Using your Wheat!
Wheat as a meat extender: Cracked wheat is a perfect meat extender, it is healthy and it takes on the tastes and textures of ground meats. It can also be added to chicken or other recipes, but may be a little more noticeable by the eye unless you are using rice too. Chicken Teriyaki served over rice for instance is a great dish to add cooked cracked wheat to if you are trying to hide it.
Meat dishes to add cooked cracked wheat to: tacos, meatballs, meatloaf, sloppy joes, lasagna, casseroles, chili, hamburgers, taco soup, hamburger pie, shepherd’s pie, etc. Add it to any dish using ground meats! Use your already favorite recipes for these, substituting any amount or simply adding on top of the amount of meat with wheat. Begin small so your body can adjust to using wheat. For example: when cooking 1 lb of meat, start with only about ¼ c cooked wheat (use less or more based on your body), gradually increase the amount (and frequency) until you’ve reached the amount you want to replace or extend your recipe. Remember also that children’s systems tend to respond quicker and more to changes in diet/foods than adults, so be sensitive to them and start out slow—using little amounts of wheat periodically then very gradually using more wheat more often.
To Do: To your browned meat, add your seasonings and anywhere from ¼ cup cooked cracked wheat up to the amount your family is comfortable with (even all of your meat can be replaced by wheat if you want! After you’ve adjusted to using it regularly of course) If making meat loaf, meatballs, or hamburgers, add your cooked cracked wheat to your raw meat then shape and cook according to your recipe. With soups/chilis add cooked cracked wheat during the last 10-20 minutes of cooking (long enough to heat through).
Wheat as a meat replacer/alternative: use cooked cracked or whole wheat or wheat gluten to completely replace the meat in dishes. Wheat sausage is an example of this, but if you want to go further and try to make gluten meat (wheat gluten that has been formed and flavored like meat) you can imitate beef, chicken, fish, pork. The benefit of knowing how to use wheat instead of meat is this: should there be a time you are unable to have meat (too expensive, none available, disease, etc.) you have a way to have the flavor of it. Also as in sausage, because it is so fattening and bad for us, using wheat instead will allow us to have the sausage taste, but not the added fat and calories.
To Do: See books or resources like “Amazing Wheat” by Learta Moulton for a description on how to make wheat gluten and make meat alternatives using it. Follow directions to recipes on using wheat as an alternative.
Rice extender or replacer: mix wheat with or completely replace your rice with wheat or cracked wheat. Pilafs are great ways to use wheat, you can also use it in fried rice recipes. Pretty much any recipe you use rice in you can replace or extend it with wheat. Use as much or as little wheat in your rice dishes as you want after you’ve accustomed to it.
To Do: cook cracked wheat along with or in place of the rice in your recipe right in your rice cooker (or stovetop, pressure cooker). If using the whole kernel, remember you will need to soak it before cooking it. (cracked wheat is nice because you don’t have to soak it before cooking) If doing fried wheat/rice, after you cook the cracked wheat, drain off any excess liquid and do a quick rinse with cold water, then press to remove as much moisture as possible (this is just so your fried wheat is more like rice in texture and less mushy).
Breakfast: cooked cracked wheat or wheat is like oatmeal, in that it is a healthy whole grain cereal!
Other breakfast options: add cooked wheat to omelets, make a egg salad with cooked wheat, wheat sausage (see recipe section), wheat muffins (any kind of muffin made with wheat flour), wheat pancakes (see recipe section), etc.
To Do: Just add your favorite toppings (see recipe section below for ideas) to your warm cooked wheat berries or cracked wheat. Another option is to chill the cooked wheat/cracked wheat and then add it to your yogurt or even your other cold cereals (if you want).
Breads, cakes, cookies, and other baked goods: grinding the wheat into flour provides a healthy replacement for all purpose flour in many recipes. You can mix AP flour with wheat flour or do all wheat—see what your family likes. Recipes that work well for disguising wheat flour are those that have brown sugar or molasses rather than just white sugar, as well as sweet bread recipes (banana, zucchini, etc). In white flour recipes that use a leavening agent such as yeast, you may need to allow the dough to rise longer and/or add more yeast when using whole wheat flour. If the leavening agent is baking powder add about 1 t more for every 3 c of whole wheat flour. Or you can simply try new recipes that already give you the amounts of whole wheat flour and such. I’ve even heard of decreasing the amount of flour from 1 c to ¾ c when switching from AP to whole wheat flour (I’ve not tried it yet though, I just add more yeast).
To Do: Use wheat flour in breads, sweet breads (banana, zucchini, pumpkin, carrot, etc.), pitas, English muffins, bagels, cakes, brownies, cookies, muffins, pizza dough, rolls, sweet rolls, and even pie crusts! Enjoy!!! Use/try in any recipe that calls for flour.
Salads and sandwiches: you can add cooked wheat (cracked or berries) or sprouted wheat to salads and sandwiches for an extra nutritional boost. Lettuce, fruit or jello/pudding salads all respond well to cooked wheat. You can make “frog eye salad” using wheat instead of acini de pepe. Or create a tapioca texture like pudding/jello by adding cooked cracked wheat to the recipe. Sandwiches, wraps, pitas, etc. do well with sprouts but you can also add cooked cracked wheat or cooked wheat berries to them too.
To Do: cook (cracked or whole) or sprout your wheat. In most salad recipes, you will want to chill the wheat after its been cooked, then add it to the salad. You can use recipes that already call for wheat or just add it to your recipes that you already use.
Sprouted/grass: another option to cooking your wheat is to sprout it and use the sprouts in salads, sandwiches, soups, steamed as a veggie, in bread recipes, etc. You can also grow wheat grass to add some nutrition to your smoothies.
To Do: see sprouting section on how to sprout. Simply add sprouts to salads, sandwiches, soups (near the end of cooking), breads (near the end of mixing) or according to your recipes.
Non food ways to use wheat: heating pads, I-spy bags, wheat bags for games (bean bags), ankle/wrist weights for exercise.
Please Note: The information I am sharing comes from a wheat handout I’ve put together over the last few years as I’ve taught RS classes on wheat. I will share bits and pieces at a time, so any references to recipes or resources will come in future posts.
