21. February 2010 by ilene.

Sunday pancakes are a special treat at our house. Join us for this morning’s virtual pancakes. It might take a little longer than most households’ pancake breakfast, but we enjoy it. It starts with grinding two grains–rice and buckwheat. These are gluten-free pancakes, so we start with brown rice and grind it into a nice fresh brown rice flour. I first became interested in grinding my own grain for two reasons. One was inspirational–I read in Michael Abelman’s book Fields of Plenty: A Farmer’s Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It which includes a farmer who grows her own grain, works her land with draft horses, and made Michael fresh multi-grain pancakes by going into her pantry and grabbing handfuls of grains to start. In America, we have forgotten the art of fresh flour. Every town used to have a grain mill, and every household used fresh flour. Flour in its original form goes rancid quickly. But at some point with stripping the grain of its fiber to make white flours, it was possible to store grain longer and mass produce flour. Now we have forgotten how wonderful fresh flour is, and how varied the grain possibilities are. So, my second reason for grinding my own grain is that I was buying rice flour often, and storing it in the frig or freezer. It is more convenient to buy a grinder and a 25 pound bag of brown rice. But wow, I discovered what a treat fresh flour sure is! Most evident in these lofty wonderful pancakes.

Here is Jonah grinding the grain with the handcrank:

He’s cracking the rice grains. It could be set to a finer setting, but for a five year old on a handcrank, cracking the grain is work enough.

When he is done with his hard work, and his brother gets his turn, then I hook up the motor base, set it on fine, and it grinds in a flurry (fury? flurry is more appropriate here).

I grind buckwheat groats too, and mix that into my recipe. Today we are using the last bag of frozen blueberries picked and frozen last June.

And here is the best part…enjoying!

Here is my recipe. The source is Bette Hagman’s book The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy: Wheat-Free and Gluten-Free with Less Fuss and Less Fat . But note that I have made several changes to the grains of this recipe, and I’ll note those as changes.

Gluten-free Pancake Mix (I’ve made it into Buckwheat Pancakes)

2 cups of Gluten-Free Flour Mix*

2 cups of Buckwheat Flour (my addition, the original recipe uses 4 cups of GF Flour Mix)

(1 cup buttermilk powder, but I skip this and add a dairy liquid to the batch)

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder (did you know you can make your own?? another post coming soon!)

2 tsp baking soda

—————

Beat together 2 eggs, 1 cup water (or milk), 2 tblspoons oil. Add 1 1/3 cups mix. Beat until smooth.

* Gluten-Free Flour Mix:

6 cups rice flour (I grind my own from brown rice, so its brown rice flour)

2 cups potato starch flour

1 cup tapioca flour

These starches are available at natural food stores. This makes a big batch of flour mix. You can cut this in half and I believe it will be enough for a double batch of pancake mix.

Posted in Family, Recipes | 1 Comment »

11. February 2010 by ilene.

Farm news from Blizzard Peak. The snow sure is beautiful, but there is definitely too much of a good thing here. I am tickled by how many people wrote and asked “How are the cows managing the snow?” They appreciate your concern. If they could speak our language, they would surely complain. But they have an electric heater keeping their water melted, and they have a haybale to eat. They are hardy animals, for sure. The chickens are, well, “cooped up”. I’m sure they miss the fresh air and compost snacks, but they don’t like froze toes, so they stay in mostly. They will come out soon. If you are still worrying about the cows, here is a photo for reassurance:

Now, they would be tucked into the woods during the snow if they wanted extra cover, don’t you think? Still, its not cozy being a cow.

Here is the blizzard casualty for us. Our sweet, ol seedling greenhouse got squished. Here is a photo. Its bent up and ripped down. I am glad Phil did not take my advice to replace the plastic this year. He was repairing it for one more year, before the new plastic treatment. Good move.

So, if you are thinking ahead, you might wonder what our plans are for the seedlings we need to start in a couple weeks. Yikes. Never fear, move on to the next photo.

This is our new hoophouse, right in the garden. It is 30X100 feet, a big thing for us. It was an adventure putting the plastic on this baby, and a hundred thank yous for all their help putting up the plastic go to the Horst Family from Jehovah Jireh Farm

Phil has spent a couple days keeping this big plastic and pipe thing from collapsing too. The plastic is stretched but it is doing OK. We will be able to grow our seedlings in the hoophouse this year.

Enjoy the snow! Eat soup. Be glad you don’t walk on all fours like Sitka here. And may you dig out without much circumstance.

Posted in Greenhouse, Hoophouse, On the Farm | 1 Comment »