Tag Archives: Recipes

Grinding Popcorn

Popcorn is notoriously hard to grind. Many grinders specifically forbid the use of popcorn in their units. Not having a grain mill yet I had never really tried grinding popcorn for fresh cornbread but was looking forward to it when I do finally break down and pick up the grinder I’ve had my eye on.

This past week I had stopped by the local Goodwill looking for goodies when I ran across a coffee grinder for a few dollars. I think I paid about 8 or 10 for it after the discount for that day. It is a Capresso Infinity Burr Grinder. It is the stainless model which sells for about $120 or so. It had never been taken out of the package that I could tell. Not bad for less than $10. It grinds from course to very fine (for Turkish coffee) and, since it had never been used it didn’t come with a coffee bean smell that I had half expected. I thought, why not try it on popcorn. What is the worst that can happen? I lose a few dollars.

First I ran some white wheat through as a test. I thought if it couldn’t handle the wheat, there was no way it could handle the popcorn. The wheat was ground into a consistency slightly finer than cream of wheat but coarser than flour. I ended up running the popcorn through twice. It did get hung up a couple of times but it was easy to take apart and clean. I looked for a recipe online and found a good sweet cornbread recipe on the All Recipes site. I used the flour and cornmeal I had just ground. It ended up taking a little more milk than the recipe called for. I let the corn soak up the milk for about 10 minutes before mixing in everything else. I baked it in a cast iron skillet in the oven. VERY good flavor but a little crumbly. I will probably add another egg next time. All in all I am very pleased with my grinder. I can see fresh cream of wheat and cornbread in my future.

Peach jam and homemade noodles

Last week I had picked up 5 large peaches from Jungle Jim’s. They were huge and not quite ripe. My plan was to make a peach cobbler (or two) but since the kid had a b’day on Friday and we have more goodies than we can eat around here from that I decided to go the jam route. Fast forward a little while and we have 7 jars of jam on the counter and one in the fridge.

A couple of weeks ago I was watching Ciao Italia, one of the cooking shows I record on the homemade tivo. Mary Ann was with her mom making homemade noodles. What caught my eye was the fact that she had the same pasta machine (Atlas) that I have except hers has the motor attachment. I had tried once or twice to make noodles but was not happy with the result. Too thick and tough. She made it look so easy I decided to try it again. I am so glad I did as they turned out perfectly. To look at them you couldn’t tell they weren’t from the store. Thin and somewhat longer than what you pick up at the grocery they had a lot more flavor. I may never buy dried noodles again. I didn’t have a pasta dryer then and ended up hanging the noodles over plastic coat hangers. It worked but I wanted something easier to manage. While I was at Jungle Jim’s I picked up the pasta dryer in the pick for just over $10. I could have made one for next to nothing but this was easier. I decided to make another batch today. This is a triple batch of 1egg to 1c flour recipe. I added a tiny bit of water as my eggs were on the smallish side. This is the result.

On Friday I was at the thrift shop with the kid and found yet another Atlas with two extra attachments for $7.50 after the 50% discount. I don’t have a need for another machine but now I have a lasagna roller and a smaller noodle roller to go with the machine I have. I think I have a home for the extra pasta machine, I’ll find out Tuesday.