and I have fresh local milk to try yogurt again

And I cooked up my oat groats and ran them through my pasta roller, turned out pretty good !

Thanks for the inspiration :)

Hey @lat62. I need to make yogurt tomorrow. I made 5 QTs a couple weeks ago and we are almost out. I made almond butter the other day so we have that . I still have some tahini enough for another big recipe of hummus.

I don’t understand what you did to your oat groats. You don’t cook them before flaking. You put 2 tsp of water in with each cup of dried groats and shake them up then let set at room temp overnight. Then you flake the groats AND THEN you cook them like regular oatmeal. Maybe it’s just a typo 😄🤷. So glad you are enjoying trying new ideas. 🙏c

Sorry, I should have said 'soaked them up' ... I'm pretty ad hoc - I began to cook them because we had run out of my son's rolled oats - then, because I had remembered you roll your own from this thread, I got curious and went to youtube where a woman showed the method of soaking and using her pasta maker so I said to myself, 'I'll try that!' and immediately took mine off of the heat and rinsed and soaked, then rolled .- sorry for my sloppy misremembering and writing and thanks for your encouragement and interest ! I don't think I'll do it on a regular basis but it was fun to try and they did flatten up nicely !

My tahini came out great this time, I think toasting the seeds properly must have helped (and maybe I was more patient - I didn't add oil, yay), and my hummus is nice - nowadays I take an extra few minutes to remove the skins from the chickpeas so it's coming out smoother. I began to do that after hearing it on 'The Recipe' podcast with Kenji and Deb.

Have fun with your yogurt, I haven't tried my sous vide new tool yet, but soon ! You go through quite a bit of yogurt, yumm! I was on a big trip to New Zealand in April so I've gotten out of the groove for yogurt (my husband bought 2 quarts from Costco, so now that that's gone I'm motivated again) - I love my time in the kitchen and admire your knowledge and expertise :)

I recently made peanut butter but my attempt at hazelnut butter didn't cream up - oh well it's still nice sprinkled onto things (I put powdered chocolate, a little honey and the hazelnuts, being inspired by another podcast 'Radio Cherrybomb' with guest Aimee France, she was fun)

@lat62 glad it worked with the belated flaking lol! You can flake any grain that way .. presoak step. I do barley and wheat and Einkorn and Spelt they all work.

Yes we have peeled the canned garbanzos for a few years. Makes a big difference.

I’m not sure about hazelnuts but I bet it just takes longer. Don’t be afraid to go 10 min or more. Almonds take longer than peanuts but then magic happens.

On the sous vide set it at 116-119°and 7 -9 hrs check at 7 and see. It is amazing how fast and easy it turns out. I start it with the hot water from the double boiler and add to that with hot tap water to get it deep enough. Have to use qt jars for the kind of sous vide I bought that hooks on the side of a regular pan.

post back 🙏

I can buy such good yoghurt, I've only made it once as a learning experience. may I ask why y'all make it? Do you save money? Get it more just the way you like it? Save packaging? Because you can? Thx.

Thanks for the answer as well as the philosophy!

Do you ever flake rice with your mills? I am determined to learn how to prepare the Flattened rice that I was served at a restaurant once. I just bought another bag and was finding new videos today. This time I heard some people call the rice flaked.

I will figure this rice out one of these days. I love rice.

@JoanM here is what I found. More work than regular grains of wheat etc.

How to Prepare Rice for FlakingIf you want to make flat rice flakes at home, follow this process:

1. Steam: Steam raw rice (such as white or brown rice) until it is cooked and tender but still holds its shape.
2. Dry: Spread the steamed rice out on a baking sheet and allow it to dry slightly on the surface. It needs to be pliable, not wet or mushy.
3. Flake: Feed the softened rice through your home flaker or pasta roller.
4. Toast/Dehydrate: Spread the resulting flakes out in an oven or dehydrator at a low temperature to completely remove moisture before storing them. [1]

As to why I started making my own, I just got tired of too many plastic containers and found out about and want to support a dairy farm north of here (their milk comes in glass jars, yay) - it's unhomogenized but is pasteurized... and maybe I needed a hobby :)

I wonder what your favorite brand of yogurt is, @plllog, or is it a local farmer yogurt? I got tired of Nancy's being so tart and found Face to be nicer to my taste... I think certain of the bacterias impact how sour the yogurt gets, so I'm using that greek yogurt as my starter ? That might be all over my head.

Hoping that sous vide leads to more consistent results for me, soon I'll give it a whirl !

Weirdly, I think I'm missing a comment between plllog and still running about the reason to make yogurt, any chance you'd re-submit it in case I can then see it ?

Lat62, Perhaps c thought it was overshare. To the point, it included that she's been making yoghurt for a very long time and said because she can. If I remember right, she's the one who turned me on to naturally fermented "Bulgarian" yoghurt some years back. Having that in the fridge, I feel no compulsion to make my own. ;) I don't remember the brand. It comes in big glass jars, like mayonnaise jars, though I think the label is plastic. But where I live there has always been a good selection of very good yoghurts, in various sizes, but they phased out paper containers a long time ago, and glass is rare. I use the sous vide circulator to make the curds for hoop cheese, which have to be at a constant temperature for 12 hours (I'm not sure how they did it in the old days, bur perhaps a banked fire in a cast iron stove is constant enough). Anyway, i'm sure it'll work well for the yoghurt. Just watch the water levels. ETA, maybe White Mountain.

Thank you very much ! So many things to try from you wise people, much appreciated !

ETA, I don't mean to come across as judgemental about plastic at all

I didn't think so! But the glass bottles still have plastic in the waste stream, even if it's not in the food. It probably works better than paper in the cold and damp, and is needed for the security seal, anyway. I actually like plastic, but do not like the endemic microplastics creating their own evolutionary niches. So I get why you might make your own yoghurt to cut down on them. An advantage to buying milk on glass bottles (besides nostalgia! When I was a kid, the milkman brought the milk in through the kitchen door and loaded the glass bottles (paper tops) into the fridge. We loved the milkman!--an advantage with the plastic tops on glass is that they're impermeable. I don't use a lot of liquid milk, but it keeps a long time in glass. I really dislike the irradiated milk. The glass whole milk here is extra rich, which suits me for cooking. I don't generally have to reduce it.

Me too on the learning. I learn so much here!