Spelt Wheat

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One of my goals in my food storage is to have, and learn to use, a wide variety of different whole grains in my food storage. I now have a few 5 gallon buckets of Spelt Wheat and baked quite a few recipes with it. So far I have found spelt wheat to work great for pancakes and cookies and I hope to explore some new foods this spring and summer with it.

Spelt is much lower in gluten than whole wheat and also much higher in protein and other nutrients. It is considered an ancient grain like KAMUT but it has a has quite a different taste and grinds up much finer than KAMUT wheat. Spelt wheat will store 30+ in good conditions, just like whole wheat.

Because spelt is lower in gluten than whole wheat it can be tougher to use for making yeast breads by itself, loaves may come out much denser than normal. The plus side to being lower in gluten is that spelt is easier on your tummy and many people who are gluten intolerant can eat spelt with out the side effects they get from other wheat products.

Spelt not only works great in non-yeast-ed baked goods by itself but it is also a great wheat to combine with other whole grain flours. Chef Brad created a whole grain flour mix called WonderFlour to replace all-purpose flour in most recipes. He sells pre-packaged WonderFlour but you can also make your own with a good grain mill, click here to see the video for making WonderFlour. I found out about WonderFlour while taking the Grain Mill Wagon Challenge and it was fun to play with.

Spelt Recipes to Try:

Spelt Pancakes

Spelt Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whole Grain Peach Pancakes

Spelt Gingerbread Pancakes

Ricotta Spelt Waffles

Vegetable Garden Minestrone Soup

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My parents have always had a large garden that produces quite a bit, kind-of fitting since both of their parents were involved in farming during the great depression and through out their lives. if you ask my mom’s dad about the great depression he would tell you that he didn’t even notice it because his family and those in his community ate what they grew. It was so awesome as a kid to go out in our garden and just eat food right off the vine, peas where our favorites.

Now that I have a yard big enough to have a garden so we are starting this year with our first square food garden, the soil in our yard is not that good for a garden. We are planning to add more square food gardens every year till we have quite a garden to eat from, hope that plan works out like I am hoping. The idea is to grow more of what we eat instead of relying on the grocery stores for fresh fruits and veggies. We even planted 5 fruit trees last fall that should be producing in 3-4 years.

In the thought of starting our own garden, I wanted to share an awesome minestrone soup recipe that uses vegetables that can mostly be grown in our garden, as we expand it. My in-laws shared this recipe with us. The soup is a bit of work, mostly dicing and chopping, but it is so worth it.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Vegetable Garden Minestrone Soup

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

50 mins

Total time

1 hour 10 mins

Author: Food Prepper

Serves: 10

Ingredients

Olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 large carrot, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
2-3 small zucchinis, chopped
1 yellow squash, chopped
1 hand full fresh green beans, chopped
2 cups cauliflower, chopped in larger chunks
Small head of cabbage, chopped
1 tablespoon salt
¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese (or cheese rind)
2 small tomatoes, diced
3 cups water
2 stalks fresh basil
1 can garbanzo beans
1½ cups frozen super sweet white corn

Instructions

Pre-chop all your vegetables before you start.
Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a very large stock pot and heat to medium heat.
Add the following vegetables to the pot one by one stirring about 30 seconds before adding the next vegetable, add a small drizzle of olive oil with each vegetable. Add onion, carrots, celery, zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, and cauliflower.
Cover and let cook for about 7 minutes.
Add cabbage, salt, parmesan cheese, tomatoes, and water to the pot and stir together.
Cover and reduce heat to a simmer for 30 minutes.
Add basil stalks, garbanzo beans, and white corn to pot and stir together.
Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove basil stalks (and cheese rind if you used one) and remove pot from heat.
Serve topped with shredded parmesan cheese and a little drizzle of olive oil.

I also thought this recipe would give you a break from the whole grain recipes I have been sharing. I hope you give it a try and enjoy it.

We submitted this recipe to several whole food linkups: Whole Foods Wednesday, Traditional Tuesdays, Real Food Wednesday, Tasty Traditions, Nomday Monday, Delicious Dish Tuesday, Chef’s Day Off, and Eat Make Grow,

Oat Flour Pancakes (Old-Fashioned & Gluten-Free)

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I have about 40 pounds oat groats in my food storage right now that I need to start implementing more in my recipes because I want to eat what I store. I’ve used oats in the past by rolling oat groats into rolled oats with my friends Marga Oat Roller, I have also used oat flour sparingly in a few recipes. I decided to try something with all oat flour and my little girl has been a pancake eating monster lately so here goes another pancake recipe.

To make oat flour it is best to use a grain mill and grind it from oat groats or steel cut oats, rolled oats from the store have usually lost much nutritional value and they tend to get stuck going into electric grain mills. I like to grind my oats on a setting just between Pastry and Bread on my WonderMill grain mill.

This oat pancake recipe would be great for adding fruit to or topping with a fruit compote, or just plain syrup. Oat flour pancakes are a great alternative for those of you who are gluten-intolerant and some people who need to be gluten-free. I have heard some people that many people who have celiac disease can sometimes have issues with oats also. Those with celiac will also want to make sure that there oats are certified gluten-free as some oats are harvested with the same equipment that harvests wheat.

4.8 from 44 reviews

Oat Flour Pancakes (Old-Fashioned Style)

makes about 12 pancakes at the ¼ cup batter size.

Author: Food Prepper

Ingredients

1¾ cup freshly ground oat flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1½ tablespoons canola oil
2 large eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla (optional)

Instructions

Pre-heat electric griddle to 375 degrees..
Add all dry ingredients to a mixing bowl and whisk together.
Add all wet ingredients to a 2nd mixing bowl and whisk together.
Add dry ingredient mix to wet ingredient mixing bowl and whisk till it just comes together.
Lightly spray your hot griddle with cooking spray.
Use a ¼ measuring cup to scoop the pancake batter onto the griddle.
I cook my pancakes 1 minute 45 seconds on the first side and 2 minutes 15 seconds on the second side for perfect pancakes, this may vary on your griddle.

NOTE: if these oat pancakes come out too heavy when you make them you may have to increase the liquid OR decrease the flour next time you make them. Oat flour can vary and the oat flour I make in a quality grain mill from oat groats might be much lighter than your oat flour. Also there can be some variation from the way I measure 1 cup of flour and the way you measure 1 cup of flour.

if you like these pancakes, you might also like my Oat Flour Pumpkin Pancakes recipe over at WholeGrainsBaking.com blog where I am a guest blogger. The pumpkin adds some moisture to the pancakes and who doesn’t like pumpkin? No one should hate Pumpkin, it is so good.

Maple Extract

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An opened container of imitation maple extract, or maple flavoring, will last a year in your cupboard. I am guessing that an unopened container will much longer but I don’t know for sure. I try to keep 3 bottles of imitation maple extract in my cupboard at all times, which is about a 6-12 month supply for our family.

It can be used for making syrup for pancakes or even flavoring breads, cookies, baked goods, cranberry sauce, frosting, meats, grilling, sauces, and other sweets.

Recipes to Try Using Maple:

Imitation Maple Syrup

100% Whole Wheat Rolls

I hope to have more recipe posts to share in the near future.

100% Whole Wheat Rolls (egg-free)

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This is the end result of many experiments of mine to create my own 100% Whole Wheat Rolls recipe without using eggs, most recipes I have seen for 100% Whole Wheat Rolls use eggs. Its not that I have anything against using eggs in bread but I thought it would be challenging, plus I know some of you out there have egg allergies.

I also used buttermilk powder and imitation maple in this recipe. These two items are things that I already store in my food storage. I only used about 1/8 teaspoon of maple but it adds a nice taste to these rolls, any more maple than that would make it taste like maple bread.

Another reason I made these rolls is because I am participating in a WonderMill Rolls Challenge for a chance to win a cash prize. I could always use a little extra cash to get more prepper supplies, if I win the the cash I don’t have to get the wife’s permission to get it. Now on to the recipe.

100% Whole Wheat Bread (egg-free)

Author: Food Prepper

Recipe type: Bread

Ingredients

3 teaspoons yeast
2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
5¼ cups freshly ground whole wheat flour
⅛ teaspoon imitation maple flavor
½ cup canola oil
3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
4 tablespoons buttermilk powder
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Quick Soaker: Add yeast, water, apple cider vinegar, and 2 cups whole wheat flour to mixer bowl. Mix till combined and let it soak for 25 minutes.
Add the remaining ingredients except, 1¼ cups of the flour, to the mixer bowl and turn the mixer on low speed till the ingredients are just combined. Slowly add the remaining whole wheat flour, you might have to add or subtract a little flour. You do want the dough to be a little stickier than bread dough.
Turn the mixer up to medium speed and let it knead the dough for 6 minutes.
Turn off the mixer and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
Turn the dough out onto an oiled counter top and divide the dough into 12 somewhat even pieces.
Form each piece of dough into a ball, roll it on the oil counter top to cover it with oil and place it in a lightly oiled casserole pan, two cake pans will work also.
Loosely cover pans with plastic wrap and let the rolls rise for about 35 minutes. About 20 minutes before the rolls are done rising, pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.
Remove plastic wrap and bake rolls for 28 - 30 minutes. You want the tops to be browned and also the sides of the rolls to be browned, this is where a see-through glass pan is very helpful.
Place rolls onto a cooling rack and allow the rolls to cool for about 50 minutes, I always sneak a few before they cool down because I can;t help myself.

I got the quick soaker idea from Vickilynn Haycraft, it seems to get the yeast really started and allows for a 1/3 of my wheat flour to really soak up the water really well. I also added this recipe to the monthly BYOB event.

100% Spelt Pancakes

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I have recently started getting into using spelt flour more because I have about 200 pounds spelt grain in my food storage right now. I found this great YouTube video off a Pinterest pin by Jeff the Chef that looked good. I had some extra time at lunch and whipped them up, what a great recipe. It is not 100% spelt flour but it only has a little white flour so it is mostly healthy for you, unless you drowned it with syrup like my wife does (“would you like some pancake with that syrup?”).

This spelt pancake recipe would be great for adding fruit to or topping with a fruit compote. I hope Jeff shares some more great videos on his YouTube channel. Watch Jeff’s spelt pancake video below or at YouTube.

I made some very slight changes from the original in the recipe shown below. I just don’t buy small eggs and if I told you to use a pinch of salt you would ask me how much salt is a pinch of salt, so I have adjusted it accordingly. I also opted to use all spelt flour because I know spelt grain stores well in my food storage and white flour does not, it still tastes great without the white flour.

100% Spelt Pancakes

makes about 11 pancakes at the ¼ cup batter size.

Author: Food Prepper

Ingredients

1⅓ cup freshly ground spelt flour
(or 1 cup spelt flour + ⅓ cup white flour as the original recipe directs)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1½ tablespoons canola oil
2 large eggs

Instructions

Pre-heat electric griddle to 375 degrees..
Add all dry ingredients to a mixing bowl and whisk together.
Add all wet ingredients to a 2nd mixing bowl and whisk together.
Add dry ingredient mix to wet ingredient mixing bowl and whisk till it just comes together.
Lightly spray your hot griddle with cooking spray.
Use a ¼ measuring cup to scoop the pancake batter onto the griddle.
I cook my pancakes 1 minute 45 seconds on the first side and 2 minutes 15 seconds on the second side for perfect pancakes, this may vary on your griddle.

Canned Pumpkin Puree

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Homemade Pumpkin Chili

I love canned pumpkin and I use it all the time in baking. We make pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cake, pumpkin cornbread, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin sweet rolls, and pumpkin pie of course. I recently even made pumpkin chili and, to my surprise, it was quite good. There are many other things I would like to try with pumpkin puree, it just makes food taste great.

Another great thing about pumpkin puree is that it can replace oil and butter in many recipes. For replacing oil you can use 1 to 1 ration, for example use 1 cup of pumpkin puree in place of 1 cup oil called for. For replacing butter you can use 3/4 to 1 ration, for example use 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree in place of 1 cup butter called for. These amounts might need to be adjusted from recipe to recipe but it is a good starting point for you.

Because I use canned pumpkin often, it is a perfect product to add to my food storage list, it may not be for you. Canned pumpkin has a shelf life for up to 2 years from the date it is processed, so about 1 1/2 half years from the date you purchase it from the store. I try to make sure I use it by the “best by” date printed on the can, any older than that and the quality and nutrition goes fast.

My goal is to store about a one year supply of canned pumpkin in my storage room. I use about 4 cans a month, so I would need 48 cans of pumpkin puree to reach this goal. I am only about half way to my goal right now. I buy 8 cans of pumpkin puree every month, 4 to replace the ones I used and 4 help me reach my goal. You might consider buying a 12 pack of the quality organic pumpkin puree to get a good start.

Recipes to Try

Kamut Pumpkin Pancakes

I hope to post more of the pumpkin recipes I use later on. Feel free to share your pumpkin recipe links below, I am definitely looking for more to try.

Grain Mill Wagon Challenge Completed

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For the past 2 months, I have been participating in WonderMill’s Grain Mill Wagon Challenge. You can see my 5 posts at http://www.grainmillwagon.com/author/foodprepper/

WonderMill-grain-mill-300x231[1]

I used the WonderMill Grain Mill for all of these whole grain recipes by making freshly milled whole grain flours. The WonderMill is a very high quality electric grain mill and I really enjoyed using it for these challenges. The WonderMill turns grains instantly into flour, a nice change from manually cranking my hand grain mill that I bought specifically to still work during power out situations. I now keep my hand grain mill in my storage room and use the WonderMill for my day to day flour milling.

Here are a few photos from My Recipe Posts for this challenge:

Spelt Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whole Grain Peach Pancakes

Kamut Pumpkin Pancakes

Whole Wheat Tortillas

KAMUT Breakfast Muffins

Tablets are Great for Preppers

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My Autistic son with our Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7inch

My siblings and extended family have been using Kindles for a while now and we have borrowed them a few times, what a great way to read books. We recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7inch tablet this past CHRISTmas to aid our Autistic son’s learning experience, little did I know how much I would love using it too. I hardly turn on my laptop anymore for most things I used too because I like the tablet for most stuff, I might have to buy a second tablet so we don’t all have to share it anymore, plus our kids always want it when we are using it.

I recently read a forum post mentioning that a Kindle is great for a prepper because it holds plenty of books and data, is light weight, has a long battery life, and can be charged with a small USB solar charger (or other USB alternate power source). All these things make it great for a bugout bag or having at home. I found an article by M.D. Creekmore outlining what he likes about the Kindle that you might also find interesting. Personally, I like having a quality Android tablet over the Kindle family of tablets.

eBooks and PDF Documents

Kindles and Tablets can hold hundreds of books and documents that can be very useful in disaster like situations. I have found that there are plenty of PDF’s out there on the subject of prepping and survivalism that you can get for free or cheap, all of these can be downloaded to a Kindle or tablet to keep handy. I also think it would be nice to have something to read to pass the time if I were stranded for a long time like those of recent natural disasters, might keep me and my kids sane.

Recipes Archive

I have a huge pile of recipe cards and recipe print outs. I have started to put them on the tablet as PDF documents and this has been really nice. All of my recipes in one place and I can browse through them in a list, loving it. Plus, the tablet is small and easy to take on the go, so I can have my favorite recipes anywhere I am.

Games & Music

If you have kids, the stresses of a natural disaster can be very stressing on them. Having a few games on your tablet of Kindle Fire can help take their minds off what has happened and keep them more calm till things are more under control. This will also help you focus on disaster recovery instead of consoling you children too. You might even find me playing some of the games to pass the time. Music can also be soothing in a disaster.

GPS and Mapping

Not all tablets are GPS equipped but I would suggest getting one that is for compass, maps, route tracking, and other GPS abilities None of the Kindles have GPS yet at the time of this article, hopefully this will change in the future. My Samsung tablet is GPS equiped and the cheap Lenovo tablet is also, if you wanted a cheap alternative.I really like the GPS Essentials free android app for most of my GPS needs.

Built-in Camera

Most tablets have a built-in camera and video camera which can also be nice in documenting things around you or actions of others. If your Tablet is GPS equipped you can also have a record of the location of the photo too.

Great Apps for Android Tablets

Share your thoughts about tablets for preppers or your favorite Android prepper related apps with me.

Canned Peaches

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One canned food I have started to add to my food storage is canned Peaches. My 3 year old daughter loves fruit and especially peaches. Peaches seem to be the canned fruit that we use most in our house by a long shot.

Canned fruits are a great comfort food to store, especially if you have kids. Fruit is nutritional and sweet tasting, that is a win-win in food storage. Of course you get some sugar with canned fruits too but I don’t mind a little sugar.

Most canned fruit should be good for 2 to 3 years from the date of production. I try to use canned fruit within two years from the date of purchase to be safe. They may not be bad after 2 years but the quality deteriorate fast after that. It is best to store your canned fruit in a dark place with a temperature less than 76 degrees to get the maximum shelf life. If you canned the fruit yourself the shelf life may be different than this, I haven’t researched self canning much yet.

I plan on getting into canning fruits and other thing this next fall. I have some close relatives who know the canning process, which is good cause I don’t. I planted 2 peach trees, 2 apple trees, and a cherry tree in our back yard this last fall in hopes that in 2-4 years we can have good fruit producing trees. Hopefully I will have the canning process down when they do produce fruit.

For now, I am just buying canned fruits by the boxes from Costco, I spread out the costs by buying only 1 box of canned fruit a month and slowly over time I will have a good supply of canned fruit. If you find that you are eating most of the fruit before you buy your next box, you may need to buy 2 boxes a month.

I, as mentioned earlier in my blog, I believe in using the foods that you store so that there are less surprises when you have to use your stored food. You can eat fruit straight from the can but I think it is best to find ways to incorporate it into the foods you make.

Some other things you could use canned peaches in: Cobbler, muffins, salads, oatmeal, sweet salsa, dessert topping, smoothies, cake, rice pudding, pie, jam, jello, and on and on. I have a few recipes that I have incorporated peaches into that I will post at a later date, and I will be on the search for more now that I store them. Feel free to tell me what you use canned peaches for in the comments section below.

Recipes with Peaches:

Whole Grain Peach Pancakes

I hope to share a few more recipes in the near future.