I buy 50lb bags of both soft white wheat and hard white or red wheat. In general I get these from Eden Organic Foods in Clinton Michigan. I buy them there because I drive by the company headquarters on my way to work and back each day. I notice that they also have quinoa and popcorn (and pearled barley). I recently discovered that you can get Eden products cheaper. Zonya Foco has a 15% off coupon code for Eden on her website. (I discovered this because Zonya attends my church.)

Once per year, my family and I make a trek to Battle Creek Michigan for a biking/camping trip at Fort Custer State Recreation Area. While there, I generally pick up an order of bulk grains and other things from Something Better Natural Foods. They have unbelievable prices and a large selection. Last summer I got a large quantity of hard and soft wheats, barley, oats, and corn. I also picked up some spelt and kamut. I must say the kamut is my absolute favorite grain. I wish I had bought more.

I buy lesser used grains (e.g. quinoa, rice) in packages at my grocery store.

Because of the volume I purchase, it is impractical to have these things shipped. Most places will ship, but the costs are prohibitive. It is important to try and find something local if at all possible to keep costs down. Unbelievable prices aren’t so unbelievable after you add shipping.

I go through about 100lbs of soft wheat and 100lbs of hard wheat per year. I make bread once per week from the hard wheat and make quick-breads (e.g. biscuits, scones, muffins) throughout the week with the soft wheat. I make pancakes and waffles with oats and barley. I occasionally make hot cereal with whatever grains I have on hand.

UPDATE (2/29/2008):  I recently went to the Eden site to order some grain, and discovered that their prices have nearly doubled. I will be looking elsewhere.

Lowering Your Grocery Budget has some excellent pointers for reducing costs. For starters I plan to wean myself off coffee/tea and reduce alcohol purchases to once per month. I think we’ll start eating more beans as well. I’ll be sticking to the least expensive produce such as onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, winter squash, and apples. I’ll have to reduce my use of fresh herbs as well (ouch!).

1. good pans – I recommend stainless steel pans. Aluminum is questionable in terms of the health impact. Teflon is also questionable health-wise. Cast Iron is good if you are making foods that are non-acidic (e.g. no tomatoes). Alternatively, enameled cast iron such as Le Creuset are nice, but quite expensive. Don’t skimp too much here. A good set of pans will last a lifetime. Make sure you get a large stockpot. I went middle of the road here with Cuisinart. There are better pans, but significantly more expensive. I’m very happy with my pans.
2. glass mixing bowls – plastic may be questionable health-wise, but the real reason to use glass is because it’s just nicer to work with. e.g. plastic wrap clings better to glass then plastic.
3. canning jars – If you’re doing any fermentation (e.g. pickles, condiments), sprouting, or storage of meat stock, canning jars are a must.
4. blender – I use my blender nearly every day to make blender batter quick-breads from whole, unmilled grains. e.g. pancakes, waffles, muffins, coffee cake, corn bread, etc. This is the cheapest, easiest way to get into freshly milled whole grains. I have a Bosch Universal mixer/blender.
5. grain mill – If you want to make biscuits, scones, cookies, or yeast/sourdough bread you will want a grain mill. packaged whole grain flour is nearly always stale and/or rancid. Milled grain loses vast amounts of nutritional value within 72 hours of milling. I highly recommend the Fidibus 21.
6. toaster oven – throw out your microwave (I haven’t been allowed to yet). Microwaving is questionable in regards to health. No long-term studies have been done. More often than not, new-fangled methods and foods end up being detrimental to your health. Use a toaster oven instead. They’re cheap.
7. mixer – a good mixer is a time saver, but everything that can be done in a mixer can be done either by hand (i.e. kneading) or with an inexpensive hand mixer. Get the higher priority items before popping for an expensive mixer. I have a Bosch Universal.
8. dehydrator – these are good for drying sprouted grains for milling into flour. I also use it for drying fruits like pineapples and bananas that are highly sugared if you buy them dried at the store. There are lots of other cool things you can do with a dehydrator. I have a Nesco.
9. immersion blender – this is good for making creamed soups, sauces, and smoothies. I use mine to make tomato soup, spaghetti sauce, mashed pinto beans (for burritos), and various creamed soups. Some units can double as a hand mixer. I have a Cuisinart.
10. food processor – I don’t have one yet, but it’s on my list of things to get. It is similar to a blender, but much better for dry things and for slicing things. Using a blender for dry stuff usually just throws the stuff up against the blender walls where it sticks. Food processors are good for things like pesto, pie crust, nut butter, etc.

Please comment on these items. I will update this list based on user comments.

On Saturdays, if I am in need of more meat stock to put in the freezer, I start cooking that in the morning. I cook that most of the day and then put it on ice in the sink. After it has significantly cooled I put it in the refrigerator till the fat is skimmable. I save the fat in a mason jar in the refrigerator for frying.

Saturday, I look at the menu for the week and check to see if we will be having any type of beans. If we are, I put them out to soak. I often cook them on Sunday, or the night before we are having them. They seem to refrigerate well. If I decide to have beans later in the week I soak the beans later in the week, but usually it works out best to have them earlier since I have more prep time on weekends.

Saturday evening, I begin my sourdough starter for making bread on Sunday. Sunday morning before church I feed it again and then when I get home from church I mix the bread up and begin the kneading and rising process. The bread usually gets baked around 6 or 7 that evening. I’m still experimenting with ways to make a second loaf that will be fresh. I have tried refrigerating the dough and baking it later that week, freezing a finished loaf, and freezing the dough for later baking. The dough freezing method seems to work pretty well, but doesn’t rise as high.

To be continued…

I now have a basic weekly routine that helps me to keep my kitchen humming along well. It all starts on Thursday night when I decide what we are going to eat for the next week. I keep a list of food that I know how to prepare in my Google Docs. Right now that list has 17 main dishes, 5 soups, 3 salads, 4 fermentations (e.g. pickles), 8 breakfast items (e.g. scones), and 6 desserts. On Thursday night I go through that list and plan about 4 main meals. I then look through various cookbooks or on the Internet for a new dish I haven’t made before. I like to try something new every week. If we like it I add it to the list. I also try to have one thing that can be ready as soon as we get home, like a crock-pot meal. On Wednesday nights we have our evening filled.

As I add an item to the list, I look at the ingredients and check to see what we already have on hand. I make my grocery list up (on paper) from what we need to make the 5 items I have selected. I use the number 5 because we usually have enough left-overs to make up the other 2 days. During the week as I use up basic supplies like wheat, rice, beans, salt, peanut butter, etc. I add these items to my grocery list.

On Friday after work I go grocery shopping at Arbor Farms.

Continued in part 2…

One of my son’s favorite foods is boxed cold cereal. He would live on it if he could. I’m of the opinion that boxed cold cereal is one of the worst things you could possibly eat (see Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry). So how could I wean him off cereal without being an evil tyrant?

Well, I haven’t completely weaned him off cereal. We have it at least once per week on Sunday mornings. Things tend to be a little hectic on Sunday morning before church and we want our kids to look forward to Sunday, so they get stuff they like on Sunday. I do make sure he gets fresh milk with that cereal.

So how did I wean him off cereal the rest of the week? Well, quite honestly it was work – literally. I spend time every evening preparing good food for breakfast – food that is healthy and that the whole family likes. I started with foods in Nourishing Traditions and branched out into Sue Gregg’s Breakfasts book. I even managed to create some of my own recipes (e.g. chocolate muffins).

Most people are resistant to unfamiliar foods. I’ve come to the realization that familiarity is 95% of a person’s taste preferences. If you can make healthy tweaks to foods they already like, they are more likely to accept them. By gradually building their familiarity with the taste of healthy ingredients in familiar foods, you can eventually move toward less familiar foods with the same healthy ingredients.

Yes, it’s sneaky, but it’s good for them.

At first I thought that it would be difficult to use a program to keep track of recipes and shopping lists. But I recently read a statistic that says that most American families use about 10 staple recipes and simply cycle through them. If all you have to worry about is getting 10 recipes into this program and then click on “Add to Shopping List” to have all the ingredients added, this might be useful. Of course, I’m not typical and tend to try all kinds of new foods out. Nonetheless, I do have some recipes I use on a regular basis that could benefit from being in my computer.

Gourmet’s main interface is a searchable list of recipes. Each recipe has a description, ingredients list, notes, and instructions. You can import nutritional information from the USDA database and Gourmet will calculate the nutritional value of a serving of the recipe. It’s much more complete than the nutritional information you find on the sides of boxed food. One handy thing I noticed is that you can add another recipe as an ingredient in a different recipe.

The grocery list automatically adds all the items to your grocery list and allows you to move items off the list into the “pantry.” It tries to remember which are pantry items and which are not. It might be nice to have a pantry inventory feature, but that might get to be too complicated anyway.

It seems like a pretty handy program.

I ended up doing most of the cooking even though she planned the meals and did the grocery shopping. Finally I came to the realization that if I was going to do the cooking, I might as well decide what I was going to cook and learn and develop my own cooking style. That’s when it all began…