Bread

Want to keep fit but are sensible enough to realise that with gym memberships the only pounds you lose are the ones from your pocket? Better to do something that keeps you fit and has a nice tasty result. Buy a Country Living Grain mill from the States and a sack of wheat and mill your own flour. It's a bit like cycling for the arms, and you get something called fresh flour as a result, which makes good honest whole fresh bread, which is something I'm prepared to bet most people have never had before.

You need a beer after using this monster!

Our mill was bought after months of research, whereby I found out that most flour is milled by an industrial process which destroys all that is good about flour, and then made into loaves by an industrial process which destroys all that is good about bread. I've baked my own bread for years, from organic flour bought from shops with too many crystals and Hopi ear candles. However, I then found out that the oils contained in the grain go off as fast as milk does when exposed to air, so what I was buying was in fact stale food. As every time I'd eaten something commonplace which was fresh (i.e. hours old instead of weeks) and found out what it is meant to taste like - like turnips for example: picked when about the size of a golf ball and just boiled and eaten with salt and pepper, they're delicious; shop bought turnips are woody, bland balls - I decided to try using fresh flour.

Sooo, got the mill, and am now milling our own flour. It's like cycling uphill on a low gear using your arms. Takes about 15 mins to do enough flour for two loaves, which taste delicious. They have a nutty, rich, moist flavour and texture and it's definitely worth doing. Plus, you're getting all those amino acids, vitamins, and oils that you wouldn't be if you got shop bought stuff as an added bonus.