Other ag blogs and OWC News
I don’t know about you, but I am still getting my feet wet on this whole blogging deal. I thought it would be easily concured, but here I am once again struggling for content. Please bear with me as I tackle my blog:)
Ironically, as I was trolling the Internet for some inspiration for wheat “stuff”, or more professionally blogging content, I got a phone call from the folks at www.agblog.com and they want to do more wheat talk. Upon hanging up, I surfed on over to their site and found a ton of helpful and interesting content.
Now, my question is: What are your favorite ag blogs? Where do you go? I visit the Oklahoma Department of Ag’s blog, the Pioneer Woman one, one my creative and talked pal Crystal puts together and various wheat/work related sites. Help me out folks!
Other related business….
We were ever present at the Farm Bureau convention last weekend and we thank everyone for stopping by and chatting. They said our smell was all over the Cox Center…. our GOOD smell! We love providing our amazing product made from our amazing, high quality Oklahoma wheat. Thank a farmer if you ever get a chance to sample our goods. We gave out about 1260 cinnamon rolls and 1344 samples of our bread. What a couple of days!
Don’t forget that November is National Peanut Butter month and nothing can tempt a person or make their day brighter than a great PB&J made with whole wheat bread. If I do say so myself, our little recipe makes some great bread to put your peanut butter and jelly on. Here you go….http://www.wheat.state.ok.us/Web%20Site/Recipes/bread_and_rolls.pdf
WARM BREAD MAKES FOR HAPPY SANDWICHES!
Learn while helping
To some this doesn’t sound very fun.. learning. BLAH! But, the Wheat Foods Council just launched a Web site to help people understand where their food comes from. They are taking and interactive field to fork approach and put an added incentive on the assingment. That incentive is to provide bags of flour to troops and their families in need. With each person that completes the “farming” assingment, a 5-pound bag of flour will be added to the kitty to donate to the men and women that support our country.
Go to www.howwheatworks.com to start the game. It will take you through the planting, growth and harvest proccesses of wheat production. Along the way, you will learn about the classes of wheat, where they grow best, what they are used for and much, much more. There are also links to many useful resources, like recipes, state wheat commissions- which are ALWAYS helpful:), and national organizations.
I signed up for it today. I completed the planting portion of the activity. It didn’t even feel like I was learning. The graphics are rich and entertaining. Tomorrow, I will be able to learn about how the wheat will grow.. which in reality it does take more than 24 hours to get a large wheat plant!!
Not only do I feel like I am playing at work, I have a wonderful sense of paying it forward. I know one bag of flower doesn’t put a dent in the need out there, but it sure is one more bag closer to helping.
Log on and help!
Baking Tips on Video
Many people go to the Internet to find videos for how-to demo’s. In our many surfs around the Internet, we have found some very helpful ones. This list is something that can be book marked and used over and over again. And, PLEASE help us add more to the list!
First one…. this video is from King Arthur Flours and helps you know when your dough is at the perfect elasticity. http://how2heroes.com/videos/techniques/bakers-tip-pulling-a-window-pane. They have many more featured on that how2heroes site, so take a gander at the rest, too.
Second one…. this site has two videos. They both illustrate an “almost no-knead” bread; one white, one whole wheat. http://www.breadtopia.com/cooks-illustrated-almost-no-knead/
The Queen of Cooking, Julia Child, is showcased in nine baking videos on the PBS Web site. Here they are, all ready sorted for you…. http://video.pbs.org/feature/90/tag/Baking
A certain yeast company has three video’s showcased on their site; mixer made breads, hand made bread, and bread machine made bread. They are hosted by a culinary expert and can be found here….http://www.redstaryeast.com/lessons/how_to_bake_videos.php. This site also has a lot of useful resources, so we suggest bookmarking it for further reference!
Dinner rolls are featured in this video ..http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-bake-homemade-dinner-rolls-from-scratch-204816/
We sure hope these help you. There is only 11 months until next years Wheatheart Contest! Start perfecting your method now:)
What is your farm size?
We ran across this handy Internet calculator to answer just that question. It is designed to help ya’ll assess your land and energy use and available water resources. A series of questions must first be answered to generate the spiderweb like graph that shows the highs and lows of your family farming practices.
The ultimate goal of these programs is to connect producers with other producers to make a network of farmers helping each other. Seems like a great idea! Look out for your own.
Here it is….. www.fieldtomarket.org. Check it out this weekend!
National School Lunch Week Among US
I don’t know about you, but being _ _ years removed from high school can’t kill the vivid memories of school lunches! The soggy pizza, the brown lettuce, the neon orange cheese sauce….. oh MY! The kids these days have many reasons to cheer, in comparison.
Many schools in Oklahoma are going with more whole grain products, locally grown produce to reduce browning and real cheese, from real cows. I bring this topic up because today is the second day of “National School Lunch Week.” In our education adventures around the state, some of us at the Commission have ventured into many lunch rooms to find more choices presented for the kids. Lucky them!
But we all know that kids don’t make the right choices. I am going to toss a list of ideas to get more heart healthy whole grains in a child’s breakfast, in turn helping them learn better eating habits when in the school cafeteria.
* whole- grain toast with peanut butter, a sliced apple and low-fat milk
*whole-grain toaster waffles, topped with low-fat butter and sugar free preserves, and cup of low-fat yogurt
*melted low-fat cheddar cheese on a whole-grain English muffin, fresh fruit cup in their own juices (no sugar added) and low-fat milk.
These are just a few easy and fast ways to jump start a kid’s brain and keep them fueled until they hit the lunch line.
We at the Commission love a whole grain cookie product created by an Oklahoma wheat farmer and his family in Hunter. The Buss family is trying to bring these more wholesome cookies to school cafeterias across the state and into Kansas. If a child is faced with a desert option, I would like to think that a whole grain one that tastes AMAZING would be a better choice. We have baked these at various trade shows and the results are great- all the cookies get eaten! Please check them out at http://www.upperredfork.com/
The Department of Ag has a great program called the Farm to School program. If you are in a place to help your school offer more local, fresh products, please contact Kris Kirby at chris.kirby@oda.state.ok.us or visit the official Web site… www.okfarmtoschool.com.
Help us help your kids! Celebrate National School Lunch Week by making contact with the resources listed to find a way to get them into your kids school. Grab some of our breakfast options, too!
Happy Whole Grain Eating!
International Update from OWGA’s Tim Bartram
Straight from the horses mouth…
We started the morning meeting with the embassy personal from ag, commerce and commercial sections. From there we met with the Director of the Columbian Millers Association and some of his board members. They talked about the wheat they purchased and how it performed. A lot of the time was about the need to ratify the Free Trade Agreement and how much market share the US would lose. From there we talked to representatives of ADM, they had the same message on the free trade agreement. After that we talked to the head of a buying group made up of several small and medium sized mills again the message was the same on the free trade agreement. We then went and toured a flour mill and pasta plant. It was as nice and modern as any in the US. They strange thing was they were making their lower cost noodles out of hard red winter not durum wheat. When then met the gentleman from the buying group and he took us to his father- in laws ranch were they raise fighting bulls. There were pictures of bulls from the late 1800’s there.
Wheat Reps in Latin America
Watch out world! Oklahoma is going worldwide! Tim Bartram, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Wheat Growers Association is on a tour of Latin America with other US Wheat officials.
The group will tour Latin America; Colombia, Peru, and Mexico. The trip is sponsored by U.S. Wheat Associates. Before they left, they met with USDA/Foreign Agricultural Service officials and were briefed by Vince Peterson, VP, Overseas Operations (on Latin America market situation), and Rebecca Bratter, Director of Policy (on US-Colombia FTA status and other Latin American policy issues).
(Wheat Leaders Team Photo (L to R): Tim Bartram, Executive Director, Oklahoma Wheat Growers Association, Enid; Brian Linin, Goodland, KS, representing Kansas Wheat; Gordon Stoner, Outlook, MT, representing Montana Grain Growers Association; Scott Brown, Soda Springs, ID, representing the Idaho Wheat Producers Association; Rick Callies, VP, Marketing Programs, U.S. Wheat Associates, Arlington, VA; and Kody Bessent, Executive Assistant/Producer Relations, Texas Wheat, Amarillo, TX.)
Tim sent me some pictures from his hotel once they arrived. I hate to report I haven’t heard anything from him today! Here’s to hoping the objectives are being met and the world will see the value in our wheat.
If you have any questions about the trip, international purchases of Oklahoma wheat or any other oddity please ask:)
Wheatheart Contest a Success!
This past Sunday, the last day of the Oklahoma State Fair, was also the site of the State Wheatheart Bread Baking Contest. Senior and Junior county division winners alike gathered in the Hobbys, Arts and Crafts building to watch the Oklahoma Wheat Commission host the contest.
Four dedicated judges, who help each year, take center stage as they evaluate each entry for these merits:
APPEARANCE: evenly rounded top, a symmetrical, well shaped, uniform size, a smooth tender crust, a golden brown color, a characteristically even brown color for whole wheat, rolls should be attractively shaped, plump, and all the same size, rolls should be golden brown and a bit lighter on the sides than the top,
TEXTURE: free from large air bubbles, moderately fine and even grained, soft and free of crumbliness, free from dryness or doughiness, rolls should be crisp, tender and thin crust,
CRUMB: moist and silky, tender to the touch, elastic in quality,
FLAVOR: pleasing well-baked flavor, nut like or wheaty taste, free from undesirable flavor – yeast or other ingredients.
We could not do it without our judges!! A huge thank you goes to Karen Armbruster, Liz McBee, Arlen James and Kaye Tipton. We are also blessed to have the help of Debbie Matz and her daughter Kasi Westfahl. Together they run a tight ship! Thank you so much, ladies.
This years competition drew numbers we didn’t expect. We were very pleasantly surprised at the turnout and are pleased to announce the winners. In the senior division, Carol Andrews of Kay county took home grand honors. Her entry first topped the Whole Grain Bread class. The junior division was won by the Other Wheat Bread class winner, Brandi Lane of Noble county. Their recipes will follow, I promise:)
Thanks to everyone who participated, who requested information about next year and the ones that stayed around and watched. It was a great way to close out the fair, no doubt!
Enjoy some scenes from the contest…….
Prayers for Commission Krehbiel
The staff of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission and the Oklahoma Wheat Commission Board members continue to keep Jeff Krehbiel, district four representative, of the commission in our thoughts and prayers. This Monday, Sept. 21, 2009, Jeff underwent surgery for a brain tumor. After five hours in the operating room, his surgeon was happy to report they got as much of the mass as they could. Karen, his wife, has a care page set up to keep everyone updated on his status and progress. Follow this link to read more from Karen….https://www.carepages.com/carepages/checkonjeff
I know he and his family appreciate all the prayers and comments left on the Care Pages site.
Septemberfest memories….
Again this year, the OWC teamed up with the Southwest Dairy Farmers and the Peanut Commission to dish out free stuff to everyone who entered the Governor’s mansion grounds. On the menu this year were fresh Oklahoma peanuts, cartons of white and chocolate milk and fresh cinnamon rolls and bread.
If you haven’t been to Septemberfest, keep your ears open for the date of next years. The basic concept, from our angle, is to teach the geneneral public about agriculture. The variety of people that we encounter in one day there is well worth the cost of supplying product. We touched many lives that would never have asked about wheat before.
And, as always, our commissioners and family saved the day. At one point and time, I saw Mrs. Shortie Glazier teaching a group of youngsters about where the wheat kernal came from. She was making do with some wheat we purchased from Hobby Lobby. Very creative and always in a good mood, I believe she got through to them.
The forecast called for a 100 percent chance of rain and that didn’t stop the hordes of people from assembyling single file into our tent. At one point and time, people where standing in the rain, with and without protection from the elements! Even with intermitton rain, we gave out over 1000 cookbooks, 800 lapel pins, 1050 cinnamon roll samples and slices from 42 loaves of bread.
The project was handled by our staff and volunteers, like Mr. Tim Bartam from the Oklahoma Wheat Growers and the Tom Glazier family. And the bread was dressed with real pats of butter provided by the Southwest Dairy Farmers, which is a great supporter of our organization. A HUGE, ALL CAPS THANK YOU goes to each and every one of our supporters!!!!!
Scenes from Septemberfest………..
