My Christmas Gift

I mentioned a couple of weeks back about my Christmas gift I would blog about in the future. I finally remembered to take a picture of it when I was using it this morning so here it is:

Do you know what it is?

This, my friends, is a grain mill. Yep, it's a counter top appliance that will grind grain into flour. Until a few years ago I didn't even know such things existed, but as I started learning more about bread baking and started doing more of it, I started coveting one, er, I mean, wanting one. ;-) My hubby obliged for Christmas.

Of course this means I had to go buy some wheat berries. I also decided to buy some oat groats at the same time, as oat bran is extremely high in soluble fiber, which Kelly needs in his diet due to his digestive condition. I bought both red and white wheat berries, for different uses. I tend to use the red wheat when baking bread and the white for more general baking purposes. I use half white and half whole wheat flour in most of my non-bread baking, and my family loves it. I baked bread this morning with freshly ground whole wheat flour and the house smelled wonderful!

But I have to say the most pleasant surprise has been the oat bran. While I bought it primarily to use in making Kelly's sandwich and toast bread, I have started using it in other applications. It makes really good breakfast meals - I replace half the white flour with an equal amount of oat bran. I've made muffins with it that were almost inhaled. I made pancakes yesterday morning with half white flour/half oat bran that were scrumptious! The oat bran adds a richer flavor to everything that we are really liking.

I have yet to experiment with grinding anything else, like rice or beans. I'm not entirely sure what I would use this for. Anyone with a mill have any suggestions?