The Barn as seen from the wetland restoration project.

Last week we were excited to visit one of the great local organizations that Bob’s Red Mill has just started working with, Friends of Zenger Farm. On paper Zenger Farm has a broad spectrum of goals that would be ambitious for any small organization, but when you walk around the farm itself you realize how naturally these goals are intertwined. Just a brief summary would begin with teaching area residents of all ages about farming, sustainability, and ecosystem preservation. But increasing food security in the local community, working to restore native wetland habitat, functioning within a neutral carbon footprint, and developing the local economy are all equally important to the core of their program of urban farming outreach.

This year, Bob’s Red Mill is proud to be involved with sponsoring Zenger’s Healthy Rewards program in conjunction with New Seasons. This program, which was designed to improve healthy food choices for low income residents, matches food stamps spent at the Lents Farmers Market dollar for dollar.

If you’re interested in stopping by this market known for its diverse group of vendors, the 2010 season runs June 6 through October 17 from 9am to 2pm every Sunday, and is located at SE 92nd and Foster in the Lents neighborhood. Stop by each week to enjoy a different chef demo and music sponsored by New Seasons.

One of the projects we’re most excited about helping out with this summer, is our plan to donate supplies to the Children’s Cooking Camp for young food enthusiasts in the 4th to 6th grades. Campers will spend the week at the farm harvesting, cooking and eating the bounty of Zenger Farm. Along the way, campers will learn about combining the flavors of whole grains with seasonal produce all the while having fun getting their hands dirty helping out on the farm.

After just a morning exploring the farm, we’d highly recommend stopping by for one of their guided tours offered every Friday at 4pm.

Black Astralorp chickens till the soil in front of their mobile egg coop.

Jake the dog shows us the tire swing.

Oftentimes customers write us with suggestions on changing instructions or ingredients in our baking mixes. Sometimes it’s a low-fat version, sometimes it’s an added ingredient, and sometimes it’s just a new product altogether.  One of our most popular mixes is the Gluten Free Brownie Mix, so we hear numerous creative new ways of making this mix that we wanted to share. Here’s what our customers are saying:

Debbie DeBrito from Colorado Springs, CO recommends using just ¼ cup of butter along with 8 oz. of applesauce to cut down on the amount of fat. This substitution may need a little bit more time in the oven so it can cook through.

Cathy Wolf from Bay Village, OH uses only 1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) and adds 1/4 cup chocolate chips for a lower calorie count.

June Ammerman from Arvada, CO prefers to make the mix without an electric mixer, so the eggs must be beaten before adding them to the rest of the mix. She cuts down on the butter by 2 Tb (using 1 ¼ sticks) and instead of using warm water, she just pours the melted butter in tap water which naturally warms it up. She also adds chocolate chips and finely shredded coconut for a fun twist. June cuts the brownies while warm so they don’t crack like they do when cooled.

We welcome these and any other product suggestions you have. We encourage you to experiment with our products and share your findings with us. Of course, the basic directions are absolutely delicious as is, but trying something new is always fun!

Here are two more customer-submitted recipes using this mix. It’s amazing how one mix can be so versatile!

Gluten Free Brownie Cake

Triple Chocolate Brownie Cookies

This weekend finally started to reflect the calendar here in Portland. The sun was shining, the air lightly breezy and the strawberries abundantly overflowing their bins at every farmer’s market (I even found a few in my own homely patch).

Who could resist the beautiful red ripeness of the strawberries? Not I, for one. Into my basket went the strawberries and some beautiful Bing cherries (the real reason I stopped at the market). Upon returning home, I was greeted by two pints of freshly picked raspberries from my husband’s nursery. I love fruit, but now I had a slight dilemma- how could we eat all of these berries before they spoiled? That’s a lot of berries and they only last a day or two. Hello, shortcake! Well, actually, I picked this great lemon pound cake recipe from our Baking Book. It was easy (oh so easy) and went perfectly with strawberries and raspberries. We topped it off with a little whip cream and enjoyed our refreshing dessert.

Lemon Pound Cake

• 2/3 cup unbleached white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1-1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 5 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Make sure all of your ingredients are at room temperature.

Preheat oven to 400°F and grease a 8 x 4-inch loaf pan or line it with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, sift the flours, baking powder and salt.

Combine well (but do not beat) the eggs with the sugar, vanilla and zest in a large bowl. Gently add the flour mixture to blend and then stir in the butter and sour cream.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a crust forms on the top. Make a 1-inch cut down the center of the cake, reduce the heat to 350°F and continue to bake until a tester comes out clean, about 30 minutes longer. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The doll has all of Matt's features- including his glasses and signature spurtle stir.

I was all set to write you  a long post about the proposed USDA guidelines for 2010 when we got a visit from our friends Tim and Judy Cebulla. You may remember Tim as our Myrtle spurtle maker from Wood I Kid You? Well, what they brought by for Matt is far more fun for a Friday than the USDA guidelines (we’ll get to those next week).

The homage to Matt is hand made and was a special gift for our world champion.

Tim and his wife, Judy, stopped by our mill today to drop off a surprise for Matt (our world champion)—a beautiful, hand-crafted doll. Judy sells her dolls, along with other hand-crafted items through her store front Threads of Magique on Etsy.com.

We can’t get over how much the doll resembles Matt, chef coat and all! It kind of reminds us of the dolls from Coraline, but we’re going to put that out of mind and focus on the awesomeness of this little guy. Good luck charm for the 2010 competition? Check!

Look it's the bakers, wave hello!

When I first started my employment at the Bob’s Red Mill Bakery I wondered where does all this bread go? I guess I just didn’t understand how busy Bob’s Whole Grain Store actually gets. I found out real quick. Unfortunately, we are not able to do large wholesale accounts, considering the size of our bakery and by golly there is just not enough time in the day to heave all that dough. Moreover, we make the bread for the kitchen and customers such as yourself. We have 15 different kinds of bread and strive to keep our shelves as full as possible. Come Friday and Saturday sometimes it seems like bread is literally flying off the shelves!

Our cold side woman, Nicole smiling with her lovely sandwiches.

Our best sellers are our 10 Grain, Whole Wheat and our newest gem, Wheat-Free Dairy-Free Bread. Inevitably, these are the breads that the kitchen utilize most. Our daily lunch specials are usually made on fresh 10 grain bread and the favorite Turkey Swiss Melt is served up on our whole wheat. The bakery supplies the challah bread for French toast, all the hoagies and sliced bread for sandwiches, hamburger buns and not to mention those yummy biscuits that you all love so much. From the slicer to the smiling customers we are proud to serve you our bread. Not to mention at our daily low price of $1.99! If you have an upcoming event or engagement that you would like to order bread for, please ask one of my fellow bakers or a cashier and we would be happy to help you. Let us know what bread you like best and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Our cook Bill is peeking over the Philly Cheese Melt. See him?

Pearling Mill: Photo courtesy of www.hisupplier.com

To follow up from my post last week about hulling grains, I thought I would touch upon the difference between hulling and pearling when it comes to grains. We learned about hulling, where the hull is thrown into an impact huller and essentially smashed off of the grain. This leaves a grain intact and the hulled grain is considered to be a whole grain.

Pearling is a similar, but different process in which a grain passes through a pearling machine. This machine, at least the one they use where we buy our white rice, looks like two large roller mills. The grains pass between the rolls and the bran is gently pearled off, leaving the pretty white kernels intact. Pearling is done to lower the cooking times of grains and extend the shelf life.

Pearl barley and white rice are the most common pearled grains that we eat.

By far, the most common grains we eat that have been pearled are White Rice and Pearled Barley*. The majority of barley that you find in boxed meals and canned soups is pearl barley. This barley is not considered whole grain. At Bob’s Red Mill, the pearled barley we buy has only been stripped of some of its bran, making it closer to a whole grain than others on the market- but try as you might, you can’t take some bran off and keep calling it a whole grain. It’s just not true.

*Whether it is the exception or the rule, the brown rice we purchase passes through a pearling machine to remove the hull leaving the brown kernel intact. I could not find out if this was a standard practice or just what our supplier does. I would hazard to guess that this is the standard for the industry.

For extra fun, watch this odd little video about pearling rice.

A Solar Oven in Action. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Since today is both the beginning of summer, and the longest day of the year, we thought we’d share with you our favorite sunshine fueled cooking idea – the solar oven! This simple cooking method is powered by little more than some reflective material and a nice sunny day.

Although the solar oven was once thought of just a quirky science project, these ovens are gaining respect around the world as they provide a straight forward cooking solution in areas that have been affected by disaster while people are rebuilding their homes. They can also be used to pasteurize drinking water in areas where cooking fuel is sparse, but sunshine is plentiful.

There are many amazing premade solar cookers available online ranging from the lightweight and collapsible solar reflector design, to the sturdy and durable solar box oven. You can get started cooking with the sun by buying a fancy premade reflector that is ready to simply unfold and cook, or you can follow some simple plans to build one yourself. Making your own solar oven is easy, and doesn’t even require much in the way of special skills or tools. Many of the supplies that you need to build the most basic designs, such as cardboard boxes and aluminum foil, are things that you may even already have on hand.

Now that school is out, building your own solar oven is a great outdoors learning experience to share with kids. After all, what better way to learn about the amazing power of solar energy, than by an experiment that ends in cookies!

Because I do most of my exercise in the evening after work, I am often searching for a snack that will give me enough energy to get in a good workout, without making me too full to get my heart rate up. As someone who has made the mistake more than once of eating spicy chicken wings before heading out for a grueling endurance workout, I can assure you that some snacks are better decisions than others.

This is why I have fallen in love with wheat berry salad. These grains have a fabulous crunch and chewiness that fill me up before my evening exercise hour without the heaviness of say, a pulled pork sandwich. Wheat berry salad also has a surprising amount of protein and iron for something that’s made out of plants.

The best thing about wheat berry salad is that you can create so many different salads from the same humble beginnings. Once you make the basic recipe once, it’s easy to feel comfortable playing with all sorts of delicious variations on ingredients. Combinations of things like edamame, chopped nuts, fresh vegetables and dried cranberries can all be great additions to your salads. One of my favorite tricks is to toss in some chopped greens like chard or spinach while the wheat berries are drained of water but still warm from cooking to wilt the greens just a little.

So where should you start? I began making wheat berry salad just by making the basic recipe off the package, but I was soon inspired by both a recipe that I found online, and a delicious wheat berry salad New Seasons often features in their deli area. I would also suggest that once you get the hang of some recipes that you enjoy making, you should start experimenting with the tastes and textures of Kamut ®, spelt, and triticale, for a whole summer’s worth of salad variations.

Triticale and Edamame Salad is a great variation on ordinary wheat berry salad.

Active Dry and Compressed Yeast both have many characteristics to try out in your home bakery.

Every now and then, the home baker will run into a recipe that requires compressed or cake yeast. Most of us are used to using what is known as active dry yeast, which usually comes in packets or jars in an almost granular-looking form. But compressed yeast, which most often comes in two ounce to one pound cakes, finds its way into lots of home applications too. It’s helpful to know how to use both, as well as how to substitute one for the other. Here’s a little information on each to help you get started.

Active Dry Yeast is one of the most common forms of yeast in home baking and in some countries (including the US) it’s far easier to find in stores than any other form. Part of its preference in the home bakery comes from its shelf life. Unlike compressed yeast, which must be used within a couple of weeks at most, active dry can keep for a very long time. While it keeps best under refrigeration, you can actually store dry active yeast at room temperature for several months before it loses potency. It usually comes in ¼ ounce packets or jars of varying amounts. As far as taste goes, it imparts a bit of a sharper and more fermented flavor to your baked products than does compressed yeast. It does require a bit of preparation to activate properly. The best method for this is to sprinkle it on top of water heated to 105-115 degrees. Once the water shows some foam forming (usually about 5-10 minutes), the yeast is active for use.

Compressed yeast, despite the downfall of its faster perishing time, is far superior to dry active yeast in the speed at which it becomes active and the length of time it stays active. It won’t keep nearly as long as dry active yeast in storage but can be frozen for several months (it’s best to give it a full 24 hours of defrosting before use). While it does not need the same activation technique as the dry active does, some prefer to soften it in lukewarm water (70-80 degrees) before use. Its flavor tends to be a little milder than dry active yeast and tends to impart sweeter tastes (ideal for softer breads such as an Italian or French bread).
You can play around with using each kind as a substitute for the other when you want to try different characteristics of flavor and activity. The conversion rate for doing so is as follows:

One (1/4-ounce) yeast packet of dry yeast OR 1 cake fresh, compressed yeast EQUALS 2- 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast (active dry or instant active dry)

Impact Huller: Photo courtesy of http://forsbergs.com/products/15-d-ih.html

Please excuse my play on words, I couldn’t resist. For the last few months, I’ve had the privilege of spending a few hours a week working with Bob on a labeling project. During these talks, we inevitably talk about more than just labeling. Last week we got onto a very interesting topic- the process of hulling and why some grains are more work than others to hull.

The hull is the tough outer layer of a grain- this is outside the bran layer. Think corn husk on a smaller scale. All true grains (those that come from a grass species) have a hull. Some, such as modern wheat, have easily removable husks and can be hulled by simply shaking the kernel out of the hull by hand. Others, such as oats, barley and spelt have tough hulls that take a little more encouraging.

That said, I began to wonder how do they remove the hull? Bob told me all about it. Forgive me if I didn’t get all of the technical specs covered. The hull is removed in a machine called an Impact Huller (see photo at left). Grain enters the hulling chamber and the impeller wheel throws the grains against agitators (really, really fast). This impact removes the hull, which is then removed by vacuum pumps.  This process happens very quickly and produces grains that are intact, but removed from their hull. Bob said it’s one of the loudest machines he’s heard and makes little popping noises as grains slam into the walls.

I thought it was very interesting. I hope you did too.