Flour/Spice/Coffee Grinder

What a handy kitchen tool!  Although it’s sold as a coffee/spice grinder, I bought this to grind my own flour.  Thanks to its fast-spinning blade and its relatively-small size (trying to grind a puny cup of grain in a Cuisinart is like trying to roll a bowling ball down the length of a strip mall), making your own flour with this grinder is a snap.  There are several advantages to doing so:  having top-quality flours, having a wide choice of flours, and the fact that whole grains can be safely stored for a much longer period of time than flour can be.

The latter ties in with the first point–as soon as a grain is ground, it begins to lose its nutritional density.  It will also go rancid more quickly because its oils are exposed to light and air rather than being protected within the grain.  Grinding your own flour as you need it means that you’re using the freshest, most nutritionally-rich flour you can get your hands on.  And while you may think of flour as always being wheat, almost any grain, dried legume, dried tuber/root, or nut can be ground and made into flour:  rice, barley, quinoa, teff, green peas, chickpeas, white beans, tapioca, potato, almonds, hazelnuts, etc.

I’ve made my cornmeal into corn flour to use in gluten-free pizza and have ground whole flaxseeds into flax flour to add to my smoothies.  Whole wheat berries become whole-wheat flour; millet grain becomes millet flour.  Groats (whole oats) become oat flour.  Your options are endless!  Why spend a fortune on “freshly-ground” flours (and hours hunting for them) when you can do it yourself?  This little Krups grinder was just $15 at Bed, Bath & Beyond (admittedly, I had a $5-off coupon).  This tool is especially useful if you are on a gluten-free diet…or if you’d simply like to expand your horizons when it comes to things like crêpes, biscotti, cookies, brownies, or anything else that involves flour.  Check out this post for more on gluten-free flours.