WonderMill Junior - Kid Friendly and Parent Approved

Multi-Functional Hand Grain Mill

WonderMill Junior Deluxe

This is a grain mill that even children will get excited about.  At least for a few minutes that is!  While it is hard to sustain the excitement with younger children, many older children and teenagers will often take the challenge seriously to mill grain for you.  This is because it is somewhat gratifying to enjoy the fruits of your labors by cracking your own wheat, grinding your own fresh, creamy wheat or milling your own super-fine pastry flower.   Of course, it is so much faster to turn on your electric mill and effortlessly watch as the machine finely mills your grain into flour.  However, the newer high impact electric mills feature high speed steel grinding burrs and plates that are not able to crack wheat or make coarse grade corn meal.  The best these electric mills can do is a medium flour or fine cornmeal at best.  The lower temperature of hand grinders will also help conserve additional nutrition of your flours and cracked cereals versus high-speed electric grinders.

Freshly Ground Creamy Wheat (Farina)

The grinder stones that come with the deluxe model hearken back to the older box style mill that featured stone heads that I enjoyed growing up.  The stones can be adjusted in the front of the mill using the adjustment knob.  You can crack wheat, grind creamy wheat consistency and even get down to pastry fine flour in one single pass.  The stones are obviously designed for dry, non-oily grains and seeds as stones are mildly porous.  The stainless-steel burrs on the other hand are ready for moist and oily nuts, seeds and grains.  The stainless-steel burrs are great for grinding brown rice flour, bean flour and corn meal.  You can really open up a wide spectrum of possibilities with having both stone and steel grinders and being able to control the consistency of your milling.

Stone Grinders Above and Steel Burrs Below

You can grind flax seeds, process lime soaked corn for masa and even make peanut butter using the stainless steel burrs.  Below you can see a picture of corn cooked in lime for tortilla masa that has been run through the WonderMill Junior.  Truth be told, this was a slow and laborious endeavor, probably better suited for a meat grinder, but I was able to do it in the WonderMill Junior and then completely clean my grinder afterword.

Yellow Corn Masa

Just one look at the WonderMill Junior shows you that this mill means business.  The WonderMill Junior is solid piece construction with a food grade powder coating.  The hopper will hold just over one quart of grain!  The WonderMill Deluxe has a set of grinder stones and a set of stainless steel burrs.  The large double clamp on the bottom of the mill allows for clamping on to a surface up to 2 inches.  The mill seats nicely on tables and counter tops due to the double rounded mounting plates that tighten down firmly using large, rounded tightening knobs.  The double clamp and mounting plates are both powder coated to protect your table top and counter.   

There are cheaper and more expensive hand mills out on the market, but in my opinion the WonderMill Junior hits the mark as to quality, versatility and price.  The key here is solid piece construction, heavy duty features, stone grinders and stainless-steel burrs.  These qualities make for a nice, heirloom quality hand grinder.

Red Feather Processed Cheese

Red Feather Processed Cheese Delivers on Taste and Quality

Red Feather Processed Cheese is a high quality canned cheese that is really quite tasty.  This processed cheese is very comparable to the cheese that you find in holiday food packages around Christmas time.  While it is not as hard as chedder cheese, it has a much more firm texture than Velveeta.   The ingredients consist of the following:  Cheese (Pasteurised Milk, Salt, Culture, Enzyme), Water, Sodium Citrate, Butter, Salt, Sodium Polyphosphate, Potassium Polyphosphate, Citric Acid, Nisin (to retard spoilage).

Red Feather Processed Cheese has a Best Used Before date of one year from the time of processing.  However, we have received reports that this cheese can last 5-10 years or more if stored in a cool dry area.

This cheese has been quite poplular in the food storage world that past few years and so we decided to put together a brief video on the cheese so you can at least see the cheese and get an idea of its consistency.

As you can see in the video, the cheese is a white processed cheese that is not overly soft but can be used as a spread.  While processed cheese has more soidum and phosphates than we generally care for, a bit of Red Feather Cheese in moderation is really quite enjoyable and is hard to resist!  In an emergency or extended camp this would definitely be a very delicious commodity.

Gourmet Anasazi Beans

Beautiful Beans with Great Taste

During the mid 1980's my grandmother introduced me to Anasazi Beans.  She had received a small amount of beans from a local museum just after the bean had gone into commercial production and she was able to begin cultivating her own beans in great supply a few years later.  I found the beans very intriguing because of their nice coloring versus the plain old pinto beans that she had traditionally grown. 

As the name suggests, these beans were cultivated by the Anasazi (Pueblo) Indians of the Four Corners area.  It is hard to pin down the exact history of how the bean was introduced into the commercial market, but apparently a small amount of beans were found in a sealed clay pot following an archaeological dig back in the 1950's.  Even though it defies the general seed viability laws, a portion of the beans were germinated after tests concluded that these seeds were 1,500 years old.  Commercial and private growers then helped with the production of the seeds and there is now a thriving market for Anasazi Beans.

Anasazi Beans are a wonderful alternative to Pinto Beans, Navy Beans and Great Northern Beans.  Like all beans, these beans are high in fiber and protein.  Anasazi Beans are also a good source of calcium and iron.  What is great is that Anasazi Beans contain significantly less gas producing carbohydrates than Pinto Beans, thus resulting in a generally milder gastro-intestinal experience!  Plus, the beans take less time to cook than Pinto Beans.

Here is a great way to cook them:

Soak 2 Cups of Anasazi Beans overnight and then drain.  Rinse and drain again.  In general, soaking beans help to soften them for cooking, reduce indigestible oligosaccharides (sugars), begin the germination process for improved nutrition, lower the gas producing carbohydrates and provide a cleansing rinse.

Pour beans into a large pot and add 6 Cups water.

Add 1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil

Add 1 teaspoon of Real Salt

Optional - Add a chopped onion or 1/2 Cup of rehydrated onions from your food storage.

Optional - Add a clove of garlic or 1 teaspon granulated garlic

Optional - Add a whole chili pepper (my favorite is the Serrano) and remove before serving

Bring the mixture to a boil and then allow to simmer for 1 hour with the lid slightly vented.  If the beans are still hard continue cooking until soft.  Serve in a bowl with a side plate of warm tortillas or bread!

Troy's Buttery Food Storage biscuits

Easy to Make Biscuits from Your Food Storage

These are my favorite biscuits in the world.  My mother used to make them when I was growing up and my wife resurrected the recipe for me and started making them.  The recipe is basically just a baking powder biscuit recipe.  We will give you an idea of how to make them with your food storage.  These biscuits are easy to make, clean up well and are delicious!

We use some very high quality food storage ingredients to come up with these buttery biscuits.  We typically use flour ground from Prairie Gold Hard White Spring Wheat, or we use a combination of Prairie Gold Flour and Natural White Unbleached and Unbromated White Flour.  The butter for this recipe comes in the form of Red Feather Pure Creamery Canned Butter.  Our powdered milk of choice is Country Cream Real Instant Milk and we use Rumford Aluminum Free Baking Powder.  For salt, we prefer Real Salt Granular over purified table salt.

You can cook these biscuits in an oven, dutch oven or even a sun oven.  So without further delay, here is the recipe:

Recipe for 10 - 12 Biscuits:

2 Cups Prairie Gold Whole Wheat Flour and/or Natural White Unbleached and Unbromated Flour (or other combination of Wheat and/or White Flour)

3 tsp Rumford Aluminum Free Baking Powder (or other baking powder)

1/2 tsp Real Salt Granular (or 1 tsp table salt)

6 Tablespoons Red Feather Pure Creamery Canned Butter (or fresh butter or shortening)

2/3 Cup Country Cream Milk (or raw milk or pastuerized milk or other powdered milk)

Heat oven to 450 degrees.  In a mixing bowl, add flour (whole wheat, white, or combination of both), baking powder and salt.  Melt the butter or shortening and pour in.  (You can also cut in the butter or shortening, but I like to melt it.)  Add in 1/2 cup of milk.  Mix lightly and quickly.  If the dough leaves the side of the bowl you are ready to.  If not, add additional milk.

Turn out the bowl onto a lightly flour surface and then roll out to about 1/2 inch.  Most of the time I don't even flour the surface as these come up fairly cleanly.  Cut biscuits out with a cup.  Bake on an ungreased pan for 10 to 12 minutes.  Enjoy these biscuits hot with additional Red Feather Creamery Butter!

Make Your Own Fire Starting Kit

Easy to Make Firestarting Kit for your 72 Hour Kit or Personal Backpacking Assembly

Contents:

One (1) Small Ziploc Bag

Lint collected from your dryer

One (1) Small box of Windproof/Waterproof Matches (or waterproof matches or strike-anywhere matches)

One (1) Magnesium Firestarter

We will also add a gas lighter with a long tip pictured below:

This firestarting kit is fun to make and easy to put together.  What is better than that?  OK.....let's get to building.  The first step is to take a small ziploc bag and add lint from your clothes dryer to it.  Lint starts well with matches and sparks, and by keeping it in a small ziploc bag you will keep the lint dry.  Add some Windproof/Waterproof Matches and a Magnesium Firestarter and you have the basics. 

We also recommend a gas lighter with a long wand for the times you need to get a fire started quickly and easily.  This won't fit in the bag, but it will be in your pack to stay dry.  You can find the matches, magnesium firestarter and lighter at our store. 

We will even show you how the magnesium firestarter works!  This picture gives you a good idea of the sparking action:

Now that you have your basic kit together, let's go over a basic primer of how to use it.  Before you take anything out of a bag, find some dry grass, pine needles, leaves or other dead, dry plant material for tinder.  Build a small tinder ball.  Then carefully select small, thin twigs.  You can build a tepee on top of or a log cabin around the tinder ball with the twigs.  Now take out a ball of lint and your magnesium firestarter.

Take your green starter tool and scrape off magnesium from the bar using the end of the green starter tool.  (The green starter tool has small teeth at the end.)  Scrape off magnesium onto the lint.  The magnesium shavings will help to start the lint on fire.  If you want larger magnesium shavings, use your pocket knife to shave down the magnesium bar.

Next, place the bag of magnesium with the steel bar on top.  Place the green starter tool firmly on the bar and then slide down hard to create sparks.  Keep sparking until the lint catches fire.  Sometimes this takes me 15 seconds or less.  Sometimes it takes me minutes!  The reason I don't have the lint right on the tinder ball is because when striking hard you can often mess up your tinder and teepee by hitting it!

Once the lint is on fire use a stick or knife to move it over to the tinder.  You now have a fire!

Obviously, the process would be much easier with a match or lighter.  Just place the lint ball on the tinder and light.

CAUTION:  Do not let children use these firstarting materials without adult supervision.  As with most things, I find that if children do this with you and you explain the rules, they won't be tempted to do it again without you.  If you don't let them work with you and you keep your firestarting materials a secret, their natural curiosity takes over!

Wheat Montana Prairie Gold

The Gold Standard in Wheat!

As you can see, Prairie Gold is not just for bread!  This delicious Pizza Crust was made using Wheat Montana Prairie Gold, Wheat Montana Natural White Unbleached and Unbromated Flour and Teff.  Prairie Gold helps to produce incredible results while providing you with the ultimate in whole grain nutrition.  We store whole grain Prairie Gold and then grind it just prior to use in order to retain as much of the nutrition as possible.  In certain recipes where a high-gluten white flour is needed, we use Wheat Montana's Natural White Flour, which is unbleached and unbromated.  This indicates that the flour has not been treated with harsh chemicals to further whiten the flour.

Prairie Gold Hard White Spring Wheat is simply a superb product and has so much to offer in terms of nutrition, composition and baking results.  Wheat Montana farms starts with great soil and the perfect wheat growing climate in Montana to produce its wonderful Hard White Spring Wheat.  Prairie Gold is certified chemical free, meaning that it has not been subjected to pesticides, artificial fertilizers or any other chemicals.  Prairie Gold is GMO free, which indicates that it has not been genetically modified.  Wheat Montana farms avoids cross contamination of virulent viruses and their grains are free of irradiation and pasteurization.  Aside from these wonderful benefits, Prairie Gold boasts an amazing 15% - 16% protein content.  Many of the other hard white berries we have seen have a lower protein content in the 10% - 12% range.  The higher protein content means better nutritive building for your body's muscles  Prairie Gold has a low moisture content of less than 10%, which helps its long-term storage.

We use Prairie Gold in breads, rolls, pancakes, crepes,biscuits, muffins, pizza doughs, cookie doughs, cinnamon rolls and much more.  Prairie Gold also makes a great cracked wheat cereal, and a fantastic Creamy Hard White Wheat Cereal.  The best way for you to find out about Prairie Gold is to use it yourself.  Come in and pick up a bag today!

Raw Honey 101

Raw Honey.......More than just a sweetener.

First off, honey is a wonderful sweetener.  I especially enjoy Raw, Crystallized Desert Blossom Honey.  Since it is crystallized, you have to use a spoon or a knife to extract it from the container.  It doesn't pour out of the container like processed honey.  It is lower in moisture content than the processed or regular honey that you buy in the stores, which helps to concentrate the natural flavor and sweetness.  Raw honey doesn't go through the same processing as commercial honey and it readily crystallizes, which explains the  deep golden color of raw honey.  (Incidentally, you can warm up crystallized honey and it will become more viscous and you can pour it, but you run the risk of losing out on the beneficial enzymes.)

Growing up, I really enjoyed sports.  I had one soccer coach who used honey to help rejuvenate tired athletes after games.  He would provide different honey foods and snacks after games to help with muscle fatigue and provide a natural boost to tired bodies.  As a missionary in Argentina, a simple yet effective tonic for many illnesses, including soar throats, was warm lemon water and honey.  The natural antioxidants of lemons and honey, coupled with the other health benefits of the two often produced great results in a relatively short amount of time.  Most nutritionists seem to agree that while white sugar and other processed sugars weaken the bodies immune system, honey can help in healing.

We use raw honey as a wonderful spread on toast.  Instead of grabbing a so-called energy drink, toast some bread, add a little butter and spread with raw honey.  This will provide a bit of an immediate pick-up, while helping to sustain energy.  One of our favorite uses of raw honey is to add a bit of sweetener to breakfast smoothies.  We also use it for homemade barbecue sauce recipes.   It is especially great for sweetening hot breakfast cereals like oatmeal, corn meal mush, farina (creamy wheat) and cracked wheat.

I am not a nutritionist, but from past personal experience and from research I have conducted, I feel like there are wonderful benefits of honey, especially raw honey.  Raw honey has nutural enzymes that assist in digestion and assimilation.   Honey has natural antioxidants that help with our immune systems and assist the body's natural defenses.  Honey, when collected from local sources, is also considered to assist in helping individuals with allergies.  This comes from the fact that the bees are harvesting local pollens for their hives.

Raw honey can be difficult on infants because of the natural enzymes and other factors.  Also, many folks store honey but don't regularly use it.  If you go from white sugar and white flour to honey and whole wheat, your body is going to be in for a shock.  So, the best advice is to incorporate these into your diets now on a regular basis.  This is not only to help you from a transition standpoint, but to provide your body with more nutrition.