If you have never heard of Kefir you can find out all about it at Dom’s Kefir site. Kefir is a milk product, somewhat similar but yet very different from yogurt. The ‘starter’ used to make kefir is called a ‘grain’. These grains are not like cereal grains but are actually living organisms that somewhat resemble small pieces of cauliflower. It is a complex mix of bacteria, yeasts and other goodies. Like sourdough starter the grains must be fed. I believe goat’s milk is the traditional ‘food’ for kefir but people have used non-diary products too. I’ve only used 2% cow’s milk from the grocery store.

In a nutshell you harvest your kefir daily, keeping back the grains. These go into a new batch of milk for tomorrow’s kefir. I’ve heard of making kefir in the fridge but I never seemed to get it to work well. The grains will grow as they are fed and these can be given away or dried and frozen for a backup. Extra kefir can be stored in the fridge and used to make cheese, in any recipe calling for milk or buttermilk, to make bread etc.

Earlier this past week I pulled out the rest of the grains I had in the freezer as I recently lost my kefir due to neglect. These grains had been frozen since Feb 2003. That is right at 2 1/2 years. Prior to freezing the grains were rinsed in filtered water and left out to dry on papertowels for about a week until quite dry. These dry grains were packed in non fat dry milk inside of a 1 cup wide mouth canning jar. The grains were completely surrounded by the dry milk for protection. The non-fat dry milk is a very dense powder, not the light and airy stuff.

Even family members who do not like whole wheat anything love my blender whole wheat pancakes. I use white wheat and the kefir gives a slightly tangy flavor and light texture to these pancakes. I’ve also used the natural yeasts present in the kefir to rise bread. The bread has a sour taste to it much like sourdough.
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Blender Whole Wheat Pancakes
Yield: 3 Servings

1 1/2 Cup Kefir, (Sour milk or Milk with 1T Vinegar added may be substituted)
1 Tbl Sugar Or Splenda
1 Tsp Salt
1 Cup Wheat berries
1 Tsp Baking soda (add this last)
1 Egg
1/2 Tsp Vanilla extract
1/4 Cup Oil
handful of walnuts or almonds (optional)

Combine milk with wheat in blender. Blend on high speed for 5 minutes or until creamy. Add remaining dry ingredients except for the baking soda. Add vanilla, egg and oil. If you add the egg and oil before the other ingredients it might get too thick to blend properly. Add a bit more kefir if you added the nuts as it will probably be too thick to blend. Just before you are ready to cook add baking soda. It will bubble up when you ad it and be kind of hard to mix. Pulse it a couple of times and that should do the trick. Pour mixture from blender into frying pan. Extra pancakes can be frozen and popped in the toaster to warm.

Carb counts (without the nuts): The wheat has aprox 90 carbs per cup, the Kefir has 6 carbs per 1 1/2 cups. The recipe makes aprox 18 4-6″ pancakes. That is about 5 carbs per pancake without syrup.
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