I freely admit to spending too much time thinking about food. When you combine that with my fascination with end-of-the-world scenarios, it shouldn't surprise anyone that I have food storage. Though realistically, I imagine that long-term food storage will be more likely to benefit us in the case of food shortages or loss of employment.
I want our food storage to allow us to eat quality foods, foods that are healthy, economical, and delicious. Cooking with food storage generally doesn't lend itself to food that fits both those criteria and that of being fast. If you have long term storage ingredients that are fast, they tend to taste gross, cost more, and be filled with all kinds of preservative chemicals that I don't want to eat. So I have made a transition in the kinds of foods I'm willing to store. I no longer purchase things like MREs, dehydrated meals or dehydrated meats or TVP. I've greatly reduced the amounts of things like powdered milk and eggs. I prefer to stick to the basics, the things that I know will be good for us, like dried beans and whole grains. I like that rotating my food storage gives me another incentive to cook from scratch and use real ingredients.
Let's start with whole grains. The cheapest option is really whole wheat, so I'm going to focus on that this month. At the LDS Home Storage Center, you can buy bags or #10 cans of whole wheat for less than I could find anywhere else. If you use a lot of wheat, it might make sense to buy a 25 lb. bag and use that before you use the sealed cans, because it's cheaper un-sealed. However, since I already have a lot of wheat that I bought in the past, I prefer to cycle through the older wheat I have and replace it with the fresh cans annually. It's supposed to maintain most of its nutritional value for 25+ years, but I've found that older wheat (especially when it hasn't been stored in a cool enough place or properly sealed) tends to make bread that is bitter and tough and won't rise properly, so I try to rotate what I have all the time and avoid storing anything longer than 10 years. If you have older wheat you're trying to use, then I'd recommend three possibilities for making it more palatable: first is to use it in small proportions with fresher wheat, second is to try sprouting it (and then bake with it - you've seen those sprouted wheat loaves in the stores) and the third is to use it in sourdough, which helps break it down for you so it's easier to digest.
I prefer to bake with hard white winter wheat, because I feel like I can use a higher percentage of whole wheat flour and still make breads that my family enjoys. I have a wheat grinder and I just grind wheat whenever I run out. I keep a container by my white flour and sugar and also usually grind an extra batch to throw in the freezer, since it keeps better in the freezer once it's ground. Lately I've been making my own mixes for the things I bake and cook most regularly: pancakes, muffins, whole wheat bread that I throw in the breadmaker, etc. I'll have to do another post about mixes.
If your family doesn't currently eat whole wheat bread, then start by gradually adding a little bit, like replacing 1/4 cup of the white with wheat in your recipes. Keep increasing the proportion of whole wheat until you/your family wants more white, then back off a bit and get used to that amount for a few months and then try increasing again.
However, if you don't bake, then storing lots of whole wheat will be wasteful, because there aren't a lot of other good ways to use it. Store other grains like rice, oats and pasta instead. As for ways to use wheat other than baking, I find that boiled whole wheat is a little too tough on the jaw to eat a whole bowl for breakfast, but my parents highly recommend cooking up a mix of 1/3 brown rice, 1/3 barley, and 1/3 whole wheat. I haven't tried it yet, because oatmeal is so much easier, but I think I would like it. I've come across recipes that use whole wheat in weird ways, but I prefer to just use it in baking. One exception is a recipe I have for a burrito filling that's made with lentils and whole wheat in a tomatoey sauce. I've also occasionally thrown some into vegetarian chili because it has a chewiness that is similar to ground beef. I recently came across recipes in Fine Cooking for grain salads that can be made with cooked wheat berries, that sound pretty good, but I haven't tried one yet. Has anyone tried making their own graham crackers or wheat thins? I have some recipes I've been meaning to try.
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So today's #1 recipe for whole wheat is for our everyday whole wheat bread. You can grind the flour and measure out several bags of this mix at once, slip in a piece of paper printed on one side with the ingredients and on the other with the instructions, label the bag, and store it in the cupboard (or freezer for longer periods) until you're ready to use it. Then when we need a new loaf of bread, it only takes moments to throw a batch in the breadmaker. Measuring out all the dry ingredients at once means that I only have to clean up the mess of measuring once for several batches of bread. I actually got a little fancier by laminating the instructions and taping them to the outside of the bags (leave the bottom loose so you can flip it up and see the ingredients on the back). You can even re-use the same bags for the same recipes without washing them, since they just have a bit of flour on them. I fold them in half and clip them together with a large clip and re-use them when I'm ready.
Some notes: you could use part white flour. I use hard white winter wheat. The flax is optional, but a healthful addition. The gluten and dough enhancer help the loaf have a little more of a spongy chew, but it works without if you don't have any. Potato flakes help the loaf last longer before it gets stale or moldy. And I suppose you could also skip the milk powder and substitute flour for the oats.
100% Whole Wheat Bread Mix for the Breadmaker
adapted so much that this one I can call my own recipe
Measure into a quart-size zip-top baggie:
ingredients:
3 c. whole
wheat flour
1/2 c. oats
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbs.
ground flax seed
¼ c. dry
milk
¼ c. potato
flakes
2 Tbs.
gluten
1 tsp. dough enhancer
100% Whole Wheat Bread Mix
Add mix to
breadmaker with:
1 ¼ c. water
2-3 Tbs. oil
or butter
2-3 Tbs.
honey or molasses
1/2 Tbs. yeast (active dry)
Add more
flour or water as needed.
Use whole
grain cycle.
If you don't have a breadmaker, you can use this recipe to make bread by hand or with a mixer. Just put the wet ingredients in a bowl, mix in most of the dry mix, and slowly knead in the remainder of the dry mix until it is all added and the dough is tight but moist. Let it rise in a greased bowl, covered, until double, then shape and let rise in a bread pan until a good loaf shape, then bake at 350 until 180 degrees in the middle (best way to tell if bread is done!), about 40 minutes.
I like making my own baking mixes because they're cheaper and taste better than most of what you can buy. And if I make more than one mix at a time, it saves me time cleaning up the measuring mess. I've printed the mix ingredients on one side of a laminated tag, and the wet ingredients to add later, along with basic baking instructions, on the other. I tape the tag to the baggie and store it until we want a chocolate fix.
