CHAPTER ONE BUILD A NATURAL FOODS PANTRY This chapter aims to set you up with something other than the standard powder-white pantry. It's a whole new (and at the same time old) way of thinking about cooking from scratch. When cookbooks repeatedly call for the familiar cast of cheap, refined, basic ingredients, people forget how to use anything else. The ingredients they seldom use fall out of favor, and they lose confidence in experimenting with new ones. Many of the ingredients that have fallen out of favor with the home cook are whole grains and whole-grain flours, natural sweeteners, and minimally processed fats. The ingredients outlined here are going to be your building blocks-your go-to pantry of culinary fats, flavors, and flours. This doesn't mean you have to take what you are currently using and throw it out, it just means that the next time you head to the store you will be armed with the information (and hopefully inspiration) to choose differently. Just because you overhaul your pantry it doesn't mean that you have to banish your favorite family recipes. Cook enough of the recipes in this book and you'll be able to do updated versions of your favorites using better-quality (and better-tasting) ingredients. Use this chapter as a shopping primer. The focus here is on what to buy, what to look for, and how to navigate toward more healthful ingredients. You will encounter more information on grains and sweeteners (as well as info on other ingredients) in chapters 2 through 5, with more of an emphasis on how to cook and prepare them. Flours, Meals, and Powdery Stuff When you think of flour, chances are the first thing that comes to mind is the processed white variety known as all-purpose flour, created by stripping wheat berries of their nutrient-rich bran and germ prior to processing. It is then "enriched" by adding a small fraction of the original nutrients back in so that the final product isn't completely devoid of nutrients. Baking recipes you are familiar with often call for this type of wheat flour. The good news is that there is a whole spectrum of other flours out there that can be used in everything from savory main courses to sweet baked goods. Flour can be milled from grains other than wheat; it can also be milled from an exciting range of nuts and legumes. I've even seen banana and coconut flours. One thing to keep in mind is that using alternative flours isn't always as simple as swapping one for another (although sometimes this is the case). Different flours have different properties, including gluten-protein levels, absorbency, appearance, texture, and of course flavor. The information in the front of this chapter will help you not only understand the recipes in this book, but help you make educated substitutions when you are working with recipes from other books as well. We well know that different grains (as well as nuts and legumes) contain different types of protein and in varying amounts. So it follows that the many different kinds of flours contain different types of proteins. When it comes to baking however, the proteins that concern us are the ones found in wheat flour-the gluten-forming proteins, glutenin and gliadin. When these particular proteins come into contact with moisture and motion (kneading or beating), they produce gluten and this gluten forms a network lending structure and elasticity to dough. While all wheat flours contain some level of these gluten-proteins, the amounts vary. For instance, durham wheat, whole-wheat, and unbleached all-purpose flours (which are all milled from hard wheat) typically have gluten protein levels in the 12 to 14 percent range, while cake and pastry flours (milled from soft wheat) come in at around 7 to 10 percent. This is the reason hard wheat flours are the defacto choice for baking bread, maki Excerpted from Super Natural Cooking: Five Delicious Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Foods into Your Cooking by Heidi Swanson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
