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I am going to venture back into the difficult, and mysterious realm of baking bread, using Einkorn flour.

It is one of the most difficult ancient grains we have at our disposal, to bake amazingly healthy bread. In fact many people that are unable to eat gluten can eat things made with Einkorn, as the makeup of the grains are a bit different than modern wheat grains. (Google it.)

It is the original wheat grain, dating back thousands of years, but is still being grown, harvested, and used to day to make all sorts of things.

Right now, I am just at the soaking, sprouting, and dehydrating phase, but will soon be to the grinding, and baking stage. I’m anxious to get started again.

Here’s what the dehydrating looks like. It’s not very exciting, but a huge part of the process. After sprouting grains, they become infinitely more shelf stable as the sugar molecules are changed, and converted into something that escapes my memory at the moment. Suffice it to say that once grains are sprouted, then dehydrated, they can last for several years in your cupboards, if sealed correctly.

I have about 15k. of Einkorn berries in my cupboard, in the pantry, completely sealed from the outside world of weevils. (No chance of weevil infestation here.) I have started 2.5k. on the road to flour. Let me show you.

If you look closely at the first photo, you might be able to see the tiny white tails of the sprouting berries. It is at this stage that they convert the sugars.

I ended up dividing the one tray of berries into 3 trays so they might dry faster. The oven is on dehydrate, at 120ºF, for 20 hours. After 20 hours, if they have dried sufficiently, I will leave them out on the counter for another whole day, then vacuum seal the bulk, keeping about 1k of dried berries to grind in my small grinding machine. I’ll show you that when the time comes to use it.

Until then, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Please continue your prayers for me, and my family members. Thanks.

Post script: here is what the what the berries looked like after taking a 14 hour sauna. See how different they look from the first photo. They’re now ready for being ground, mercilessly, into flour.

Recently I asked Max for a pork chops recipe as Ivan asked me to make some.

He showed me a video on YouTube showing someone making just that; along with garlic mashed potatoes, a vegetable, and homemade biscuits. That last request, the biscuits, was the real bugaboo. I’ve only made biscuits, and not good biscuits, a few times. It’s too hard on my ego to keep making things that aren’t flavorful, or aesthetically pleasing. It makes me want to start ordering prepared food to be delivered. Yuck.

Anyway, I followed Max’s recipes, for the most part, tweaking when necessary, and this is what we ate. (Should have used the regular sized plates.)

Starting at 12:00 is the vegetable portion being comprised of carrots, grape tomatoes, and zucchini. Next, obviously, is the 2 1/2 cm bone in breaded pork chop, at 6 are the garlic mashed potatoes with country-style gravy, and lastly, the amazingly light, slightly crusty outside, soft, and fluffy inside homemade biscuit. With a tsp. of gravy on top.

I couldn’t believe it. I made all of that, and the pork chop was moist, and tasty. Yay. Thank you Jesus.

That said, I have fruit coming over the weekend to make another batch of fermented kombucha, but I won’t receive the bottles until the 8th. I may have to freeze the fruit until they get here. It’s all about the timing.

Until next time, I will leave you with this cute cartoon I found on X. Don’t be sexist. Just chuckle and go on with your day.

Stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Praying all of you have a blessed Easter today. Jesus has risen. Thanks be to God.

About Justo.

Their delivery bags are biodegradable!!!

Can you believe that? They are silky soft, but strong. And they decompose. I’ve never seen another company, down here, that offers this for their clients. Walmart bags are for the general garbage, and now we have free organic bags for our organic discards. Lovely.

Win-win. If you shop at stores that are super organic in their nature, maybe they would use similar bags if asked. My favorite local store was Fresh Thyme, in Davenport, IA. A bit pricey, but excellent quality, and selection.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy with the Lord.

I haven’t extolled Justo lately, much to my dismay.

Justo is my favorite online grocery store, with scheduled delivery dates, and times. When I order groceries from them, what things are delivered are of a “normal” volume, (not the tiny bottles, or jars, or cans from other local stores), the produce is beautiful, not old, and shriveling, (like me), the herbs are fresh, the fruit is just coming into ripeness, the meat still has a bit to be desired, but one can’t have everything, now can one?!

I bought 500g dried pinto beans that I could have put directly into the Instant Pot, and started pressure cooking them, they were that clean. Let me show you.

2 1/2 beans are what I found, nothing more. No rocks, no debris, nothing. I rinsed them in the salad spinner, as it makes a great soaking vessel, and colander, all in one.

Then, as some of you know, I put the beans, 6c. water, 1/4-1/2 sliced white onion, a clove of garlic, and about 1 T. oil, this time avocado oil, into the IP, close the lid, and set it to the bean setting for 45 minutes. After that is done, I leave it for a 15 minute natural release, then, after opening it, I add a few sprigs of cilantro, and 1 T salt. Job done. Perfect beans, every time.

The beans cost me $3.78MXN/100g, while a bag of beans is $62.30MXN/k. The Justo beans end up being $37.80MXN/k. Almost half the price for the best quality beans I’ve ever seen.

This is how I will be ordering my beans from now on, maybe even buying enough to fill 1/2 gal. Mason jar. Who knows?!

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy with the Lord.

I asked Max for a recipe for Green Chicken Chili.

Boy did he come through. It was delicious, with a capital D. He’s going to help me put it all together as I made quite a few tweaks, to put into recipe form. When I ask him to do that, I’ll post it here.

Tomorrow is Breaded Pork Chops, mashed potatoes, carrots, and biscuits. Can’t wait.

I haven’t made a biscuit in my lifetime, and can’t wait to try it tomorrow.

I have started using the weekly menu format again, as well as a printable calendar to keep our deliveries updated.

I made a batch of kombucha the other day, but nothing is happening in the second fermentation. I think the pineapple was too old. Which doesn’t make any sense to me. I would have thought that as it was just starting to “turn”, it might ferment better. Nope. Isn’t happening. Patience. I’m told not only is it a virtue, but it was my mother’s name.

I’m going to leave it for another week, or so, but I’ve ordered another batch of 12 oz. bottles, a bunch of fresh fruits, and will make another batch soon. I’m thirsty for flavored, inexpensive kombucha.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

The other day, as I was putting together a list of groceries to buy on line, and have delivered, when I came across something I didn’t even know existed.

Jicama chips, with salt, and lime.

Who knew? They are thin, dried, baked slices of a vegetable very popular here, called jicama (HE-ka-ma). It is similar to a potato in texture, but has a lighter consistency, and is delicate, almost sweet in flavor. Most often it’s just peeled, cut into 1cm sq sticks, drizzled with lime, sprinkled with salt, and Tajin, or eaten with, or without something in which to dip them. Few calories, for sure, but never have I seen them like this.

They’re hard to chew, and similar, but harder in texture than kettle chips. They are said to be easy to prepare here in the kitchen, but I can’t decide if it’s easier just to buy them already prepared, or do it here.

Then I looked at the cost. A kilo of jicama costs about $27MXN, or about $1.30USD. That’s 2 pounds of a vegetable for that price. The prepared version is in the next photo; check out the difference in the prices.

While I’m glad I bought the small 100g bag so I could taste the chips, I paid over $3USD for it. Now I see that I can make a kilo of the same chips, (Max sent me the recipe), for $1.30USD. Just think of it- if I bought 10 bags of the 100g to make a kilo of the chips, I would spend $30USD! Glad I got a recipe.

Between the jicama, and the B&B pickles, it’s been a great week.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Who’d have thought I could make a delicious, Vlasik rival bread and butter pickle?

No one.

I didn’t think so either. Until today. I got the recipes from my buddy Max, who sent me B&B, and dill pickle recipes.

I had 2 cucumbers that needed to be used, so I made the B&B first. (We ate the second cuke raw.)

I want a pickle that is sweet, and slightly tart, and the B&B fits that requirement. As I was pouring the brine into the sterilized pint jar, my last physical jar until next week, I tasted the brine. Outstanding. Delicious.

I can’t wait to try these. If I like the results, Max is going to send me the different ingredient measurements for larger batches of the pickles. He even sent me the water bath canning instructions to preserve them.

Take a look at the first jars’ contents.

Here is the recipe for 1 whole cucumber in a pint sized jar. You can thank my pal Max. I’ll post both recipes, B&B, and Dill. Take your pick.

Here are my first 2 jars after water bath canning for 20 minutes, and ready to go on the shelf in the pantry. Each has approximately 1 good sized cucumber in it, with onion, and brine. I hope you give these pickles a try. They’re fast, easy, and great tasting.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

I found my 1 pound bread loaf baker, that I purchased about 10 years ago in my hometown, hidden away in the pantry.

Here are the 2 “special” bread baking bowls I bought, and plan to put to very good use in the coming months.

I’ve only used it once before because the bread was so dense that it wasn’t a very nice loaf. So, I’ve tried it again, to see if anything has changed.

Nothing has changed. The bread is still too dense for my liking, so I’ll probably end up making the loaf into croutons, or crumbs. Here it is. It smells like a lovely loaf of bread. Period.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Post script: here it is, and yes, it is still to dense.

I found a nice looking recipe for a 1lb. bread loaf on the back of a bag of dry milk powder from King Arthur Flour, and am going to try that in the next little while.

As I have indicated, I am baking a few loaves of bread these days.

As it turns out, I needed another kilo of AP flour, was going to order more, but remembered that I had (3) 1kilo bags in the pantry. Happy days.

So, there I went, into the pantry, took down a bag, opened it in the kitchen, and there they were; those little tiny beetles I told you about. The top 1” of the bag was dark with them. Ugh! Tiny holes all over the outside of the bags. Ugh!

Do I even need to tell you that all 3 bags went into the organic bucket? I put the paper bags in there as well. Yuck. I think I’ll put out about a tablespoon of flour on the counter tonight, and see if I can entice any weevil family, and friends to a banquet, then eliminate them.

I have several kilos of bread flour in the pantry, but they are in clear sealed plastic bags, unaffected by the weevils. I have ordered more pint mason jars but here until next week. Until then, everything that’s in a paper bag will go into a glass jar.

Next week I’m going to sprout, dehydrate, and vacuum seal several kilos of my Einkorn berries that I bought a couple of years ago. They are very shelf stable, but more so after that whole process.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Please continue to pray for my family members, and me. Thanks.