enrichment excitement

Seriously? YES! I learned a lot of cool things last night at enrichment (maybe I should go more often, if it's always this interesting)...
I just wanted to share a little since I thought it was so cool! It was about having and actually using your long-term food storage. This is totally appropriate for me because a few months ago I bought a big bucket of hard white wheat thinking that it would be good to have. Now actually knowing what to do with it is another story. NO IDEA! But I learned several things to do with it (now I just need to find a wheat grinder...) However there are a few things to start with that you can make without a wheat grinder. Here are some yummy things:

Some things can be made from the wheat kernals whole like popped wheat. Yes, it pops open and you can cook it it an air pooper like popcorn. First you have to soak it for a few hours then lay it out to dry for a very short while, or pat it dry with a towel. Then you pour a scoop in the popper and it pops out just as popcorn would. They had some to try and it was pretty good. It had the flavor of cornnuts but definately not as hard as cornnuts. They even had some that were mixed with a little cinnamon and sugar and that was good also.

Or you can put the wheat kernals into a blender and pulse them several times to make cracked wheat. Then you cook the cracked wheat with water for 20 min (similar to oatmeal, but for longer). This cooked cracked wheat can be eaten like oatmeal, can be added to bread dough, or it can be added to other recipes that call for cracked wheat. They had this tuna mix that had cooked cracked wheat in it and it tasted so yummy with the whole wheat crackers they had made (JUST like wheat thins!) or the with the whole wheat tortillas they had made (yummy also). I will have to get all these recipes later from the ladies there.

On to another subject, we learned about sprouting. When she was explaining it the first time, I wasn't that interested because I haven't really been interested in sprouts. I never understood why people would pay for those little containers full of bean sprouts. I remember trying them MANY years ago and not liking them. So this didn't interest me...AT FIRST. Then later, I was up there and I decided to be brave and try them, and what do you know??? They were really good! I said what do you use these for and she said you can put them in salads, sandwiches, stir-fry, etc. kinda like lettuce. She had 3 different kinds of sprouts there. Lentil sprouts I liked the best. The taste was similar to sugar snap peas, and I LOVE those on my salad. There were alfalfa sprouts which to me tasted like grass and she said the seeds are a little more expensive so I probably won't start with those (but if you like them and are looking for some, buy them at the Preparedness store). I also tried mung bean sprouts and these were not as sweet. They tasted similar to a raw green bean. So I came home and decided to make my own lentil sprouts because I have plenty of lentil beans and don't know what to do with them.
First: You take a jar and put 1/4 cup washed and rinsed and sorted lentils (you have to pick out the cracked or broken ones because they will sprout first and mold, I guess). Then you take netting (pantyhose work, or the white toole from my wedding-I have plenty of that!) and put it arount the mouth of the jar. Secure it with a rubber band or something. Then: you soak these beans for 10 hours or so. Next: use the netting as a strainer to dump out the water but not the beans. You rinse the beans 3 times a day for 2-4 days. after rinsing them, be sure to drain them completely and never let them sit in standing water after the first intial soaking. Store them in a cool, dry,dark place until they are ready to eat. WEIRD HUH? The coolest part is that when they sprout, it is said that the Vitamin C value increases 600+ percent than before they sprouted. So these sprouts are packed FULL of nutrients. This is especially good if you don't have veggies or greens readily available. (If only Anne Frank would have known this, they wouldn't have had to eat only lettuce day after day...) ;)

So am I boring you to death yet???

One more things that I was excited about...DRY BEANS...Who knew?? I have plenty of them, but again, don't really use them much because I don't know how to... I know how to soak and boil them and put them into soup...and that's about it. But I found it interesting that there's more to them than that! An easy way to cook them...wash them and throw them in a crockpot full of water and let them cook all day...NO SOAKING...NO BOILING...I personally like this. And what's better, you cook a lot at a time and put portions into ziplocks and freeze them. That way next time you need a can of cooked beans for a recipe, you just pull it out of the freezer and it's already cooked (not to mention cheaper than buying the canned ones, and definatley easier than canning them yourself). For Proof: 1 pound (2 cups) of dry beans will give you 5-6 cups of cooked beans! A 15 oz can of beans (drained) will only give you 1 2/3 cups of cooked beans.
Did you know you can make your own refried beans? it's easy! Just use the cooked (pinto) beans from the crockpot and put a few cups into a blender with salt and a TBPS of lard or butter and blend them together! No more paying $1 a can for refried beans!
I also found it interesting that you can grind beans in a wheat grinder and use the bean flour in recipes! Cream soups, gravies, casseroles, dips...etc! Or any recipe calling for wheat flour (just replace up to 1/4 of the total amount of wheat flour with bean flour)! You can grind many beans together to make the bean flour. This paper also says that a few Tablespoons of bean flour can be added to commercial cake, muffin, cookie, and bread mixes to increase the nutritional value! AND combining bean and wheat flours also helps form a complete protein!

A dietician in our ward said that it is reccomended that you replace meats with beans TWICE a week... There are so many more nutritens in beans than in meat, especially red meat. Now believe me, I love steaks, but I can handle twice a week with beans. And of course, gas is a factor with beans but there are ways of reducing that problem. To name a few: Rinse beans 2 or more times while they are cooking. I guess the water absorbs much of the gas bubbles. Rinsing reduces those. Also, add beans to your diet slowly over an 8-week period to get your system used to it. Chew them well and slowly to aid in digestion. AND drink plenty of water and other fluids to help your system handle the extra fiber from the beans.

We can all use as much help as we can get when it comes to cooking and food storage tips! Hope this helps a little...

gotta love grandmas!

This last weekend we had fun at both grandma's houses! Saturday we went and saw Great Grandma and Grandpa Saurey that were visiting from St. George.

Uncle Kerry came from Rupert and Steve's cousin Heber was here too! We stayed outside all day and played LOTS! The kids (and Aunt Arlene) hitched a ride on the trailer...

We took a walk out to the river and almost everyone participated in the Saurey tradition of throwing rocks into the river...

This was our walk back from the riverside.


After the fun walk, we went to visit Aunt Denese and the colt they are raising in their barn. It was only 1 week old.

Nathan was close to it, until it tried to kiss him, then he wanted nothing to do with it.

After seeing the colt in the barn, we went for a ride out to the field where we saw 10 more colts with their mothers.

Sunday we went to Grandma Fransens for dinner and then had fun playing in the back yard. We also went for a walk to the Iona park and played frisbee with Jordyn and Jack and Josh and swang on the swings. Too bad I didn't have my camera then... Nathan is pretty coordinated with the frisbee! We are loving this warm weather!