Easy Tutorial: DIY Oat Flour

I was looking around on the internet a lot, and I saw a few recipes that called for oat flour.

I decided that I didn't need to buy it. I already had oats in the house, surely oat flour was just a matter of a few steps. Especially so, since I have an awesome Ninja Professional Blender. (I wish I had the even more powerful one - but this one is great!)

Anyway, I poured about 2 cups of regular oats into the regular 72ounce jug of the blender. I pulsed it a few times, and then said what the heck, and put it to the maximum speed, which is three. This blender is really really loud, so you will want to do this at a decent time of the afternoon, or you will likely annoy neighbours. After about 3 minutes, I checked on the oats, and it was a little gritty still, but getting to a very nice consistency. I poured the flour from the big jug, into the single serve container, as that has a different blade attachment, and then let it grind for about 2 more minutes or so. The result was a very nice fine flour, sort of like whole wheat flour is.

I used the resulting 1 1/2 cups of Oat flour in the recipe that I will post soon. The 2 cups of oats yields about 1 1/2cups of flour because of some sort of sciency reason that I can't explain. I'm not good at explaining things like that, but I'm sure it's science, and air and what not. LOL.

Anyway, I made some awesome whole wheat & oat tortillas from this. YAY!

If you don't have an awesome blender, like a Ninja, or a Vitamix, and cannot afford one, you can also use a mortar and pestle. I would recommend getting the oats as small as you can in the blender or food processor that you have, even a spice grinder, and then using the mortart and pestle to get things even finer, if needed. :)

RECIPE: Whole Wheat & Quinoa Flour Tortillas EASY EASY!!

I have been scouring the web for recipes as of late, especially seeing as I feel that I have lost track of my healthy eating plan. :( It's not hard to get off track, when there are so many unhealthy temptations, but the important thing is that I am cognizant of the fact that it has been happening.

Anyway, I wanted to make something with the Quinoa flour that I have had in my cupboard for months. I tried the recipe that I found on the bobsredmill.com website, but they didn't turn out at ALL! They were nothing but a goopy mess, that I had to scrape off my pan! :( BOO!

So, I decided to experiment. I used 1 cup of whole wheat flour, and 1 cup of quinoa flour. BOOM! They tasted fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the recipe:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup Quinoa Flour
2 tbs of oil, preferably coconut oil, or olive oil. I used Extra Virgin Olive Oil for this one.
3/4 cup of water
pinch of salt

Be super careful to add the water slowly. Add about half the water, and mix it around, and if it's too dry, add another tablespoon at a time until you have enough. You might even need more water than this called for. I kind of eyeballed the water until the dough was the right consistency. It kind of has to be a bit dry, so that when you press on it with your fist, none of the mixture sticks to your hand. I wish I had remembered to take pictures!!

If you add a little too much water, you can always sprinkle in some more flour. SLOWLY.
Now, once you are done with the mixing, this step is VERY important. Cover the ball of dough with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for about 15-45 minutes. If you forget it longer, that's ok, but it needs at LEAST 15 minutes. I used to skip this step, and I was sorry for it. It somehow lets the gluten develop, or something.

Anyway, once your time is up, preheat the cast iron skillet to medium-high. My stove has numbers from 0-9, and I chose 7. I like the number 7. I hate the number 6, because I do honestly have mild OCD, and the numbers 6, 13, 36 freak me out. There is another one, but I can't even bring myself to write that one down. LOL. Anyway, you don't need ANYTHING at all in the pan. That's the beauty of a seasoned cast iron pan, it doesn't need anything to make awesome tortillas, but heat.

So, while your pan is preheating, you need to press & or roll out the dough. What I did, I used my little cast iron tortilla press. I divided my mixture into 4 balls, because I wanted large tortillas. Once I had the little balls rolled, I put one ball at a time into my tortilla press. (It was like $10 on ebay.) Then, because the press didn't get it thin enough, I sprinkled flour on the countertop, and put the tortilla there, then started rolling it out thinner with the rolling pin. This way makes them a bit uneven at the edges, but I'm not entering any contests, right? LOL.

About the tortilla press, and the rolling pin being used together. Yes, you can use one or the other, or even a glass, but I find that using the two makes it a much simpler and more enjoyable process. Using the rolling pin alone would take so much longer than the press, and using the press alone, never gets the tortillas thin enough, and also not big enough, because the press I bought was for 6 inch tortillas.

I roll them out as thin as they will go, and then I slap it into the pan. About 1 minute on the first side, then 45 seconds on the second. Make sure that you're watching it though, it may need slightly more, or slightly less. Once the second side is done, I flip it back to the first side for about 10-15 seconds. If it starts making bubbles throughout, you know you've done this correctly.

Now, you are ready to put whatever in or on them, and way to go, you've got fresh homemade delicious, and nutritious tortillas! YAY! I'm going to try Masa Harina next, if I can find it around here. It was at No Frills once, but they stopped carrying it. :( I will include pictures and or video the next time I make them! :)

Gardening Update: Bell Peppers & Tomatoes

Hi guys!

I wanted to post, because I'm so pleased, and proud of my green peppers. Yes, I have more pepper plants than the last time I posted. Why? I went to the local garden shop, and it had a two for one sale, because of course it's late in the season. I plant my stuff in containers anyway, and some of the pepper plants were not only blossomed, but already had some peppers starting. So, I bought the 4 that I liked the most, and came home, replanted them, and then waited. Of course I added organic soil, and organic fertilizer. I also added a little of the tomato food, and calcium nitrate that I had bought for the tomatoes, which of course are NOT organic, (I will know better for next year), anyway, I read that Bell peppers, (Maybe all peppers, I don't know), and tomatoes, among a few other plants, are members of the nightshade family, and they can grow under the same conditions, and the same fertilizers work well for them. I'm by no means an expert, but it is certainly working so far. Even the bell pepper plant that I bought at Wal-Mart has begun to put off teeny tiny peppers. I think they would have been doing better, had I fertilized the little bugger properly when I began.


I am learning by trial and error, plus watching lots of youtube videos, and reading other peoples blogs, and what not. Anyway, here are some pictures of my green pepper plants, taken today. Woot!! Look at those little buggers!!

If you want to use ANY of my pictures on this post, or on another post, you may, but please link back here, that is my ONLY condition, say where you got them. I digitally watermark them anyway, but I do want you to give me credit. I need all the help getting traffic here that I can get. :)

Isn't this one nearly perfect??

This is my prettiest looking guy so far. :D I'm sure it will taste the same anyway. LOL This is the same guy as the one above, from a different angle.

Aww, look at this little guy trying to be all grown up! Woot! You can see his little sister to the right, in the background.

The little sister with her own time to shine in the spotlight!

Should I be worried about those spots that I have circled?

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Container Gardening Attempt: Year 3 + WITH Pictures

So, I have been trying to garden in containers for at least three years, it might even be 5 years. I know that I have tried, and failed, and failed and failed. I need to container garden, because I live in a rental. We have a small lawn out front, that is only about 12 square feet, and very close to the road with no fence, so that's out. I decided to research container gardening, when I hear the term somewhere. I can't remember where, but it very well could have been pinterest, but I'm not sure if I was on pinterest 4 years ago.

Anyway, I wanted to keep it all in the house, so that I wouldn't look like a lunatic growing things in containers on our veranda. I bought some flower pots, regular soil, and seeds. I planted the seeds and watered them. Little sprouts came up, and quickly died. I wonder why? I will tell you why, I figured soil and water was enough. No fertilizer, nothing else but water.

Then, I decided that I would use epsom salts as the fertilizer. Well, that's all well and good - epsom salt is actually natural magnesium sulfate, which plants need during germination and growth, etc. (I'm no expert). That was what I tried the second year. Another failure. Magnesium is not the only thing that the plants need, of course.

I didn't want to add too many chemical things, because I'm growing the veggies so that I can be healthier, what's the point of growing the veggies, (I know tomatoes aren't a vegetable), if you are just adding chemicals to make them grow? So, I wanted to be organic.

Here comes this year. I didn't quite get that I needed to use fertilizer and organic at that, until I had already started my seeds. I decided to go to Wal-Mart and look through their garden section. Now, I know that their herbs and plants are likely NOT organic, but I have justified buying some herbs there, because of the cost, and the fact that I would then put it in organic soil, with organic fertilizer, and try to even grow them to produce seeds for next year.

So, I shopped around the garden section, and bought chocolate mint, which I didn't know existed, thyme and a bell pepper plant. I wanted rosemary, but they didn't have any, so I bought a pack of seeds, and I found lavender seeds, YAY!

Anyway, I got home, replanted the stuff in bigger pots, with organic soil, added some jobes organic fertilizer tabs that I got at Dollarama, and watered them all, put them in their semi-permanent veranda home for the summer, and let nature take it's course.

I looked up videos on youtube to help me with the process of caring for my new plants, seedlings, and what not, and I found lots of useful information. As I was searching youtube for useful information on organic gardening, I saw some of their plants, and mine looked HORRIBLE in comparison, and I was quite proud of my little seedings up until then. So, I decided I would go to a local gardening store, and check out what they have, as they have greenhouses, and all that fancy stuff set up.

Boy, am I glad that I did that! It was already mid to late June by then, so some of their stock was gone, and some of the MANY tomato plants that they still had, was flowering already. YAY! And, the stalks looked like tree branches, they were so strong,turdy, and thick!! What's even better, the awesome flowering tomato plants were ONLY $5. At Wal-Mart, the feeble half dying ones were $3!!!! VERY FAR from flowering, and likely never would anyway.

I bought a tomato plant that day, and a pepper plant, as well as a lemon balm herb, also known as lemon mint. It's a mint plant, but if you rub your finger over the leaves, it smells like lemon, and exactly like original sunlight dish detergent. I bet that's what they use, rather than actual lemon rind oils to make the detergent. It smells exactly the same. I love it, it brings back pleasant memories for me of being with my friend Stephanie when we were teens, going out to the mall looking at boys, and then having to do dishes at her place. The dishes weren't pleasant, but the looking at the boys was! HAHA. (I was far too shy to ever talk to them.)

So, I have those things started. I also bought a package of summer savory, which germinated extremely well in a McDonalds napkin soaked with water, and put inside a ziploc baggie for a couple days. I think nearly ALL of the seeds germinated. I will include pictures of almost everything I'm growing below this post, with captions. :) Savory is an herb that some people describe as being like thyme and rosemary together, or something. I do have to agree it smells like that. It looks similar to rosemary when it's fully grown.

I have some lemongrass started as well, but I really messed up, and it's barely sprouting. I buried the seeds, because I was a dunce and didn't read the directions. I then had to use a nail and gently stir the soil and seeds around, so that the seeds at least had a chance of germination. It seems to have worked a bit, a couple are sprouting, but most are not.

I wonder if I can bring my tomato plant inside when it starts to cool down? Would it still produce tomatoes during the winter, if it's inside, or would it at least live so that I can bring it back outside in the spring? I'm sure the herbs will last, or am I wrong? What about my peppers? Any insight would be much appreciated.

This Pepper plant came from Wal-Mart

This Pepper plant came from Wal-Mart.

This Pepper plant came from Roger's Farm.