• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

One Vibrant Mama

  • Home
  • Blog
  • SHOP
    • Real Food Done-For-You Menus
    • Back to Basics
    • Real Food Storage
  • Recipe Index
  • New? Start Here!
    • What are Traditional Foods?
    • Article Index
    • Feeding Children
    • Snacks and Lunches
  • About
    • Meet KerryAnn
    • Contact KerryAnn
    • Disclaimer
    • Privacy Notice
    • Terms and Conditions
You are here: Home / Archives for grain mill

grain mill

Strategies for Hidden Veggies III- Waffles

January 18, 2011 by KerryAnn 6 Comments

In the first two posts in this series, we examined how to replace flour in a baked good recipe with a vegetable.  This time we’ll learn how to replace a liquid with a puree while still soaking the flours in order to make the baked good traditional foods.

In the same vein as the books that promote purees, many baked goods can have some mashed banana, applesauce, sweet potato, pumpkin, butternut squash or the like added to the recipe in place of the water or milk.  The problem with many of these recipes is that the vegetable or fruit takes the place of the milk or water, and it’s then difficult to convert that recipe to being soaked.  To overcome that problem, I carefully choose recipes that call for enough liquid to work with.  I then soak the flour with the minimum amount of liquid needed to get it wet and add the rest that the recipe calls for in fruit or vegetables.  This is made much easier if you are baking gluten-free goodies, since most of the recipes call for at least a small amount of starch.  Since starches do not need to be soaked, this frees up extra liquid in the recipe to convert to a vegetable or fruit and still have the finished product turn out with the correct texture.  Since starch makes waffles crispy, this is the perfect recipe for conversion.

I use this strategy most often when there’s just a little applesauce left in the bottom of the jar, or there’s one lone banana that needs to be used.

I tip my hat to Sue Gregg, whose cookbook is the first place I heard about grinding grain in the blender with liquid so you don’t have to have a grain mill to have the benefits of freshly-ground flour.  I used her method to make pancakes for a long time until I could afford a grain mill.

[Read more…] about Strategies for Hidden Veggies III- Waffles

Filed Under: Blender Batters, Breakfast, Casein-Free, Gluten-Free, Grains, Hidden Veggie Strategies, Hidden Veggies, Menu Mailer, Nut-Free, Recipes, Soy-Free, Vegetables Tagged With: baking, blender, blender batter, dessert, eggs, grain mill, grains, hidden veggies, kids, maple syrup, pumpkin, rice, stevia, sweetener, waffles

Fermentation Friday: Fermented French Fries

March 13, 2011 by KerryAnn 42 Comments

We’ve fallen in love with this recipe and this is the only way I will make fries in the future. My kids inhale these and ask for more, no matter how many I make. They are just like I remember fast food fries to be- crisp on the outside, hot and soft on the inside. And since they’re fried in tallow, I feel good about my kids eating them.

When I developed this recipe, I’d been in a fermenting funk. I was having a hard time coming up with something creative. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sauerkraut and kefirs. But I needed something…. more. Different. Something my kids would love. One of my dear friends, Loztnausten, had a post about making shoestring french fries and one on fermenting fries. I had read it long ago, but I kept on having the ‘too much work’ mantra scroll in my head. Hand-cutting all of those fries…. I wanted a food processor with a blade that could do it for me, but it was out of my budget. If I wanted french fries, I would ask my husband to make them for me as a treat, when I was working a late night and he had some free time and was looking to dote on me by whipping up something special and junky in the kitchen for us to munch on while I slaved away on the computer. Last January my husband made some french fries, using the mandolin slicer I had recently acquired from a friend. He asked me to look up what temp to cook them at, as his last batch had turned out too oil-logged. We knew he needed a higher temperature, so I surfed over to Everything Free Eating to see how LZ does her fries and I again saw the fermented fries post.

A light bulb went off.

The Research

I did a little research. In this paper, fermentation with a lactic acid bacteria (LAB) resulted in a reduction of the acrylamide in french fries by as much as 90% after 15 minutes. Fermenting in an anaerobic environment is the best way to encourage the production of LAB at home so your can achieve this same result without needing a lab coat, a college degree and an industrial process to cook your diner.

Why do we want to reduce the acrylamide? It’s a carcinogen. Anything that browns while it cooks- bread, potatoes, chips, biscuits, pretty much any baked or fried good, forms acrylamide as it browns.

How does LAB fermentation work to reduce the acrylamide? A quote from Science Daily tells us

“Acrylamide is formed as a reaction between the amino acid asparagine and simple sugars such as glucose and fructose. Put simply, the lactic acid bacteria remove these compounds and inhibit the formation of acrylamide.”

If you’d like to read more about how LABs consume these simple sugars, this book is a good place to start studying. The paper mentioned above, Lactic acid fermentation reduces acrylamide formed during production of fried potato products, was published in the journal Aspects of Applied Biology. It says in its summary:

“Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) metabolise simple sugars rapidly, producing lactic acid which lowers pH and reduces the Maillard reactions initiated by heat. This method can be used in industries producing fried potato products to reduce their problems with acrylamide formation. Applying the LAB method to French fries shortly prior to the pre-frying step reduces acrylamide formation as much as 90%. Browning reactions consequently are reduced. Sensory analysis shows loss of colour and burnt smell and taste without affecting quality of final potato sticks. A fermentation time of approximately 15 minutes is needed given a dense LAB culture. The results from large scale industrial- batch as well as continuous experiments – indicate that LAB fermentation provides the best means for acrylamide mitigation in the production of fried potato products.”

The Application

So the research says that LAB thrives best in an anaerobic environment. Anaerobic means that oxygen is not present; aerobic means that oxygen is present. In order to get LABs to proliferate, I needed to provide an anaerobic environment that would encourage their growth while discouraging the growth of all non-beneficial species, especially the aerobic ones.

So, how can be get an anaerobic environment in home fermentation? That can only be accomplished with a seal that prevents oxygen from entering while an airlock allows carbon dioxide to escape. Without an anaerobic environment, the LABs will not flourish and the acrylamides will not greatly diminish. Open air fermentation will not reduce acrylamides to the same extent due to the lack of LABs. As the bacteria produce carbon dioxide and use up the oxygen, it reduces the population of undesirable, aerobic bacteria and allows the LAB to flourish in the oxygenless environment. The Pickl-It provides this type of environment, as it as an airtight seal and an airlock for the growing carbon dioxide to escape. An open bowl provides a continuous supply of oxygen, never increasing the amount of LAB present and giving an environment that is ideal for the undesirable, aerobic bacteria to flourish. A mason jar would not, either, as it has to be burped regularly to allow the building carbon dioxide to escape. Any time you burp a mason jar, it allows oxygen to rush into the vessel, starting the process all over again. Not burping the jar would cause explosions, as I have had happen in the past. An air-tight vessel with an air lock is the only way to see the LABs flourish and therefore reduce the acrylamide in the potatoes.

This makes sense to me. The examples of ancient fermentation crocks I have seen contained wooden lids and were buried while they ferment. A good example is Korean Kimchi. Ditto for the Icelanders and their fermented shark, called Hakarl, which sits in the ground for 6-12 weeks to ferment. You don’t get air circulation under the ground.

You will notice in the study, that the concentration of LABs used to reduce the acrylamide by 90% was a 1% solution. In order to reach a concentration of 1% in your own kitchen, you need your potatoes to be in an environment where oxygen can not enter for 3-6 days, according to the Handbook of Fermented Functional Foods. If you preview this book on Amazon using their Look Inside! feature, you can read about it on page 402 of this wonderful and very detailed book. Other parts of this book are available on Google Books, if you’d like to read the beginning of the book.

The Recipe

Mmmmm… crispy outside, soft inside, and just the right amount of salt!

[Read more…] about Fermentation Friday: Fermented French Fries

Filed Under: Best Of, Blog Carnivals, Casein-Free, Cultured Foods, Egg-Free, Featured Recipe, Fermentation Friday, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Kids, Lactofermentation, Nut-Free, Packaged Replacements, Portable Treats, Recipes, Sanity Savers, Side Dishes, Snacks, Soy-Free, Sweetener-Free, Vegetables Tagged With: bacteria, carnival, fermentation, Fermentation Friday, food, french fries, grain mill, kids, kids favorites, lard, linky, March, mason jar, potatoes, rice, stove-top dishes, tallow

Good, Better, Best- Choosing Grains

February 18, 2011 by KerryAnn Leave a Comment

As I stated with my last post on this subject, I fully recognize that some of you have very tight budgets or only have access to mega-marts due to your locations.  Others will have the funds and availability to choose the best of the best.  Either way, this post isn’t to condemn someone who can’t pick the best of every option, it is to help you make the best decision you can with what you have, where you are.

For the beginning of this series, we will look at your choices in purchasing grains.  We will not get into gluten vs gluten-free, whether or not you should eat grains, and the like.  If you are currently buying grains, this is to help you decide what is the best option for your budget.  This posting is my opinion, and after research, you might come to a different conclusion.  If you do, please comment and share what you found and your reasoning.  I’m always open to changing my opinion and updating this post if new or different information comes along.

 The Choices

Best– [Read more…] about Good, Better, Best- Choosing Grains

Filed Under: Frugality, Good, Better, Best, Grains Tagged With: blender, blender batter, Bob Red Mill, budget, conventional, dirty dozen, food, fruits, grain mill, grains, organic, power outage, rice, sorghum, wheat

Product Review- Lundberg Brown Rice Couscous

February 25, 2011 by KerryAnn Leave a Comment

If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to enter our Menu Mailer giveaway here. It closes on Wednesday, March 9th at 11:59 PM EST.

–

I’ve been gluten free for four-and-a-half years now. In that time, I have watched a myriad of products come onto the market. It’s rare that I try a product new to the GF market and am completely disgusted.

Tonight, that happened.

And not only was I disgusted, I was downright mad.

Wednesday, I took the kids for their dental check-up. On the way home, we swung by the store. I was completely excited when I saw Lundberg’s new Brown Rice Couscous. I have a couple of favorite recipes for couscous that I had back when we went gluten-free. I had held on to them, hoping that eventually someone would debut a gluten-free couscous. So I happily grabbed two boxes from the shelf and danced all the way to the check-out line. I planned on making my favorite chicken dish for dinner on Thursday night and the couscous dessert this weekend. It would be a special treat. If the couscous was good, it would be the meal I would request for my birthday coming up shortly.

So, tonight I started making dinner, very excited to once again have a favorite dish available for special occasions. I popped open the box and my heart sank. I took one look at the ‘couscous’ and immediately felt like I had been duped. It’s not really couscous. Couscous is a pasta. This product is nothing more than cracked rice! It’s simply grains of rice that have been cut unto three or four pieces each. I was mad that I had paid so much money for something I could have simply made in my grain mill for a quarter of the cost! It works out to be over $5 a pound!!!

Well, disappointed or not, I decided to go ahead and fix the dish. The couscous is toasted, so it does have the nutty flavor I remember. And the pieces are cut to the right size. So it gets good marks on flavor and mouth-feel. It cooks just like whole rice, so it gets good marks for the ease in fixing it. It also gets good marks for being certified non-GMO. But it gets a big, fat zero from me for value for the cost and false advertising, and that over-rides all of the other considerations. I will not buy this product again, and I have written to the company to express my disgust. Couscous is a pasta, not a cracked grain!

So, I recommend you save your money and run your rice through a grain mill instead. It will be far cheaper and you won’t be supporting a company that is engaging in some false advertising while charging a quadruple price for it!

–

Disclaimer: I have received no payment or free product in exchange for this review. I have no financial interest in the product or the company.

—

KerryAnn Foster runs Cooking Traditional Foods, the longest running Traditional Foods Menu Mailer on the internet. KerryAnn has over nine years of traditional foods experience and is a former Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader. Founded in 2005, CTF helps you feed your family nourishing foods they will love. Each mailer contains one soup, five dinners, one breakfast, on dessert and extras. You can learn more about our Menu Mailers at the CTF website. For a free sample Menu Mailer, join our mailing list. You can also join our forum to chat with other traditional foodists and learn more.

2 Responses to “Product Review- Lundberg Brown Rice Couscous”

1. Tas says:
February 25, 2011 at 03:02 | edit

Maybe they were getting mixed up with burghal which is cracked wheat.
2. KerryAnn Foster says:
February 25, 2011 at 19:35 | edit

That’s possible, Tas, but I sure hope their research department would have better sense! Lundberg is normally a very good company.

Filed Under: Product Reviews Tagged With: dessert, fat, February, GMO, grain mill, grains, Menu Mailer, product reviews, rice, wheat

Cheap Eats- Budget Breakfasts III: Rice Farina

March 11, 2010 by KerryAnn Leave a Comment

I am often appalled at the price of hot cereals, especially gluten-free hot cereals.  If you have a blender or a grain mill, you can make them for a fraction of the cost of the commercially produced products and they will be fresher.  Rice farina is the perfect example of this.  Bob’s Red Mill sells it for $17.72 for 7 pounds, which comes out to $2.53 a pound.  You can get whole rice for the normal price of 40 cents a pound around here, probably less if you go to an ethnic market, and then do about 3 minute’s worth of work yourself to save the $2.13 difference.  I have also done this with sorghum and had excellent results.

[Read more…] about Cheap Eats- Budget Breakfasts III: Rice Farina

Filed Under: Breakfast, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, Frugality, Gluten-Free, Grains, Nut-Free, Recipes, Soy-Free, Uncategorized Tagged With: blender, Bob Red Mill, breakfast, butter, coconut milk, dessert, grain mill, maple syrup, rapadura, rice, sorghum, soup, vinegar

Primary Sidebar

One Vibrant Mama Newsletter

Subscribe to the One Vibrant Mama Newsletter to get notifications of new blog posts and emails!

Follow Us on Social Media

Meet KerryAnn

I'm KerryAnn Foster, a crazy vibrant Jesus Freak with a heart full of hope. I'm not afraid to love on the least of these or get my hands dirty. This blog is my journey from ineffective, uptight, obese wallflower to a woman on fire for God and living the most vibrant, passionate life possible!

I live in the mountains of Western North Carolina with my husband, Jeff, and our two teens. I blog about self-confidence, health and home, homeschooling and living a vibrant, wide-open Jesus-centered lifestyle. I have over seventeen years of real food, natural lifestyle and health experience. We have homeschooled our children since birth and both Jeff and I run home-based businesses. We're crazy, we know it, and we love every second of it!

Read about my journey to health through celiac disease, PCOS, food allergies, obesity, adrenal fatigue and heavy metals.

Instagram did not return a 200.

Follow One Vibrant Mama on Instagram!

Recent Posts

  • Homeschool for College Credit
  • Homeschool Class Plans – The Ultimate Guide!
  • Homeschool a Distracted Child, No Matter Their Age!
  • How to Create a Homeschool Syllabus for Your High Schooler
  • Keeping A Homeschool Bullet Journal

Ads




Ads


Ads


Archive

Footer

Disclaimer

We make a good faith effort to keep up-to-date on the allergen content status of products. However, product formulations change frequently. Always check product labels for the most recent ingredient information and call the company if you have any questions as to the gluten content of a product.

Statements on this website have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Products and/or information are not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. Readers are advised to do their own research and make decisions in partnership with your health care provider. If you are pregnant, nursing, have a medical condition or are taking any medication, please consult your physician. Nothing you read here should be relied upon to determine dietary changes, a medical diagnosis or courses of treatment.

View Our Disclaimers, Terms and Conditions and our Privacy Policy for more information.

About

The information contained on Intentionally Domestic is meant for educational and informational purposes only. We are neither doctors nor dietitians. We do not dispense advice on curing or treating any health ailment or disease. Please consult your health care provider before following any information on this site.

  • Grain-Free
  • Gluten-Free
  • Casein-Free
  • Egg-Free
  • Nut-Free
  • Soy-Free

Copyright © 2023 · Wellness Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Got it! Maybe Later Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Subscribe to the One Vibrant Mama Newsletter

Introduce yourself and your program
Your information will *never* be shared or sold to a 3rd party.