How is everybody out there? Did you survive Irene’s wrath? We were extremely fortunate that we had no significant damage on our street and we did not lose power! Our local power company was on the news before saying that it can be 3-5 days before the people who lost power get it back. Bummer. Dakota was not happy with this whole hurricane nonsense..
Unfortunately, two of our very close friends had a tree fall on each of their cars. Luckily, they were not in the cars when the trees fell, so that’s the most important thing. Hope you all fared well and do not have any flooding/damage done to your property.
After work on Friday, I went to my mom’s house to go through some of my grandma’s old jewelry and recipes. It was really fun to see all of her stuff. She died when I was very young so I felt like I got to know her a little bit better. There were some very old Playbills from shows in the late 1930’s early 1940’s that were in perfect condition, so it was very cool to look through those as well. The coolest part of the jewelry was my grandpa’s wedding band that my mom found.
Very cool! Then there was the box of old family recipes. My mom let me take it home so I can go through everything thoroughly, and I have already gone through about 1/3 of it. I cannot wait to start cooking and modifying these bad boys! I say modify because I found a recipe for a cake that actually calls for 8 eggs and 3 lbs of ricotta cheese! I can’t make this stuff up..
For today’s post, I was planning on making something which required the oven. However, out of fear of losing power and having our condo turn into a sauna, I decided against it. I remembered seeing a recipe from Eating Well for a wheat berry pudding. Interesting. I was so curious to see how this would taste and it only required my stovetop, so wheat berry pudding it was. I made some modifications to the original recipe and it came out soooo good!
Wheat Berry Pudding: Adapted From Eating Well
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients:
1 cup wheat berries
3 tbsp plus 3 cups milk of your choice (i used almond)
2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
cinnamon sugar mixture for sprinkling on top before serving – this is optional
Rinse 1 cup of uncooked wheatberries and place them in a small saucepan. Fill with water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat and let simmer for about 50-60 mins. Drain wheat berries and place them in a food processor with 3 tbsp milk. Process until they are ground up – about 1 minute. Empty into a large skillet and add 3 cups of almond milk and cinnamon. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for about a half hour, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens up. Remove from heat and mix in maple syrup. You can serve this hot or cold.
To be honest, this is one of the best things that I have made in a while. It came out killer, and it’s packed with nutrients from the wheat berries too! For those who aren’t familiar, wheat berries are whole grains that are very high in all sorts of vitamins and minerals like fiber, magnesium, protein (1/4 cup uncooked kernels has 7g), and iron. I think next time I might add a scoop of chocolate protein powder for an after-workout sweet snack. Another good idea would be to add coconut, cocoa powder, or diced apples!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
The Whole Sweet Scoop 
Never had wheat berries before, but it sounds great to me. We will have to try out this recipe! Thanks!
I’ve never heard of wheat berries. Is it like barley?
Yes, it’s similar to barley. It’s almost like a wheat kernel. It takes a while to cook, but it’s worth it because its so versatile!