This morning I made Cracked Wheat cereal using Brown Flax seeds and Cinnamon and also some Whole Wheat muffins with Brown Flax.

Here are the recipes:
Cracked Wheat Cereal (For detailed pictures click on the title)
2 C Whole Red Wheat freshly cracked using a hand crank mill
1 quart water
1 tsp sea salt
2 TBS Brown Flax Seeds
3 Whole Cloves
1 Inch piece of peeled ginger
Muffins: (For detailed steps on muffin making click on the link)
2 Cups of Fresh Ground Whole Red Wheat
1/4 Cup of Brown Flax Fresh ground in a seed mill
2 eggs
1 16 ounce can of pear sauce
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
I mixed all ingredients together and then put them in the muffin papers and let them sit in the pan for about a half hour. This sitting time is really important when cooking whole grains. It allows the wheat to suck up more of the moisture and makes for a really moist muffin.
Bake at 350 for twenty minutes

The muffins tasted great with strawberry jam. Ben likes to eat muffins even more if they have a fun paper shell. I bought these spider man muffin papers at Hobby Lobby.
Jenny Hatch

Here is a recipe for a vegetable chile that tastes delicious. I made it this morning for my family and we have been chowing on it all day.
1 lb Ground Sirloin
2 large Onions
3 Garlic Cloves
Brown the beef and onions in a medium skillet
Add
1 large can of diced tomatos
1 quart of pinto beans and brown basmati rice (recipe below) or
2 small cans pinto beans and 1 cup cooked basmati rice
2 eleven ounce cans of V-8 juice
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp dried ground chile peppers
Simmer about 2 hours on low
Serve over white rice, baked potatos, or pasta with shredded cheddar cheese.
I served this dish over potatos and it was yummy!

Pot of chile – next to several jars of my home made pinto beans with brown basmati rice

Secret ingredient – V-8 Juice right from the can

Finished bowl of Summer Chile
To cook up the rice and beans takes about ten minutes of prep and three days of cooking in the crock pot. Please don’t be put off by the time involved! Cooking your own rice and beans is well worth the time and effort involved. The taste and nutrition level skyrocket when you cook your own rather than used canned beans.
Here is the recipe:
In a large crock pot put
2 large beef bones (Soup bones found in the meat section of the grocery store)
1 onion
3 garlic cloves
1 1/2 C Brown Basmati Rice
3 C Rinsed Pinto Beans
Spices: (These spices can be added or not, I just bought a new spice grinder and so I have been grinding up a storm) Use dried spices if you can’t grind your own.
10 whole Coriander seeds
1 tsp whole brown mustard seeds
1 tsp whole yellow mustard seeds
1 TBS Psyillium seeds
1 TBS Flax seeds
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 TBS Sea Salt
1 TBS dried parsley
Grind up all of the spices and add to the crock pot. Cover with water and cook on the hightest setting for a day. Watch the water level and keep the beans well covered. You may need to add a quart or more of water during the cooking process. After a day of cooking, turn the heat down to the lowest setting and let simmer for two additional days.
I took the bones out of the crock pot after the first day and added in dried parsley.
After the beans were really soft, I put them in glass jars and stored them in the fridge. The beans and rice added to the chile were the perfect addition to the chile and made the meal so quick to put together.
We ate it over baked potatos with fresh cheddar and it was a great summer meal!
Jenny Hatch

I purchased a new Kitchen Toy recently, An electric spice grinder. I have used my mortar and pestal to gently grind up spices for various recipes, but to get the spices ground to powder takes some real effort and often does not work. My kids hate big pieces of hard spices in our food, and so I have been planning to purchase an electric grinder for some time, and finally used it for the first time yesterday.
Here is the grinder I purchased at Vitamin Cottage.


Ben helped me grind up the spices for this cookie recipe:


Before adding Cardamon to the electric mill it is important to get the seeds out of the pods. I used my mortar and pestle to crush the pods and extract the seeds

Cardamon seeds in mortar

Ben with the ground spices – Cardamon (6 pods worth of seeds), one stick of cinnamon, six whole cloves, one tablespoon of whole fennel, one teaspoon of whole anise, and a quarter of a whole nutmeg.

Yesterday I cooked up several things using whole spelt flour mixed with a half a cup of fresh ground golden flax seeds. Here is a picture of the spelt spice cookies baking in the oven with a loaf of spelt bread wrapped around copious amounts of turkey and cheddar cheese and sprinkled with sesame seeds. We had it for supper last night and it was delicious.
Here is the recipe for the Spelt Sugar Spice Cookies
1 C Butter
2 C Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
3 1/4 C Fresh Ground Spelt Flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Spices
3 inch piece of Cinnamon stick
1 Tbs Whole Fennel
1 Tsp Whole Anise
6 Whole Cloves
6 Cardamon Pods
1/4 Whole Nutmeg
Directions:
First – Grind the spelt flour and grind the whole spices
Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in eggs, vanilla, and spices and beat well.
Gradually add in the dry ingredients and mix well.
Refrigerate dough for an hour.
Bake in cookie bar pan for 25 minutes on 350 degrees.
These cookies tasted best hot out of the oven, but I have been munching on them steadily for the past hour while I blogged and they are really good the next day with a cup of mint herbal tea.

Jenny Hatch

Click on the photo to get to additional natural family blog food entries.
MEAL PLANNING:
This summer I will be teaching our four oldest children some basic meal planning and food budgeting.
Our experiment is going to include five days of lunch prep for each child. Michelle, Allison, Jeffrey, and Andrew will each be given five days and $100.00 to prepare a five course meal for our family of seven.

Hatch children in December of 2005
Each meal will include an appetizer, salad, soup, main dish (w/ protein, carb and vegetable), and dessert. Each serving must contain at least 25 grams of protein and the meal must cost less than $20.00 to prepare for the whole family. The children will be encouraged to use our food storage for basic ingredients, but will be required to do most of the cooking from scratch – with just a little help from mom.
I will continue to prepare breakfast and a light supper during the month of July, but the point of this experiment is to take our cooking/teaching to a higher level in terms of nutritional content and staying within a budget.
Paul works from home and most of us like to eat our main meal in the middle of the day, so this month of July is an ideal time to have our adventures in cooking.
Click on this photo of Ben to read about our thanksgiving vacation food adventures last november.

Ben helping in the kitchen.
Click on this link to read about how the children helped prepare thanksgiving supper.
Jenny Hatch

Recipe:
One Quart Rice Milk
One Cup Olive Oil
1/2 Cup Brown Rice Syrup
One TBS Yeast
Six Cups Whole Wheat Flour
Mix this in a Mixer for ten minutes
Gradually Add In:
Four more cups of Whole Wheat Flour
2 tsp Salt
When the dough pulls away from the bowl, stop adding flour and let the dough rise for one hour
Punch down dough and cut it in half
Roll out the dough and spread four tablespoons Warm Butter on the dough. Sprinkle 1/2 Cup White Sugar mixed with 1 tsp Cinnamon on the dough


Roll up the dough and cut the rolls in one inch pieces. Put them into a baking pan and let rise for one hour.


Bake 30 minutes at 375 Degrees
Frost with Cream Cheese Icing.
1/2 Cup Cream Cheese
2 tsp rice milk
pinch salt
3 Cups Powdered Sugar
Mix well with beaters and frost the rolls while still warm

Jenny Hatch