There is a recipe for wheat treats in the Essentials of Home Production and Storage booklet. I decided to try it as apart of my food storage experiment. Remember this is an experiment because this is how they turned out:
Chewy and under fried….blech.
As I often do more than I would like to admit, I didn’t read the recipe as well as I should have beforehand. Well this is what you do when you do it right… eh hem.
Then drain and dab with a towel to get it as dry as you can.
So…when I put the wheat in the strainer and into the hot oil it popped like crazy because it still had a little bit of water on it. It was HOT and messy so keeping it in there for 1 1/2 minutes didn’t happen. Thus the chewy, not very good “treat.”
I almost tried it again but stopped myself. I asked myself…” Do I REALLY want to have a deep fried treat to snack on?” Not really. So I experimented some more.
I put it in our popcorn popper which spewed the seeds out all over my kitchen. Ha ha. Forget it.
I gave up on making it into a treat and moved onto wheat cereal which turned out MUCH better.
Add milk, berries, and brown sugar as desired. Very tasty. It had a kind of nutty flavor. My oldest son even loved it and ate every bite. I still prefer oatmeal but I would eat this if I needed to.
You can also grind the wheat a little to make the texture finer.
Yet another variation is to make “wheat berries.” Wheat berries are basically just a firmer version of the cereal and can be used in salads, casseroles, etc. Use your imagination.
To make wheat berries you:
place wheat into a pan, cover with water, boil for 10 minutes, and then turn off the stove and leave it covered overnight. {Thanks to my friend Cassandra for this quick, easy recipe!}
Jacki says
Hey Delia! I made cooked wheat berries a few weeks ago in the crockpot and froze the extras. So far we've had them on green salads, in a waldorf-like salad with apples, nuts and raisins, and in chili and tacos. They are a great substitute/addition to rice in soups or pilafs.
Delia says
Wonderful ideas! Thank you!