A Whole Lot of Whole Grains
I thought you all might appreciate the ridiculousness of this story. My German language tutor, who is an exchange student from Germany, asked me to make and sell her a couple of loaves of bread for her parents who are coming to visit from Germany. A side note: this in itself is thrilling and pretty nervewracking. Anyhoo, I asked my boyfriend to pick me up 10 ounces of rye berries at the store, he said ok and went to the store. When he came back he said to me, "This sure seems like a lot, what are you doing anyway?" Well I looked in the bag and there sat two full plastic bags of rye berries. He got 10 pounds. Ten pounds. Now, I don't have a grain mill, so I can't make it into flour. I also tried grinding it up in my food processor which didn't work. I guess I'll just be making a lot of vollkornbrot! Good practice. Unless anyone has any other creative suggestions...
Bean bags? Throw rye berries at the next wedding you attend instead of rice? Stocking stuffers for your baking friends?
Try boiling rye berries with some salt, dunno the cooking time but you can eat them as a replacement for rice!
I received a grain mill for my KA as a birthday gift, but aside from a package of rice, have nothing to grind.
As I'm a complete dunce when it comes to grinding grains, any suggestions would be most welcome.
If I had a back 40, I guess I could plant wheat....
Thanks for the suggestions! I've got to say that I can only wish I had a grain mill attachment for my KA and a Vita-mix, but nope, just the Cuisinart which I love but is a big failure when it comes to trying to get any grind out of rye berries. I like the idea about stocking stuffers...I just have to make some in-person friends who bake. I will be sprouting some and trying them out in bread and as for boiling and eating them, I've thought about that. I've never tried it in fact I've never had rye outside of bread, so that'll be interesting. LindyD, I wish I could blink some over to you, but it seems like it might not be worth it for either of us to send you some, with shipping costs and all. Do you have local stores that sell bulk items? Health food stores or a Winco? Bulk sections most always have whole dried grains. They're cheap most of the time.
At any rate, I'm sure I'll use them up eventually. I'm glad they have a long shelf life. Oh and didn't I mention that I also just bought a 25 pound bag of rye flour? mmm...
if you have a coffee grinder you can clean it well and grind in small amounts to make flour, as a temporary measure.
I say you parlay this into getting a flour grinder of some sort! Wouldn't want those berries to go to waste! I use the VitaMix with a dry grain jar. I have limited space in the kitchen due to windows, it is nice to have the machine be multi-purpose.
I've made sprouted rye crackers with just a food processor. Rinse often and drain well when sprouting. Add generous fresh dill, a little caraway, and salt, and I add some acid to brighten up the flavor.
I'm always looking for a good Volkornbrot recipe, so if you come across one in your attempts to use up those berries, please pass it along.
FWIW, I just got 50 pounds of rye berries this week. So 10 looks "lightweight" :) You'll get through them.
http://www.bluebirdgrainfarms.com/recipes.html
their recipe for salad with rye berries sounds nice
in case you're tired of bread... ;)