Amaranth has been used for food by humans in a number of ways. The most common usage is to grind the grain into flour for use in breads, noodles, pancakes, cereals, granola, cookies, or other flour-based products. The grain can be popped like popcorn or flaked like oatmeal.  If you are looking to add this grain variety to your diet, be ready to do some experimenting with both the flour and the seed/grain in whole form.  The addition of Amaranth can prove to add to your nutrition. It is a gluten free food which is easily digested.

Oats are very seldom sold with the hull left on for eating. You will have to look for “oat groats”, which is the least-processed form which can be used in the same ways you would use wheat kernels.

Steel cut oats are whole oats which have merely been roughly cut. Old-fashioned have been flattened and quick-cooking oats have been steamed a bit, cut and flattened to speed cooking time. Instant oatmeal has been rolled very thin and is already partially cooked. For nutrition (and some people would say for full texture), the steel cut oats win out.

Because of their somewhat higher fat content, oats should be stored away from any heat or damp in an airtight container. The suggested storage time for oats is about three months.

In addition to porridge, oats can be used for stuffing, added to baked goods, or cooked whole and added to grain salads. Try using them in place of bread crumbs for meatloaf. Top a cobbler with a mixture of whole wheat flour, butter, sugar and whole oats. It’s also easy to make your own Granola! Visit this website for more information on whole grain cooking: http://www.millersgrainhouse.com/store

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Best Blessings!
Donna Miller

Deut 28:5 –

If we have even just a little left over oatmeal and grits – we don’t throw them away! This recipe makes the best whole grain waffles in the blender from left-overs! I hope you go watch and enjoy!!

Whole Grain Left-Over Blender Waffles

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Best Blessings!

Donna Miller

You can mill pastry flour from soft wheat (vs. the hard wheat that make good loaf bread) but it will not be silky smooth like bagged flour because the hulls (aka: bran., fiber) are not separated. You could sift it to get some of them out, but then again that is tedious and may not be necessary. For a texture of a pastry good that we are ‘used to’ it may be that you would have to use 1/4-1/2 of the flour as bagged organic pastry flour (still missing vital oils and oxidized but does lack chemicals and bleach) and the remaining part as freshly milled (to at least add more nutrients and fiber). Otherwise, the pastry flour straight from the soft wheat as milled is a whole wheat and will be a bit more dense than say a croissant type texture.

The way I look at it, even if 1/2 the recipe is freshly milled soft wheat, then you are getting more nutrients and bran than the usual pastry flour with it’s bleach and oxidized nutrients. Also if you go organic vs. regular bagged pastry flour, you are avoiding the chemicals and added synthasized viatmins that your body doesn’t recognize anyway.

Happy Milling!
Donna Miller

http://www.millersgrainhouse.com/store

There are a few tips to using organic brown rice in place of the (conveniently stripped of all nutrition) minute or instant rice.

Tip #1: Soak, Rinse and Drain
If you are cooking brown rice the traditional way (simmered in a covered pot) then soak it for about half an hour in water that covers the top. Drain it in a strainer and rinse just before you put it in the boiling water. This will soften the nutritious hull and make it cook more like stripped rice.

Tip #2: Don’t over or under cook
Over cooked brown rice gets mushy. Under cooked brown rice is tough or chewy. The little bit of time you pay attention to this is well worth the pay off of tasty healthy rice.

Tip #3: Use your oven
For almost perfect brown rice (tastes, feels and acts just like the white rice) use the oven to cook it. In the month of December, I will be sending my ‘Oven Brown Rice” Recipe out in our December Newsletter. If you want to learn this fool-proof trick (that saves a pot for cooking and takes the same time as the chicken, roast or turkey in the oven) then subscribe to our newsletter in the drop down box that is/was here when you first visited!

You may never fix rice the same ole way again!

Best Blessings!
Donna Miller
Owner, Millers Grain House

The base of the New Food Pyramid is still grains – but the focus has turned to make sure there are more WHOLE grains, not just empty starch. Interestingly enough though you can see (if you click on the image) that the allowance is for only half of the grains to be whole grain. My personal opinion is that this is still cutting us short of our much needed fiber and vitamins in our diets that we can get from only whole grains.

A diet which consists of virtually all fo the grain choices as whole grain is healthier than what is recommended. Remember, however, even if you consume only whole grains as your base, there still is a limit of how much to consume.

Best Blessings!
Donna Miller
http://www.millersgrainhouse.com/store

Whole dried beans, like whole grains, store for far longer periods of time than most items in the pantry.

The beans are easily used to extend meat items such as these ideas:

1. Add soaked/cooked lentils to ground beef to make ‘more’ for lasagna or tacos.

2. Use in place of meat in soups

3. Cook and serve with a whole grain to make a healthy low fat protein.

4. Pinto beans and potatoes are a family favorite here for pennies.

5. Hummus (chick peas and/or white bean pure with seasoning) is a great replacement for mayo and meat in a sandwich or dip.

6. Minestrone Soup is mostly beans and quite hardy for the winter.

Easily used dried beans can be soaked overnight and cooked in a crock pot all day with seasoning. Also, they can be soaked, then drained and frozen (the ice crystals soften the bean) in zip lock baggies to use almost instantly!

Both whole grains and beans do also have the added bonus of extra fiber. This helps to create the ‘satisfied’ filled filling without all the fat and heaviness of many meats.

So in these leaner times – don’t rule out beans along with grains. They truly can help stretch the food dollars!

Best Blessings!
Donna Miller

http://www.millersgrainhouse.com/store