Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Homemade Cream of Wheat


 I'm surprised I haven't posted this cereal yet but making the Rye Porridge yesterday reminded me of this one. This 'cereal' was most of my children's first 'baby food cereal'.

Once I even made this by sprouting, drying, and grinding the wheat but I must say- it was yucky!
I mean- some of you may like it, but to us, it tasted- green- green as in grass.
Yeah, like that! 

Does this taste exactly like boxed? No. It's the whole grain and the boxed isn't.
Cheaper? MUCH! If I have my numbers right, about .34 cents for the whole pot!
It is about the same consistency as boxed, perhaps a little finer with the flour and personally I like it with coarser ground wheat to where it's closer to a grit. :)

You can use milk or cream in the place of part of your water in the recipe to make it more true to it's name, or even top it with a drizzle of heavy cream.
You can sweeten simply with sugar or top with spices, fruits, etc- or my favorite is butter and honey. 

HOMEMADE CREAM OF WHEAT
1 cup whole wheat flour
5 cups water
dash of salt

Whisk flour into water in pot with salt. 
Heat until thickened. Approx 5 to 10 minutes.
Serve!

Easy peasy!

And- if you have leftovers, you can serve small portions topped with fruit for dessert at lunch!


John 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

3 comments:

The Prudent Homemaker said...

I was just talking to my husband about this earlier this week, and then I saw your rye post and thought about it some more.

When you're figuring .34, is that minus toppings or with toppings? I figured .22 for the whole pot of oatmeal once but I want to refigure; I found a less expensive source for oats ($14.78 for 25 pounds).

What price are you paying for wheat? Is this ground on the finest setting or did you buy flour?

I ground flour yesterday and I have been thinking about this for days--making homemade cream of wheat and polenta.

It's been many years since I bought my wheat and I'm trying to remember what I paid per pound. I think .33 a pound at the time. It has gone up so much since then.

I was wondering if it is a coarser grind for wheat so that it doesn't come out tasting like dough. Perhaps that is just the larger amount of water to flour?

I am definitely testing this out tomorrow morning! I have some apples we can use to top ours.

Your photos are lovely.

Brandy

Donna said...

That price is without sweetener, toppings, etc.

Wheat is about 2 1/2 times what you paid for it right now.

A pound is equal to 2 cups of flour according to what I've read and that recipe is for 1 cup=1/2 a pound, so my estimate was for what the price of wheat would be for me now- .72 per lb.

On the recipe I noted that I ground as per flour, but that I personally liked a coarser grind on this. If it's too doughy tasting for your family, I would try adding cream and/or milk powder.

I hope it's a winner! And my guess is that every grain would work similar to this if in berry form and ground :)

Unknown said...

Try jam or jelly as a topping. It is amazing!