Spelt Muffins
This morning Ben and I cooked breakfast for the family. It took about an hour, and we made four different recipes.

I alternate grains every day to get variety and today was our Spelt day. Spelt is a wheat alternative, and I use an Organic grain that has been sitting in my basement for a couple years.

I used my Whisper Mill to grind three cups of spelt, which was plenty to make the muffins, bread, and pancakes.

Ben helped to stir the muffin dough

Quality organic eggs up the protein in your foods considerably.

I use Olive Oil almost exclusively in all my baking and cooking.

Muffin Dough in pans

Finished Spelt Muffins

I went through several years when my older children were small when I prided myself on never having any white flour or white sugar in the house. This lasted for as long as we home schooled and didn’t interact with society too much. But when my children started going to school, I quickly learned that I was in competition with everything. Vending machines, friends who wanted to “trade” at lunchtime, and the never ending supply of treats being handed out at school, church, and any party my kids attended.
In the past few years I have started buying white flour and white sugar in bulk at Wal-Mart. I still get the unbleached flour, and this high altitude hungarian flour is the best in my opinion. Usually I mix it half and half with just about anything I cook. Once in a while I will make 100% whole wheat pancakes or waffles, as anything eaten with syrup will generally be gobbled up by the children. But when making muffins and bread, I have learned that if I want the food I create to be eaten, I need to sweeten it up a little bit.

We made some herbal tea as it is a cold morning, and this brand of Celestial Seasonings helps to ward off colds and flu.

Vitamin C powder helps with the immunity of my family

Ben adding in the Vitamin C powder

We also add in Fresh Lemon juice to up the vitamin C

And Orange juice

And Grapefruit juice

Here is my hand crank roller mill used to crack the spelt for hot porridge

Ginding the Spelt

Adding in Flax seeds to the cereal pot

The Breakfast table

Boys eating breakfast

Some people ask me what I do all day long and I often reply, “Dishes”. Most often they laugh because they think I am joking. But I’m not, I usually do five loads of dishes a day. Meaning I load my dishwasher five times a day and empty it just as often.
Here are the recipes.
Spelt Bread
For a two pound bread machine loaf of bread.
1 1/4 cups water
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp sweetener
1 tsp salt
2 cups Spelt Flour
1 1/2 cups white flour
1 tsp yeast
Put in bread machine and cook on the whole wheat setting for three hours.
Muffins
2 cups spelt
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/8 cup olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Bake at 375 for twenty minutes
Cracked spelt cereal
Crack up one cup of spelt in a hand crank grinder
Add it to a one quart of water that has been boiling hard for twenty minutes with one cinnamon stick, three cardamon pods, three whole cloves, one piece of ginger and a sprinkling of flax seeds. Add in one teaspoon of salt, and then add in the cracked spelt and let simmer for a half hour.
Spelt Pancakes
2 cups of spelt flour
1 c of white flour
1/4 c sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Mix dry ingredients and then add in
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
Bake in a frying pan at medium heat.
Serve with fresh fruit and syrup or jam
Herbal tea
4 Celestial Seasonings tea bags – any wellness tea
2 packets of E Mer Gen C supplement
juice from one each – lemon, grapefruit and orange
1/4 c honey
Mix together in 1/2 gallon jug with 1/2 gallon of boiling water – let steep for ten minutes and serve!
The kids and Paul snarfed most of the pancakes for breakfast and most walked out the door to school and work with a muffin or two tucked in lunches and being munched on as they went.
The bread is still cooking in the bread machine, but I’ll take a picture when it is finished.
All told this was a healthy, inexpensive meal for my family. We have plenty of muffins left for snacking on later in the day, and I still have some cracked Spelt left over which I will throw into something I make later on, or store in the fridge for a snack for me. Often I will use leftover cereal to make more muffins.
Spelt can be purchased in bulk at most health food stores, and is a great alternative to wheat, especially if one has a wheat allergy.
Jenny Hatch
UPDATE:
January 25
Pictures of the bread, which we ate last night with a baked chicken and mashed potato supper.


Sliced bread

Organic Spelt in a ten pound bin
Jenny Hatch