{No Bother Bread – perfect recipe for beginner bakers or if you’re using mostly white flour}
I realized I’ve kind of been raving about my grain mill. I can hardly help it – I like it, I’m grateful to have it, but I hope you know I don’t take the mill for granted. Chris and I were on the whole-foods-on-a-budget-journey long before the almighty flour grinder parked on our countertop. In fact, we were on this journey long before we had a countertop that could even fit a grain mill (circa the converted shed days).
So I know what it’s like to try and feed yourself or your family whole grains while on a tight budget. When Chris and I moved out of state without a job, I felt like we were lucky to be able to buy flour and ramen noodles, forget about any whole grain jazz.
Actually, I couldn’t forget about it. I had read and researched too much about health and wellness to let ramen noodles and white flour have too prominent a place in our diet. So I shopped around, double-checked prices, and learned a few ways to replace most of the grain in our diet with healthier whole grains – without hurting our grocery budget.
Oatmeal
I discovered that rolled oats were one of the cheapest, most accessible whole grains on the grocery store shelves. I prefer to buy the big containers of old-fashioned rolled oats. They’re definitely cheaper than the pre-mixed microwave packets you can buy, and I prefer being able to control the amount of sweetener and other ingredients that I put in my oatmeal.
If you’re like me and prefer the flavor of those fun pre-mixed packets to plain old oatmeal, try your hand at these oatmeal recipes from Chocolate-Covered Katie. A lot of them are absolutely delicious and unique. However, I think some of the recipes can end up costing more than the individual oatmeal packets, so watch carefully.
On the other hand, Katie uses a lot of healthier ingredients, so it may be worth it to you in the long run!
Rice & Other Grains
Grains like barley and rice, when purchased in their whole grain form, can be frugal additions to your pantry. And again, if you’re like me and don’t really like rice (yikes, I’m beginning to sound like a picky eater), you can check out my beans and rice category, where we put together a bunch of recipes that make brown rice down right delicious.
You can read more about thinking outside the bread bag in my first post on grains during our Whole Foods Cheap series last year.
{Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal – my recipe}
Have a Friend?
Before I owned a grain mill, a friend who lived a few minutes away let me use hers. Every week or so I’d stop by her house and chat a few minutes while she tossed some wheat into her mill, and I got to take home one or two freezer bags of freshly ground flour. Because buying grain in bulk and then grinding it at home is so much cheaper than almost any other whole wheat flour I’ve been able to find, I was thankful to reap some of the benefits of owning a grain mill when I couldn’t really afford one yet.
If you don’t know anyone who owns a grain mill, ask around – especially if you know someone who knows a group of homeschooling families. Honestly, I’ve found a lot of homeschooling families tend to have a grain mill in their kitchen (speaking as a girl who was homeschooled).
Price Shop for Whole Grain Bread
If you’re strapped for time and baking your own bread doesn’t seem feasible, you can still save money buying whole grain bread. One quick trip into the bread aisle will show you an enormous range of prices and quality on whole grain products. Prices differ from place to place, so I recommend you scan the prices at several stores and decide what a good deal on bread looks like for your area.
After shopping around my local stores, I decided that anything less than $2/loaf was a good price – that includes avoiding ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated-whatever.
I’ve also heard that some dollar stores sell good quality whole grain bread for only $1/loaf, so that might be something to check out!
If you’re interested in further reading, I tackle this subject more extensively in my other post on whole grains for our Whole Foods Cheap series.
All of this to say that I’m not a huge fan of eating tons of grain as a rule. I think it has health benefits – especially compared with the white counterparts many of us consume. However, I think other food groups have a lot more nutrition to offer. (This is just my personal opinion based on the research I’ve done. I encourage you to do your own – see my disclaimer in the side bar.)
Lately, I think I’ve been eating way too much grain, partially because of our frugal local meat experiment, and partially because this pregnancy seems to crave carbs to no end. But I’m going to try and make my diet a little more balanced in the next few weeks. Without increasing our grocery budget, of course. So we’ll see how I do.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
How do you buy whole grains on a budget? What tips would you add to this post?
Cheers,
3 comments
1 ping
Mom
07/01/2011 at 7:39 AM (UTC -6)
Somehow calling it “The Shire” seemed so much more romantic than “converted shed.”
And if you think *that* was small – check out these homes (the link is safe) http://tinyurl.com/6h3cjuq
Another way to use whole grains is muffins and quick breads whirred through a good blender. The blender can grind the grain (when mixed with liquids).
You can also make homemade paper with scraps in a blender and a piece of screen . . . but that’s a story for another blog!
Elizabeth
07/05/2011 at 8:46 AM (UTC -6)
THANK YOU! I am looking forward to trying some of these things… especially that bread recipe. Can you make it using a mix of white and wheat flour?
Steph
07/05/2011 at 11:59 AM (UTC -6)
Elizabeth – You sure can! I need to update that recipe with some of the directions and details I’ve learned. If you’re using whole wheat flour or even just mostly regular wheat flour, I recommend kneading for a few minutes before allowing it to rise. This will help ensure a better texture, since wheat flour is usually heavier than white flour!
Before I had a mixer that did the kneading for me, I just used those few minutes of kneading as my arm work out time – yay for toned arms, right?
The Cheapskate Cook » Very-Little-Bother Bread – An Update & Tips
07/06/2011 at 2:07 PM (UTC -6)
[...] to make our usual sprouted bread, I used my old stand-by: Very-Little-Bother Bread. Last Friday I mentioned this recipe was great for beginners and was one of my favorite bread recipes when using whole wheat [...]