Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara logo

Speaking of Flour

Well, actually, we were speaking of the flower garden but . . flour or flower . . sound sounds the same to me!  🙂

Once upon a time I used whatever flour I found in the grocery store.  Probably the less it cost, the more I liked it.  From there I switched to bread flour for my breadmaking.  Then I discovered King Arthur flour and thought that was the best thing ever.  Then I found patent flour at a Mennonite store.  I liked it a lot . . til I found Wheat Montana Natural White Premium Flour at the Amish store.   Did you even know there were so many variations of flour?  Here’s a good article about different flours.

The Wheat Montana flour is my all time favorite.  A friend here bought a bag for the first time this week so I’m anxious to hear what she thinks of it.  I buy the 50 pound bag and store it in 2 – 5 gallon buckets.

Some of my buckets were ordered new.  Some were purchased for $1.50  from the local grocery store deli or for $1 from the Wal-Mart deli. Icing comes in these buckets and the deli cleans them up and sells them when they’re finished.

I use the Gamma Seal lids which seal it tightly and keep any critters out.  If I were buying more than 50 pounds, I’d freeze it for a few days before putting it in the buckets but I’ll go through 50 pounds quickly enough that I didn’t bother to freeze this bag.

And sometimes most of the time, I make a bit of a mess transferring the flour from the bag to the buckets.

And then I make bread, and even though I should wait til it gets cool, I can’t!  I slice a piece off when it first comes out of the oven (I don’t eat the end!), add some butter and make sure it’s worthy of serving to my family.  I would never serve bread to my family if I didn’t taste it first, while it’s warm . . I’m just a good person like that!  🙂

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Judy!!!! You know you are not supposed to slice bread while it’s hot! LOL
    I always taste mine first too, for exactly those same reasons! Hehehe. Seriously, I cut the ends off, because the heels are my favorite and I don’t share them with anyone! LOL

  3. You don’t eat the end?!? Really??? I love a nice thick, hot end piece with butter dripping off it. I must make sure my family is safe!

  5. I love the heels of the loaf of bread – especially with butter when it is right out of the oven!!! Do the chickens get the crusts that you don’t eat? We feed our leftover bread to the birds.

  7. Fresh and hot, the ends are the best! We’ve even been known to cut off both ends and eat them first. Especially since the ends aren’t anyones favorite once they are cold.

  8. I have just discovered bread flour! I started baking bread after following your site and I’m hooked on it. Bread is evil though… I want to sit down and eat the whole loaf (I’m a heel girl) with lots of real butter. I might as just apply directly to my hips. That guy – Will Power – never comes to my house!

  9. even better, grind your own 😀

    I LOVE the heels when they are still warm, we all fight over them, but once they are cool, yuck!

  10. Your willingness to eat a possible “bad” piece of bread to protect your family is admirable. 🙂

    Re: Joy’s comment…weren’t you grinding your own last summer?

  11. Judy, I love your blog, cooking, quilting, gardening and day to day life. It’s wonderful to stop by and visit with you everyday. Thankyou

  12. Hey, get yer hands off my dinner!! I’ll happily eat all the ends for you. I’ll do anything for a good friend! 🙂

  13. I often find the ends missing on the fresh bread – consumed with lots of peanut butter!! Just made some onion cheese bread in a glazed flower pot – now that requires real butter – none of that fake stuff!

  15. Judy, don’t you just love that Wheat Montana flour, we grow good stuff here in Montana! It is the only kind of flour I use now.

  16. I love home made bread and I love the end piece. When my Dad was still alive and when I still lived in Canada, my Dad would get up at 4 am and bake bread. He’d make 5 or 6 loaves at a time. He’d put 2 loaves in bags and put them in a box and when my Mom went to work she would drop them off at the bus parcel express office in town and that night I would have fresh home made bread. It wasn’t still warm but it was same day fresh. Everytime I came home to visit my Dad would make bread the first morning I was there so I could have fresh bread and the end piece. I miss my Dad a lot and I really miss the home made bread too. I have tried to bake bread but can’t seem to get it. I have made it successfully in a bread machine but it’s not the same.

  17. Once I started using King Arthur, my world changed … and I refuse to use anything else. The only time in the past 10 years that I’ve used Pillsbury was to dust headstones when taking pictures at cemeteries (it pulls out the details of dates and names that can erode with time). And using King Arthur has changed the need to use AP and bread flour … usually I just use AP, and get super fantabulous results.

    I don’t eat crust … so my husband gets those – which I guess makes him happy.

    Hubby bought me a grain mill a few years ago for Christmas … but I don’t like whole wheat (actually I HATE whole wheat) so I have only used the grain mill twice.

  18. Judy, you don’t know what you are missing by not eating the ends — warm right off the loaf OR toasted when they get cold (then it tastes like it just came out of the oven again). Reading your post makes me want to run into the kitchen and start making a loaf — but I’ll wait until tomorrow. It’s almost bedtime now. Thanks for inspiring me to get back to bread making. My clothes were starting to fall off me so I need to put on a few pounds! 🙂 🙂 Dar

  19. Why wait? my mom used to make bread too, and if i was home, ALWAYS gave me a fresh from the oven buttered piece. forgot that memory till now, really. thanks. I have to start to make bread. we have a bread maker too, and as someone said, it isnt the same. we have been TRYING to find a recipe for a loaf we cannot live without, and have not gotten it yet. I am not a big bread eater, so if i am going to eat it, it better be GOOD. I hate wasting carbs on crappy bread. Let’s face it, there is no reason to eat crappy FOOD. there is SO much good food out there to eat!

  20. Judy,
    I am from Montana and I agree with you. I get my flour directly from the source whenever I can – it is just the best flour. My son in Seattle always buys 50 lbs to bring home with him because he thinks it’s the best too…YAY for Montana Wheat growers too.

  22. Judy,

    I love my bread recipe, but do you have your recipe posted somewhere? Do you use an egg white wash across the top of the loaf?

    Jen

  23. Why would you freeze the flour for several days if you bought more than 50lbs?

  25. Oh that is so mean. Now I have to make bread. Thank goodness Joe likes the heels. No fights there.

    I get up hungry and read a post on homemade bread. Bad Judy! Bad!

  27. you don’t eat the END???? OMG…those are the best parts. i could eat the ends and throw the rest away. in Lithuanian they are the ‘peppentookas’. or however they spell it…but it sounds like that. hahaha love love the ends with real butter.

  28. LOL I don’t eat the end, either 😉

    I really, really, really need to start making our bread on a regular basis. Both Mike and I have made fresh bread here and there, but haven’t found a recipe that turns out well.

    Note to self and Mike. Try Judy’s bread recipe…we’ll be hooked!

Discover more from Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading