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The Knife Drawer...

2/8/2016

To the left of my stove for quick access!

This is my knife drawer. Besides knives, it contains all of those things that I use nearly every day in my kitchen. This drawer also contains those things that I tend to need at the spur of the moment. That's why you see the oyster shucker there in the middle along with the vanilla beans, citrus zester, cake tester etc. That shiny new cleaver in the upper right is a recent replacement for an old favorite that I had to temporarily retire.

Time for repair...

At first glance, you might be tempted to toss a knife like the one pictured above into the trash. However, this knife is made of high carbon steel. You can tell that it is certainly not a stainless blade! Over the years it has tapered into a razor-sharp tool that is nearly indispensable. That's why when it fell apart, I nearly lost it! Sure I have other knives, but this one has a long history and has become an extension of my hand. I can slice and dice nearly anything with this knife. Well maybe not anymore, but one day again soon. I'm gonna have to dig out my old HVAC torch and braze a new piece of steel onto what is left of the handle.

Nice knife, but harder to keep sharp!

I have other knives. The one pictured above is quite useful, but it is a lot harder to keep sharp. The knife above claims to be high carbon stainless steel. It is certainly stainless compared to my old knife.

The new kid on the block!

Time will tell if the new version of my old favorite is gonna work out for me. Sure it looks kinda the same and its VERY sharp! However, I am a little suspicious. Maybe its because the knife is new? Maybe its because its NOT my old knife? A good indication will be if the new knife starts to stain. A razor-sharp knife is much more important to me than a stain-free knife!

Here's the fancy box!

The best part about this type of knife is that it is VERY affordable! I only paid 17 bucks for this knife at my local Asian market. They are widely available. Why pay over 100 bucks for a knife that you are afraid to use for fear of scratching or losing the darn thing? Go out and support your local Asian grocery store and try one today!

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Let's Mill Some Flour!

2/1/2016

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Soft white and hard red wheat berries

You can imagine my excitement when I recently learned that the folks who made my juicer also make a flour mill attachment for their incredible machine! Annette and I bought our Champion juicer over 20 years ago and it has not missed a beat. This juicer is basically a 1/3 HP motor with a bracket which allows you to attach various juicing tools to the shaft. It is quite powerful. I figured their flour mill attachment would have no trouble at all with hard red or soft white wheat berries. I was right!

My new flour mill attachment...

Freshly-milled non-gmo flour at home...

For quite a few years, I have been systematically going back to the roots of food preparation. I am always looking for ways to set my cooking apart from the mainstream. It probably started back when I lived up in the Blue Ridge mountains of north Georgia, up near the Tennessee border. It was a very beautiful place to live. Very secluded and peaceful. However, a trip to the grocery store back in those days was about a 1 1/2 hour round-trip journey. We didn't just run out to the store for a gallon of milk in those days. This taught me to become very resourceful. It also helped me to appreciate the quality of foods that don't come out of a package. When the kids wanted pizza for dinner, there was no delivery or parlor nearby. I had no other choice but to make the pizza myself. I even made jam each year out of the wild huckleberries that grew all around! I planted a GIANT garden and preserved much of what we grew. Needless to say, I got pretty good at this sort of thing.

There are a few advantages to milling your own flour. Perhaps the greatest advantage is that you know EXACTLY what goes into your flour. The flour that you buy at the store has been "enriched". This means that in order to get flour to have a stable shelf-life and avoid rancidity, modern flour mills remove the germ and bran from the flour. This leaves only the fluffy white endosperm of the wheat berry. This process also removes nearly all of the nutrients from the flour. As a result, B vitamins and minerals must be added back into the flour. Sure it works okay, but something tells me that the vitamins the wheat berry was born with are superior to the stuff that gets added back in later.

Notes: Freshly-Milled Wheat Flour at Home

Soft white wheat berries are ideal for pastries and cakes. Hard red wheat is better for most breads. Both varieties can be found at many health food stores, some grocery stores, and online. I have baked cookies and a cake from my own milled flour so far. The results for both were so good that I will probably never buy a bag of flour again. The fresh flavor is amazing! Milling your own flour at home is kind of an intuitive process. You pretty much fill the hopper and go. I can tell you that the yield will be roughly 1 1/3 cups of flour for every 1cup of wheat berries. Have fun with it! Try blending the berries together in different ratios to see what works best for you. Peace :)

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The Knife Drawer...

Let's Mill Some Flour!

Notes: Freshly-Milled Wheat Flour at Home

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