Cracked Wheat Mush

Wheat Berries. This is specifically hard white wheat (as opposed to hard red wheat or soft white wheat, which are other types of wheat that you can buy.  Hard red wheat has a stronger flavor and makes darker bread. Soft white wheat will not make good bread at all,  but makes good cake.)

I grew up eating cracked wheat mush every day.  For those of you who’ve never eaten it, it is like steel cut oats, only made with wheat and not oats.  Cracked wheat mush is very healthy for you.

I hated it.

However, now that I’m older, I don’t just eat food because it tastes good.  I try to eat food that will make me feel good after I eat it.  Thus, mush is in, Cheerios are out.  I’ll be typing up a different post about the Word of Wisdom, for now I will just say that it says “Wheat for Man” so we know wheat is good for us and that is why my parents made me eat it all those mornings before school.

It takes over 30 minutes to cook cracked wheat mush on the stove, so I’ve been experimenting with some steel cut oat crock pot recipes to see if I could de-stress my mornings and still eat healthy.  Some people have a grinder of some sort to “crack” their wheat.  I do not, so I use my new Breville Hemisphere Blender (which I got for Christmas, thank you DH.  It was a good present because I use it multiple times every day making cracked wheat, green smoothies, and strawberry yogurt.)

Here is what the wheat looks like in the blender before it is blended:

Wheat in the Blender

Cracked Wheat

Here is what the wheat looks like after about 20 seconds of blending on high.  I just blend it until it starts to look like all the berries have been chopped into thirds.

I have found that 4 cups of water to 1 cup of wheat makes the best consistancy when it is cooked: not too runny, not to thick, just right.  So I put the wheat with about 1.5 cups of water in the blender and blend it.  I pour that into the crockpot, and then I swish the remaining 2.5 cups of water in the blender to get the last bits of wheat out (that gets poured into the crock pot as well.

5 hours in the crock pot on low is perfect to cook the wheat.  However, I sleep more than that, so I set my crockpot on low and plug it into this appliance/light timer (Thanks Dad).  That way, the crockpot is only on for 5 hours, from 1 a.m to 6 a.m.

Light Timer: How to cook things for only 5 hours overnight in a crock pot.

  Also, when you cook the mush in the crock pot, a lot will stick to the sides.  I don’t like cleaning that out every morning, so I create a double boiler in my crockpot with a heatproof (Pyrex) bowl.

My crockpot is a 4 quart pot. I put in water (about 3 cups).

Then I place my Pyrex bowl inside. You want the water to be about half way up the sides of the bowl.

Then I pour the cracked wheat from the blender into the bowl. I’m holding some in a spoon so you can see how it is all chopped up now.

Last I put the lid on the crockpot and go to bed feeling happy about the morning.

Perfectly cooked Cracked Wheat Mush

Because I’m not slaving to cook breakfast anymore, I have time to do fun things like this instead:

Peach Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Here are the family’s favorite Mush Recipes that we have tried in the last 2 weeks:

Plain Mush:

1 cup Whole Wheat Berries

4 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

Blend wheat in the blender with the water.  Pour into crockpot, add salt.  Cook 5 hours on low.

I like to eat my mush with a little bit of honey or butter stirred in.

Apple Pie Mush:

1 cup Whole Wheat Berries

4 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon apple pie spice

1 1/2 Tablespoons butter, cut up

2 apples

Blend the wheat in the blender with the water.  Pour into crockpot, add salt, sugar, apple pie spice, and butter.

Cook on low for 5 hours

Chop up apples and add just before serving. (We’ve decided we don’t like our fruit cooked with the mush.  If you like your fruit cooked, you can add it before cooking.)

Banana Coconut Milk Mush: This one smells divine while it is cooking!

1 cup Wheat

2 cups water

1 can or 2 cups coconut milk (light coconut milk is best, if you can get it)

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix all that in the crockpot and cook for 5 hours on low.

Chop 2 bananas and sprinkle over the top before serving.  (You can add the bananas before cooking, and the flavor is good, but it looks all brown and sick, so if you don’t like your food to look disgusting, leave the bananas out during cooking. Personally, I don’t care, but the kiddie pies and the DH refused to eat the cooked bananas. )

This little girl is not picky about how she gets her banana, as long as she gets it.

Doctrine & Covenants 89:16-17

16 All grain is good for the food of man; as also the fruit of the vine; that which yieldeth fruit, whether in the ground or above the ground—

 17 Nevertheless, wheat for man, and corn for the ox, and oats for the horse, and rye for the fowls and for swine, and for all beasts of the field, and barley for all useful animals, and for mild drinks, as also other grain.