Wonderful Wheat Wednesday: Preparing, Cooking Wheat

Preparing, cooking and eating your wheat:

To crack your wheat:  note—cracking wheat is loud, don’t do it if someone just fell asleep.

1. Using a blender, put up to about 2 cups of wheat and pulse on high for about 1 minute (you’ll learn how much your blender can handle at a time), or run until all wheat is cracked (It will look like there is flour in it, there is, you will need to sift (see #4))
2. Using a wheat grinder, set to coarse setting and grind away.  (Note:  not all wheat grinders can grind coarse enough for cracked wheat, some only do flour)
3. I’ve also heard of people using coffee grinders to crack their wheat as they are rather inexpensive.
4. After cracking your wheat you will have smaller and flourlike particles, to remove them simply sift the cracked wheat using a flour sifter thing.  Use the flour in other recipes.

To cook your cracked wheat:  Cooking cracked wheat is just like cooking rice!  1 cup (or part) wheat to 3 cups (or parts) water (and dash of salt). Or you can measure your water by: put your wheat in and add water to one pinkie knuckle depth above the level of the wheat.  Cracked wheat cooks faster than whole and you DON”T have to soak it before hand!!!!!

1. On the stove top:  In saucepan, put your cracked wheat and water with up to 1 t salt.  Bring to boil.  Once it is boiling, reduce temp to low and cook until water is absorbed (about 15-30 minutes if I remember right)  Sometimes, to get the right tenderness, you may need to add more or less water.
2. In a rice cooker (my personal favorite):  put how much wheat you want to cook up, add water to one pinkie knuckle depth above the level of wheat (or rice) and cook according to your rice cooker directions.

To cook wheat berries:  Unless you are using a pressure cooker, you have to soak the wheat for 5-12 hours before cooking, you don’t have to drain the water you used to soak it though.

1. Crockpot method (my favorite method for cooking wheat berries):  add 1 cup (or part) wheat  to 3 cups (or parts) water, plus up to 1 t salt to your slow cooker.  Set on low and cook 6-8 hours (or overnight), or on high for 4-5 hours.
2. Stove top method:  combine 1 cup wheat to 3 cups water + 1 t salt, soak overnight or for 12 hours.  Don’t drain.  Place soaked wheat in pan and boil for 5 min, then simmer until done (~30 min).  (when I’ve not soaked overnight but only 5 hours, it still worked ok)
3. Cover wheat with water (about 2” above level of wheat) in a pan large enough to do so.  Bring to boil, turn off heat, and let sit for 1 ½ to 2 hours.  Repeat by bringing to rolling boil (add water if need).  Turn off heat and let sit for 15-30 min.  Stir in salt to taste, Drain excess water.
4. Rice cooker:  soak wheat berries overnight, place in rice cooker with water and cook away.
5. Pressure Cooker:  put water in (depends on size and how much wheat you are making but keep to a 1:3 ratio at minimum—error on the side of more water than less)  put wheat in and add a little butter or oil (you need this to keep the froth down—don’t leave this out).  Bring to pressure, reduce heat and cook 30 minutes.  Natural release for 10+ minutes.  If they aren’t done, bring to pressure again, reduce heat and cook for another 5-10 minutes, natural release.  (make sure there is enough water in there, if not, add more HOT water) 

Whole Wheat Flour:  Use a hand or electric grain mill to grind wheat to a flour (this is loud too, be sure to do it when no-one is trying to sleep).  Use whole wheat flour in recipes that require flour, you can completely replace white flour with whole wheat or use a mixture of the two.  For baked goods you can also add dough enhancer--commercial or homemade-- to help make a lighter & fluffier product:  see www.everydayfoodstorage.net for a homemade dough enhancer.

To sprout wheat or beans or other seeds:  There are sprouting kits available, but you can also use what you already have at home:  a jar or clear sandwich bag.

Jar method:

1. in quart jar:  put your wheat or beans to be sprouted (you don’t have to rinse them first).  Then pour in water to cover wheat well (if using 1 cup of wheat you can use 2-3 cups water, or 1 T wheat use ¼ c water)  You can then place your jar in a dark place (cupboard, pantry)
2. 24+ hours later, drain that water off (you can use that water in soups, drinks, cooking your rice, etc. it has nutritional value to it).  Add more water to the jar, and repeat draining until sprouts begin to show

Baggie method (besides a sprouter kit, this is my favorite):

1. take one paper towel and get it wet (not dripping, but rather wet), place it in your bag.  Put your seeds/kernels that you want to sprout on top of the paper towel—you can spread them around or put at the bottom.  Keep paper towel moist until seeds sprout, remove from bag and place in soil for wheat grass (keep moist, like any plant) if doing wheat grass, otherwise in a container without water for sprouts.  This is a good method if you want to do only a few sprouts at a time.

Once sprouted:  put in jar or tubberware container without water, keep cool in fridge use within 3-4 days for best tasting sprouts.  The longer it sprouts the more bitter it becomes.  The best is right around the time the sprout is about the same length as the original kernel.

**This is the 3rd week of sharing about wheat from a handout I've made.  There is still more to come, including:  ideas on how to choose a grinder, resources that provide great information about wheat and of course recipes!