7 grain mix

A couple of years ago we came across a book called "Cookies For Dinner" (get on this website, and contact them to order this book). You may think that's an awfully strange title, BUT Faye's reasoning is that if you make cookies with the same ingredients as waffles (whole wheat flour, honey, etc.), then it's pretty much the same as eating one! It also works the other way around... no mother would think of feeding her child a sugar laden cookie for dinner, but they have no qualms about feeding their children a waffle made out of white sugar, white refined flour and coated with syrup that's chock-full of sugar!

Before Faye wrote "Cookies for Dinner", she was very, very ill. She had a huge list of illnesses and couldn't even walk to her mail box without resting. She was eating a fairly decent diet consisting of brown rice, whole wheat bread and oatmeal (among with other things). But she realized that she wasn't eating them together and had the brilliant idea (that came from Heavenly Father!) to combine them. So she came up with the following grain mix:

Barley, Brown Rice, Buckwheat,
Corn, Millet, Rye and Oat Groats

(We purchase the above from a local feed store, and also from Azure Standard. We don't really worry about getting organic, because that would just about break our budget!)

To mix the grains up, we get a 5 gallon bucket and put in equal measurements of all the different grains until our bucket is about 3/4 full. Then we roll the bucket around to mix them up really well, then it's ready to grind! We have an electric Whisper Mill (it's kind of old, and not available by the same name, so if you're looking into getting one, my mom recommends a Nutrimill), we also have a hand-crank Country Living Mill for emergencies.

When you cook with this grain mix, you still have to add wheat, but we prefer not to add it to our bucket, and we just grind that separately. When you are cooking something and you want to add some mixed flour, you have to ALWAYS add more wheat flour then mixed flour. If you don't, you'll end up with a VERY crumbly mess!! For example, when something calls for 6 cups of flour, you would add 4 c. of wheat flour and 2 c. of mixed flour.

Cooking with mixed grains adds a very different texture, really helps with the flavor and has extra health benefits than just whole wheat flour!!