I agree with Mike. How the flour is ground is important. I think that is why I prefer the BRM whole wheat flour to the KABC whole wheat flour.
I may write to the Jospeh's Grainery people and find out how their barley flour is processed.
They are quick on orders: mine shipped yesterday, the same day I place it.
I am also trying Vitacost, where I ordered yesterday. (Free shipping over $49, and 20% first time coupon discount.) Their BRM items were close to the price that BRM was charging before they got out of the shipping business. I'll report here on my experience with that company as well.
The only vegetables we still have outside are some leeks we planted in a pot, I may pull them this weekend. Some of the flowers still look like they're blooming, but I don't think they're annuals. The rosemary pot is in the garage, I'll move it inside soon, I'm waiting to make sure there aren't a lot of bugs on it.
I read an article online recently on how to keep rosemary alive indoors, one of the things they suggested for powdery mildew (which it had a major case of last spring just before we took it outside for the summer) is to have a fan on it to keep the plant less humid. I may set up a small fan on a timer in that bedroom, if it runs an hour or two a day that's probably plenty.
Has anyone received notice that the Rewards (the free one, not the Rewards Plus) program has ended? I don't recall seeing anything about it until I got an email yesterday. And -- my points are gone! It was a nice perk, as those of us who don't shop online with shipping seem to have only two times a year that we get 20% off on retail store purchases, December and April. I've been communicating with "Joe" about this - he's been great about responding, answering my questions and clarifying. His main point has been that we are given a discount at the register. Well, I've not gotten a discount at the register, but I will be looking for one when I shop there next. I'm planning to go in next week or so, for pumpernickel and lemon juice powder, plus anything else I forgot that I need, ah, er, um, want!
Their website is a bit vague on some things.
I tend to assume if a flour isn't marked as 'stone ground', it isn't stone ground.
It would be nice if the milling industry would adopt some standard conventions, like saying something is 'whole meal' if it is never separated into component streams (endosperm, bran, germ) like it is in a modern steel roller mill. As far as I know, stone-ground products are not separated into component streams, so maybe 'stone ground' and 'whole meal' are very similar terms.
Stone grinding is not, however, the only way to create whole meal flours, impact or hammer mills don't separate out the bran or germ, either. And even a simple one-stage steel roller mill would product whole-meal output.
I've recently seen some research that says recombined whole grain flours are enough different from whole meal (never separated) products to have an impact on things like glycemic index.
I've never really looked into how barley is milled, I know it has a much more substantial hull than most wheat and wheat-related grains do, but that's true of some other cereal grains as well. I also don't know what the shape of an individual barley kernel is; a wheat berry has a crease in it that complicates the milling process.
I am running low on barley flour, so I went to Walmart.com and was not finding what I wanted, but I saw an 8 lb. bag of Joseph's Grainery and decided to check them out at their website:
https://josephs-grainery.square.site/
For $27.60, I could get an 8 lb. bag of barley flour at their website with FREE shipping. They have limited offerings, but they include white whole wheat (they say a whole grain pastry flour), available either as whole grain or ground, and hard red wheat, also available as whole grain or ground, in 8 lb. or 16 lb. bags.
I ordered the barley flour, and I will add to this post once it arrives, and I start to use it. I could not determine if it is stone ground, but stone ground barley flour is hard to find now that Bob's Red Mill has stopped carrying it--and would likely be impossible to find in stores if they did. Walmart.com did have some, but a 25 lb. bag is a bit much for me! I went through about 6 lbs. in a year.
On Wednesday, I adapted the King Arthur recipe for Honey Oatmeal Rolls to bake a pan of sixteen dinner rolls to go with stew. I replaced a cup of water with buttermilk and increased the water from 1/3 to ½ cup. I replaced 4 Tbs. butter with 3 Tbs. avocado oil. I reduced the yeast from 2 ½ to 2 tsp. and the salt from 1 ½ to 1 tsp. Instead of using all bread flour, I substituted 2 cups whole wheat for the same amount of bread flour and added 2 Tbs. special dried milk. I did not bother with glazing and topping. We really like the flavor, and the oats do not get lost behind the whole wheat.
On Wednesday, I also baked an adaptation of King Arthur's Whole Wheat Apple Cider Baked Doughnuts. I used white whole wheat and cut the salt to ½ tsp. I also cut the sugar by ¼ cup and added 1 Tbs. milk powder. I used unsweetened applesauce that I made and froze last year. I usually reduce the amount of boiled cider and vanilla, but I forgot to put those ingredients in, as I had three recipes going at once in the kitchen. However, the doughnuts are still delicious. When they were hot from the oven, I sprinkled them with Penzey's Cinnamon Sugar (blend includes vanilla), and it adhered nicely to the warm doughnuts.
I had to get my baking in today because tomorrow I go for the latest Covid-19 vaccine.
Back when we used to get semolina bread from McGinnis Sisters in the Pittsburgh area (a local chain now closed), I saved an ingredients label.
The ingredients were: enriched durum flour, enriched semolina flour, unbleached enriched flour with less than 2% of the following: rice flour, salt, sesame seeds, malt syrup and yeast.
I can't be sure, but it is possible that the rice flour was used primarily for dusting underneath the dough before baking. I've seen other recipes do that, rice flour apparently doesn't scorch as easily as wheat flour in a hot oven. I generally use corn meal for that.
No oil, so maybe this week's omission was worth repeating.
I don't currently have any durum flour on hand, which is why I've been using 62.5% semolina in Hamelman's recipe for the past year or so.
I may have to try using malt syrup instead of sugar in the flying sponge in Hamelman's recipe.
I use the one in Jeffrey Hamelman's book. I just looked at several semolina bread recipes on the King Arthur site, didn't see that one there but I might have missed it. It starts by making a 'flying sponge' with a bit under half of the flours, water, a little sugar and the yeast. You let that sit for about 90 minutes then add the rest of the flour, more water, oil and salt.
This appears to be close to the recipe in the book:http://fortheloveofbread.blogspot.com/2009/06/hamelmans-semolina-bread.html
The only changes I've made are that I use 20 ounces of semolina and 12 ounces of bread flour to make up the 2 pounds of flour. (That's 62.5% semolina, the original recipe is 50-50.) I also use regular oil rather than olive oil. (For the last year or two I've been using a blend of canola and soybean oil.)
I left the oil out of this week's batch. (Just got distracted and forgot it.) It came out a bit more dense than it usually does, how much of that was the missing oil and how much of it was the cooler weather is hard to say.
Our garden got zapped last night, everything is all limp now.
I've got the Aerogarden cleaned up and just about ready to plant.
I'm waiting to find out what the frizzy lettuce that my wife brought home from the hydroponics lab last week is, I think I might try growing some of that, along with some dwarf snow peas, in one side of the Aerogarden. (It apparently isn't frisee/endive, and it doesn't appear to be bitter like most of the chicory family is.)
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We haven't had a killing frost yet, but plant growth has slowed way down, so we cleaned up the garden this morning, except for the brussels sprouts. They were another fail this year, none are bigger than an inch diameter. Also, the fences are put away, so the deer will find and eat them. We are still picking raspberries, but getting only a couple of cups every 3-4 days now. The Brandywine tomatoes we picked 2 weeks ago have ripened on the kitchen counter, but I don't like them. The wrinkly growth makes them a challenge to slice or cut up, and the flavor is poor compared to the other varieties we grow. I won't grow them again. Spinach, lettuces, and onions are still growing in planters on the deck. We had BSTs for lunch (spinach) that were OK. Herbs are growing in the sunroom, and I will soon start new herbs in the Aerogarden and lettuces in planters under the grow lights.
I usually make BLJ's molasses cookies smaller, with a #60 scoop. I'd use a #70 if I had one. (I think I have #40, #60 and #100, but not #70 or #80.)
I haven't made Big Lake Judy's molasses cookie recipe (which also has ginger in it) in a long time, but they're really good.
See https://mynebraskakitchen.com/wordpress/forums/topic/biglakejudys-molasses-cookies/
I especially like the fact that they're made with just whole wheat flour.
I roasted the turban squash yesterday, and I was underwhelmed. On the positive side, the flesh holds its shape, so if you want squash cubes, you can get them. On the negative side, there is a large interior cavity with lots and lots of seeds. The bumpy bottom did not have much by way of flesh, and so was a waste.
It is possible that my squash was a bit past its prime, as I did not find it any harder to cut than any other squashes. I use a serrated knife, made particularly for pumpkins and squash, made by Kuhn Rikon, which I picked up on year at T. J. Maxx.
After I cut off the skin from the roasted squash pieces (roasted at 400F for 50 minutes, skin side down), I returned them to a 375F oven for 15 minutes, while the rest of dinner cooked, then put them in a bowl and tossed them with maple syrup, since it needed some sweetness.
I will not be roasting another turban squash. It is not worth the effort it requires. I will stick to butternut, Honey Nut, spaghetti squash, and the flavorful varieties of pumpkins, with an occasional acorn squash.
Your salmon looks great, I like salmon, Diane does not. (Too much overcooked canned salmon as a kid, we think.)
We had tuna melts with some of the tomatoes from the garden tonight.
The lows for the next 4 days here are:
Saturday 43
Sunday 29
Monday 19
Tuesday 20
I think we'll get our killer frost soon.
I've been known to pull up the plants in their cages and stick them in the garage, if there was space (which there usually isn't, garages are junk magnets.) I've also pulled all the green fruit and spread it out in boxes in the garage to ripen. We had tomatoes on Christmas once that way. But they're nowhere as flavorful as sun-ripened ones, and possibly not even as good as the ones in the stores these days, so I haven't been doing it lately and don't plan to do it this year.
They work for chili, though, and if enough of them ripened at the same time they'd probably make OK tomato juice, but usually they ripen over several weeks, not enough at any one time to process.
