For the past few years I have taught cooking classes in my home to share the basics of Provident Living with those who attend.
These classes are designed to teach the new homemaker (or anyone) how to cook with whole foods. In the class I cook a pot of cracked wheat, a batch of muffins, and a loaf of whole wheat bread. I share the economics of cooking with whole foods, and also give a brief lecture on 72 hour kits, safe water storage, and how to rotate stored foods into your day to day cooking.
I have done numerous posts on this topic for my Blog, but for those of you who are new, here is a primer on how to cook cracked wheat cereal. This is covered in detail during the class. My next class will be on April 8th from 8:30 to 10:00 AM. If you are in the Denver/Boulder area and would like to attend, just email me for directions.
I will also be taking anyone interested on a Family Canning Session down at the Aurora Cannery. If you are interested in learning more about how to store whole foods for long term storage, just click on this blog entry. The canning session will be on April 15th from 8AM to Noon. Just email me for more information.

Cracked wheat Cereal with Butter and Agave Sweetner. A great way to start the day!

One cup of Organic Red Wheat

(Click on the photo to get to the web site where I purchased this mill)
I crack up one cup of Organic Red Wheat to feed my family of seven breakfast. This wheat costs about five cents. If you add in the cost of butter, spices, sweetner, milk or anything else you like to eat with the wheat, breakfast for my family costs about a dollar a day. Compared to any wheat based box of cold cereal, the economical savings of this breakfast are obvious. Most cereal costs about three dollars a box. Add in milk, sweetner, fruit, etc…and the costs go up significantly per serving. I also can’t “reuse” wasted cold cereal. Any cracked wheat left in the pot can be put in muffins, bread, or biscuits, and the waste is minimal.

You can make cracked wheat Cereal with just salt, but I like to use a variety of spices to make the wheat taste great! All of these spices help with digestion, which can be an issue if you are just starting whole food adventures. Into one quart of water I put a mix of Flax seed, Whole Clove, Cardamon pods, a chunk of ginger, a cinnamon stick, and grated nutmeg.

After the spices have hard boiled for twenty minutes, you can add in the cracked wheat, stirring constantly as you gradually add it in. The wheat then needs to hard boil for five minutes. I usually turn the heat down to medium and let it go, stirring every once in a while. This boiling step helps to soften the outer hull of the grain, and it quickens the cooking time. I then turn the heat down to a low simmer and let it cook for another half hour or so. Then I put it in bowls and let it sit and cool for five minutes or so. It keeps cooking in the dish while it cools down to “just right”.
More on Wheat Cookery
Provident Living Q & A
Jenny Hatch
Nobody is talking about it yet, but I feel passionate about parents being prepared for Emergency Childbirth during a Bird Flu Pandemic. Here is a previous Blog Entry on that topic.

Quinoa is a high protein grain. When I eat a meal prepared with Quinoa, I don’t feel the need to add meat to the stir fry because the grain is so filling.
Here is my recipe for a great Quinoa Stir fry. I made this lunch for my husband and I the other day. The kids don’t like it when I spice up the food so much, so I don’t make this meal very often for our family, but when it is just Paul and I, I go all out in terms of spices and flavors. It was really yummy, and we had plenty left over for re-heat the next day. It actually tasted better the second day, as so many stir fry meals do.

Click on the photo to learn more facts about this amazing grain!
Recipe:
2 Cups Water
1/2 Cup Quinoa
1/2 Cup White Basmati Rice
Herbs
Thumb size piece of ginger, peeled
1/8 teaspoon Flax seed
1/8 teaspoon Coriander seeds
1/8 teaspoon Fenugreek Seeds
3 whole Cardamon pods
2 whole Cloves
1 teaspoon Tumeric Powder
1 teaspoon sea Salt
Hard boil the herbs in the water for five minutes, then turn the heat down and add in the rice and quinoa. Cover and let simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.
Vegetable Stir Fry
Saute
one purple onion
one small sweet potato
3 cloves garlic
in 1/8 c. Olive Oil and 1/2 teaspoon of whole fennel seeds
Add in a couple splashes of Balsamic Vinegar when the potatos are soft
1 teaspoon sea Salt
A couple shakes each of ground
Pepper
Thyme
Oregano
1 large bag of Organic Broccoli
1/2 cup of water
Let the water steam the broccoli and reduce, then turn the heat off and let the vegetables sit until the quinoa and rice are finished cooking. Serve the vegetables over the Quinoa.

Preparing the water

Adding Quinoa and Rice to the water

Cooked Quinoa and Rice (the tumeric turns it yellow!)

Adding the fennel seed to the olive oil

Adding in the sweet potato and onion

I slice the garlic right into the pan (yes, my three year old son took this picture)

Saute the veges in the olive oil

When you add the vinegar to the stir fry it tends to stop the cooking action of the vegetables, so don’t add it in until the veges are as soft as you like to eat them!

Add in a bag of frozen broccoli

Spoon the stir fry over the quinoa for a healthy and filling lunch.
I pull out whatever whole herbs and spices I can see and put them on a napkin next to the plate. Nobody likes to chomp down on a whole cardamon pod or a chunk of ginger. If you happen to have this experience however, it promises to be one you won’t forget!

Jenny Hatch

The other night I made a Baked Chicken and Rye Biscuit supper. I purchased the chicken at Wild Oats, my favorite health food store.

Click on the Chicken to get to the Wild Oats Store Locater.
I like to purchase sustainably farmed chickens. They are much healthier, and make better meals than chickens purchased just about anywhere else. This bird cost quite a bit ($15.50), but it was enough to create three total meals for my family. After we ate the initial supper, I made chicken soup, and had leftover chicken breast in the fridge for sandwiches.

Before baking rinse the chicken with tap water

Fill the cavity of the bird with vegetables and rosemary herb

Pour Olive oil over the top of the chicken

Vegetables used in this recipe before being peeled and chopped

Chopped vegetables in the baking pan

Herbs sprinkled on the vegetables. I used Thyme, Oregano, and Pepper with a generous amount of sea salt.

I also sprinkled a tablespoon of sea salt on the chicken and then loaded it up with dried parsley, spinach, and chives

The organ meats and neck can be boiled with fresh vegetables, sea salt, and oat straw tea to make a very nourishing stock to be used as gravy or soup stock. I used this pot for soup later in the week.

Hard boil the stock for twenty minutes, then let simmer for a couple hours. Strain and save in the fridge until needed.

Grinding the whole Rye in the electric grain mill.

Adding Rye Flour to mixer

Whole milk buttermilk makes the best biscuits

After mixing pour out the dough onto your board. Dough should be sticky at this point.

Roll out the dough gently.
My Mom taught me that when making biscuits you use a quick hand and a gentle touch for light biscuits.

Rye Biscuits in the pan

I brushed the biscuits with Butter as soon as they came out of the oven. They were perfect with the baked chicken.
Recipe:
Rye Buttermilk Biscuits
3 C Fresh ground Rye Flour
3 C White Flour
1 tsp Baking soda
3 tsp Baking powder
3 tsp sea salt
Mix dry ingredients in the mixer
Add in
1 quart Whole Milk Buttermilk
1/2 C light Olive Oil
Mix until gently incorporated and then turn out onto a board. Gently press dough out until it is ready to be cut. Cut with a biscuit cutter, or a glass, as I used in the picture. I like my biscuits thick and so I leave the dough very thick and the average biscuit cutter is not large enough. I use an upside down drinking glass to quickly cut out the dough.
Bake at 450 for 30 minutes.
Brush with butter when just taken hot out of the oven.

Jenny Hatch
UPDATE
Linked on Pajamas Media
Former PJ Entry

Tonight I made some soup and biscuits and thought I would share the recipes. Very yummy food for a cold day!

Finished Lentil, Potato, and Leek Soup

Lentil Soup in the Pot
Recipe for Lentil Soup:
Two TBS Olive Oil
One large white onion
One large leek
Two large baking potatos
Six carrots
One cup of soaked lentils (For this recipe I used brown, red, and green lentils mixed together)
Three green onions
One small box of Imagine Foods Chicken Stock
1/2 tsp Dried Oregano
1/2 tsp Dried Thyme
1/4 Cup Dried Parsley and Spinach
One tsp Ground Black Pepper
Additional Stock made in a separate stock pot –
One quart of water
One TBS sea Salt
1/4 Cup Oat Straw Tea
One TBS Flax Seeds
Ten Coriander Seeds (Whole)
One tsp Rosemary (Whole)

Stock pot after being drained.
Stock – Made from Flax Seed, Coriander, Rosemary, and Oatstraw Tea
How to make this soup:
Begin by soaking the lentils in a bowl of warm water. Chop the green onions and add them to the bowl. Let this soak for as long as it takes the onions to get soft. Then drain and add to the pot.
In a large pot saute the white Onion in 2 TBS of Olive Oil.
Add in one tsp sea salt. Cook for about ten minutes. While the onions were cooking I peeled the carrots, chopped the leek and rinsed it really well, and threw the carrots, leek, and spices into the pot.
Then I added the lentils and the box of chicken stock. I turned the heat down to medium and let this boil while the second pot of stock cooked.
For the Oatstraw stock put one quart of water into a pot and add in the rest of the ingredients. The Oatstraw, Flax, Sea salt, Rosemary, and Coriander. Let this all hard boil for twenty minutes. Strain it into the soup pot. Then crank up the heat and let the soup boil for a good 45 minutes or until the carrots are soft.
Total cooking time is about 90 minutes from start to end.
I made biscuits to go with the soup.
Esther’s whole wheat biscuits.
This recipe is meant to be used with 100% white wheat. My friend Esther gave it to me a couple weeks ago. I doubled it and tweaked it by using 1/2 white flour and half whole wheat and light olive oil instead of butter. They turned out great!
Whole Wheat Biscuits
Preheat oven to 500
Three cups whole wheat flour
Three cups white flour
Two TBS Baking Powder
Two TBS Sugar
Two tsp salt
One tsp baking soda
1/2 Cup olive oil
Three Cups Buttermilk
Mix all ingredients together and turn out onto a floured surface. Roll the dough out gently and use a biscuit cutter to cut out the dough. Put biscuits in a pan that has been greased and bake at 500 degrees for five minutes. Then turn the heat down and bake for an additional 15 minutes at 450.
Cool for 2 minutes in the pan, then invert the pan over into a tea towell. Turn right side up and cool 5 minutes longer then serve.
These biscuits definitely tasted best right out of the oven, but I just ate another one tonight cold and it was still better than most store bought bread.

My secret Weapon for quick soup – Imagine Foods Stock in a Box!
I like to make most of my soup stock from scratch, but animal stocks are messy and really greasy to clean up after. The other day I made a turkey stock from the leftover bones from our supper, and it reminded me of how disgusting that particular job can be! Keeping some of these stock boxes on hand is so nice for soups, gravies, and casseroles! I love the various flavors Imagine Foods has for purchase and most can be bought at any health food store in the soup section.

Whole Wheat Biscuits
I also like to bake double amounts when I make cookies or biscuits, but this recipe can be halved to make a smaller amount. I forgot to take the picture of the biscuits when I pulled them out of the oven. And these two were the only ones left on the plate when I snapped the picture. My family had snarfed them in a matter of minutes!
Paul said he thought the soup was “really good”.

Jenny Hatch

My Kitchen Counter is cluttered with cooking supplies, herbs, and kitchen tools on any given day!
Here is a compilation of the Cooking and Home Making Blog Entries I have put together since starting in July.
One of the main reasons I Blog is to encourage Mothers in the traditional homemaking arts of cooking from scratch, growing herbs, and using natural remedies to heal the family.
Jenny Hatch
Spelt
Pinto Beans
Black Turtle Beans
How to Make Hot Kamut Cereal
Wheat Cookery
Jenny’s Flu Soup
Red Raspberry Leaf Tea

The Most Yummy Oatmeal
Making Muffins
Mixing Milk

Lunches
Harvesting the Kitchen herbs for cooking

Ingredients for cooking corn chowder from scratch!