Simple Whole Wheat Biscuits

I love biscuits! They're easy to make and I almost always have all the ingredients on hand. I probably make biscuits every week, typically to accompany our dinner meal. They take about 15 minutes to make and only about 12 minutes to bake, so you can easily whip them together for any meal and enjoy their deliciousness straight from the oven. Plus if you have leftovers, and that's a big if, they are great warmed up in the morning for breakfast. My favorite way to eat biscuits is straight from the oven with a pat of butter and a bit of honey. Yum, yum, yum! Honestly you can't go too wrong here. You can get creative too by adding cheddar cheese, jalapenos, fresh or dried herbs, etc.

I use to always make the traditional white flour biscuit, where you cut in butter to make a flaky, tender biscuit. I still make these, especially for company, but I also wanted to have a recipe that followed some of the Weston Price methods of preparing breads. To do that, I got rid of the milk you'd normally use and instead mix the flour with yogurt. If you are a believer of soaking your grains before you bake/eat them, you can easily do this with this recipe. Simply mix your flour and yogurt together the night before you want the biscuits, cover and let the mixture sit on the counter until the next day when you are going to use them. If you are new to soaking grains, the main purpose is to help aid in their digestion. I go back and forth on whether to soak grains or not, there are different theories about this topic and I'm still in research mode. For now I soak my grains part of the time, and the rest of time I don't worry about it. Here is one article you can read about why to soak grains called Be Kind to Your Grains, it's from the The Weston Price Foundation website.

Since I wanted to make this a "grain soaking" friendly recipe, I also got rid of cutting your butter into the flour mixture, which is what you would normally do. Instead, I use melted butter. All in all, with the changes I made this is a very simple recipe to make and completely worth the little bit of mess that comes with it.


What You'll Need - 8 biscuits

• 2 cups organic whole wheat flour - I like to use freshly ground, white whole wheat
• 3/4 cup plain organic yogurt
• 1 tsp. aluminum-free baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp. aluminum-free baking powder
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 4-8 Tblsp. organic butter, melted - The more the fat the yummier they are!

• Mixing bowl
• Mixing spoon
• Flour to use on work surface, about 1/4 cups is suffice
• Cookie sheet, greased or lined with parchment paper
• Knife

Getting Started

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

2. Mix all your dry ingredients together in your mixing bowl, then add your yogurt and melted butter. Use a mixing spoon or your fingers to mix all the ingredients together. Your dough will be very moist and sticky. If you decided to soak you flour in the yogurt over night, just add all your ingredients to the soaked mixture and continue with the rest of the instructions.




3. Dust a working surface with a generous amount of flour and dump your dough out onto it. Pat the dough into a rectangular shape that is about 3/4" thick.




4. Cut the rectangle into 8 square/rectangle biscuits. You could use a round biscuit cutter, but why bother. Who decided that biscuits should be round instead of square our rectangle? When you make your biscuits round, you have scraps leftover that have to be re-shaped and cut again. Typically you get a tougher biscuit out of these scraps because the dough is worked too much when you have to re-shape them. Plus, it takes more time to make round biscuits. Typically when I'm making biscuits, I doing them at the last minute and the faster I can get them done the better.




5. Place biscuits onto cookie sheet about 2" apart and bake for approximately 12 minutes, until they are golden brown on the edges.

6. Remove from the oven and enjoy while they are still warm. It works great to place the hot biscuits into a bowl lined with a towel and then cover the biscuits with the towel until you serve them. This way they stay warm and are able to melt the generous slabs of butter you'll be placing on them! :-)

Kishk Granola - A Yummy Cereal

Are you a fan of cereal, but try to avoid the "not so healthy for you" stuff that's sold at the store, which I might add is basically every type of cereal sold? Yes, even the "healthy" stuff really isn't good for you. That's me, at least I try to avoid the stuff at the store. The only time I ever eat cereal is at night as a snack and I like to have some on hand for when guess come, because those who visit us never seem to be the big breakfast eaters that my husband and I are.

This is a recipe from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It's easy to make and is a much healthier version to store bought cereal, even in comparison to traditional granola.


What You'll Need

• 4 cups yogurt
• 4 cups cracked wheat
• 1 cup chopped,*crispy nuts of your choice, like almonds, pecans and/or walnuts
• 1 cup dried coconut meat sweetened or unsweetened
• 1 cup chopped dried fruit, like raisins, apples, apricots
• 1/2 cup Rapadura, (pure organic sugar cane)

• Large mixing bowl
• Mixing spoon
• Cookie sheets or food dehydrator
  
• Sharp knife
• Food processor - optional
• Measuring cups

*Crispy nuts are raw nuts that have been soaked in water with a bit of salt added to it. You soak the nuts overnight and then dry them out in a food dehydrator or a 150 degree oven. If you don't have crispy nuts on hand you could alternatively use raw nuts.

Once again, the habits of traditional peoples should serve as a guide. They understood instinctively that nuts are best soaked or partially sprouted before eaten. This is because nuts contain numerous enzyme inhibitors that can put a real strain on the digestive mechanism if consumed in excess. Nuts are easier to digest, and their nutrients more readily available, if they are first soaked in salt water overnight, then dried in a warm oven.
~Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, page 512




Getting Started

1. In a large mixing bowl mix together the 4 cups of cracked wheat and the 4 cups of
yogurt. Cover the bowl and place in a dark place or cover with a towel and allow to sit for 24 hours. We are making a fermented dish called kishk which originated in the Middle East.

2. After 24 hours, spread kishk mixture as thinly as possible on oiled or lined cookie sheets and place in 150 degree oven overnight. Most ovens don't go down this low, I have done it at 170 degrees, which is the lowest temperature my oven will go down to. This works, but I'd do it during the day, so you can occasionally check on it to make sure it isn't baking, but instead drying out. You'll know it's baking because it will start to turn a darker brown, like when making cookies. If you go the 170 degree route, turn your oven on for a little while then turn it off and leave the door closed. Alternatively, you could use a food dehydrator for this step.

Note: It's really important to spread the Kishk as thinly as possible. The first time I did it, I left it a little thicker in places and it was so much harder to chop up (which we'll do in the next step), I couldn't even break it down in my food processor.

3. Once kishk has completely dried out, either using a knife or a food processor, chop until it's coarsely crumbled. I think using the knife is easier. I found that the food processor over chopped some of it and left other pieces in chunks to large to eat.



4. Place chopped kishk into a large bowl and add the rest of your ingredients. Mix well then place into a zip-lock bag or an airtight container.

Kishk granola can be stored at room temperature for several weeks or in the fridge for longer.
Eat it just like granola with milk or cream or sprinkle on yogurt.