Kristen's Recipes

Everlasting Yeast

1 quart warm potato water (strained excess water after boiling potatoes)

½ Yeast Cake or ½ T. Dry Yeast

1 tsp. Salt

2 T. Sugar

2 C. White or Whole Wheat Flour

Stir all ingredients together. Place mixture in warm place to rise until ready to use for baking. Leave a small amount (about 2/3-1 C.) as a start for the next time. Between uses, keep in covered jar in refrigerator until a few hours before ready to use again. Add same ingredients (except yeast) to the yeast start for the next baking.

Homemade Bulgur

1 C. Hard Red Wheat Berries, cleaned

2 C. Water

Precooking the wheat and cracking it to create bulgur gives you a product that you can store that cooks up much faster than untreated whole or cracked wheat berries.

Rinse wheat and discard water. Combine wheat with 2 C. water and bring to a boil. Simmer 1 hour. Drain off extra water to use in soups or gravies later. Spread wheat thinly on cookie sheet or shallow pan and place in 200 degree oven until very dry, about 2 hours. When it cracks easily, it is done. Grind coarsely in wheat mill and store. To cook, use 1 C. bulgur to 2 C. Water or other liquid, bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat and summer 10-15 minutes.

Basic Cracked Wheat

3 C. Liquid

1 C. Cracked Wheat

1 tsp. Salt

Cracked wheat is a wheat berry, broken into small pieces. Nutritionally it is the same as whole wheat. It differs from bulgur in that bulgur is precooked. To crack wheat, place whole wheat berries in a mill or grinder set on the coarsest setting or pulse in a food processor. Only grind what you will be using to preserve nutrition and storability.

Combine ingredients and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 20-30 minutes. Try varying the liquids used to cook the wheat. Try fruit juices if it will be used in a salad or hot cereal with fruit or water or broth or tomato juice, depending on where the wheat will end up.

Wheat Berries

1 C. clean, whole Wheat Kernels

5 C. Water

Combine wheat and water. Bring to a boil in covered pot. Boil 2 minutes, and remove from heat. Let stand one hour. Bring to a boil a second time. Reduce heat and simmer until tender, about 30 minutes. Drain, saving liquid to use in gravies and sauces.

Raw Gluten, “Meat from Wheat”

9 C. cold water

18 C. whole wheat flour

Place water in a large bowl. Add 6 C. of flour, beating well. Add another 6 C. flour and beat until dough is very elastic. Add the last 6 C. slowly as the mixture gets very stiff. If you have a heavy-duty mixer with a dough hook, use it to develop the gluten into a very elastic mass. If not, turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead roughly. The gluten is well developed when the dough gets hard to knead and bounces back when pushed down. It should also be very smooth. Put the dough back into the bowl and cover with cold water. Let sit for at least 2 hours or overnight. Pour off the excess water. This drained liquid contains starch, bran, and some nutrients, so save it for use in soups, gravies, or as liquid in bread making. Continue kneading and rinsing the gluten until the water poured off is clear. What remains is raw gluten. It is a tough, sticky, somewhat elastic substance that has almost no taste.

Often simmered in a soy flavored broth until it rises and is cooked, then sliced, sautéed with onions and seasoned with BBQ Sauce.

Basic Powdered Milk Yogurt

2 C. Warm Water (110)

1 C. Non-Instant Milk Powder

2 tsp. Plain Unflavored Yogurt (or freeze dried yogurt starter)

Pour warm water into blender and turn on at low speed. Add milk powder slowly and blend until smooth. Add yogurt and blend a few more seconds. Pour into jars or glasses. Set for 8 hours at 110-120. You can do this in a yogurt maker, or in a dehydrator, or even in an oven, if it will heat that low. Refrigerate immediately after setting. This yogurt can be used to make yogurt cheese by draining well.

Buttermilk / Sour Milk

1 C. Water

1 T. Lemon Juice or Vinegar

1/3 C. Powdered Milk

Mix ingredients and let sit a few minutes.

Sweetened Condensed Milk

½ C. Hot Water

1 C. Powdered Milk

1 C. Sugar

Blend thoroughly in blender. Store in refrigerator or freeze.

Not Quite Whipped Cream

½ C. Ice Cold Water

½ C. Sugar

½ C. Powdered Milk

2 tsp. Lemon Juice

Pour water into a cold bowl. Add milk and beat with egg beater until stiff. Add sugar slowly while beating. Add lemon juice, and beat until just mixed. Serve right away.

Whipped Evaporated Milk

1 C. Evaporated Milk (from powder)

2 T. Lemon Juice

Evaporated milk must be completely chilled. Add lemon juice and whip until stiff. Sweeten and flavor as desired.

Evaporated Milk

1 C. Water

2/3 C. Powdered Milk

Blend well.

Coffee Creamer

1 C. Instant Milk Powder

1/4 C. powdered sugar

1 tsp. coconut oil, melted

1 tsp. Thrive Vanilla Powder

Add all ingredients to blender or food processor and blend until fine powder.

For Pumpkin Spice Add: 2 tsp. Pumpkin Pie Spice

For Chocolate Add: 2 T.Cocoa Powder

For Almond Add: 1 tsp. Almond Powder

Dehydrator: Tomato Powder

You can dry whole tomatoes, or even make tomato powder from just the skins leftover after peeling tomatoes used in another application.

Any tomato variety is fine. Fresh, non mealy tomatoes are best for flavor and drying speed. For whole tomatoes, slice into a uniform thickness. Place them in a single thickness on dehydrator trays, using non stick sheets. Place the bottom of the tomatoes skin side down so it dries well. Dry the tomatoes at 155 degrees. Once partially dry, and no longer goopy, remove the non-stick sheets for faster drying. Dry until no moisture remains. They should go past the flexible sun dried tomato stage. Store tomatoes in a freezer bag and pop into the freezer for a week. This will kill off any bug eggs that might be hiding in the tomatoes. While still frozen, process in blender until it becomes a fine powder. Store in air tight container, such as a vacuum sealed mason jar.

Dehydrator: Minced Garlic & Garlic Powder

Lots of Garlic (5 – 6 lb. for a full 9 tray load)

Peel garlic. Wash and dry cloves. Mince into small pieces (either by hand or with a hand cranked food processor. My full size processor tends to pulverize instead of mincing. YMMV). Spread in even layer on lined dehydrator trays. Dehydrate at 125 for 8-12 hours. Store in vacuum sealed mason jar to use in place of fresh minced garlic in recipes. To turn some into powder, simply crush with mortar and pestle or whiz in coffee bean grinder (dedicated to spices). I find the garlic will retain better garlic flavor in the nugget-y form, and only crush a small amount when I actually need powder form (like say seasoning pizza sauce when my kids will object to chunky bits).

Chili Powder Blend

2 T. paprika (I use smoked paprika)

2 tsp. oregano (optional)

1 ½ tsp. cumin

1 ¼ tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. onion powder

1 ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper

½ tsp. chipotle chili powder

Thoroughly mix and store in airtight container.