A strange question, no? What happened is that I received a credit from Amazon and had been meaning to get a coffee grinder because I keep reading over and over from these raw books that it's a handy little piece of equipment to own. Now I can't really figger out what exactly to DO WITH IT!

Yeah, if I had hemp and flax seeds, I could grind them in it. But what do you do with ground hempseeds anyway?

I plan to try to make a cheezy nut sprinkle with ground walnuts mixed with nutritional yeast and a little salt.

Other than that...

Be careful grinding nuts and seeds, you only want to get them crumbly cuz if you go just a teeny bit longer the oils come out and it all gets pasty and sticky.

Flax is a great thing to eat but when taken whole it pretty much passes right through the system undigested. Sometimes I fresh grind flax and sprinkle it directly onto whatever dish I'm about to have. It's good on salad, in wraps, cooked food too so long as it's not too hot. You don't taste it all that much. Hemp seeds I don't grind, I like the texture of those just fine.
I will also grind rosemary and thyme as they are sort of like little sticks and rather unpleasant to chew. Cinnamon, cardamom, etc.

I grind up seeds & add fresh lemon juice & use it as a dip for greens. I love it; however, although I've tried grinding individual seeds & adding the lemon juice to them, they don't taste very good, sesame seeds being the exception. The way around it is to combine a seed such as hemp, sunflower, pumpkin, flax with sesame seeds, in roughly a 1:3 ratio respectively. Of course, it's a compromise to combine two fats but if taste appeal is important to you & it doesn't seem to disagree with you, it might be worth consuming it this way than not at all.
rawne

Thank you and question: when you add the lemon juice you aren't putting in the grinder, are you? I don't even know how to clean this thing! The instructions were practically nil. Very odd for a Krupps.

Coco, I love cardamom pods so that would be a good use. I dislike rosemary and thyme! LOL- every "thyme" I put them in a dish, I feel that they ruin it! I find them too overpowering and I just don't dig their flavor. Same with marjoram. (Although I love sage in vedge stuffing.)

You might like thyme and rosemary if it were ground so you could use less for a more dispersed flavour. They are both powerful tastes, rosemary being quite bitter in large quantity. However, rosemary is a lovely compliment to roasted root veggies (I know you cook sometimes) and would pair well with raw sweet potato in a dressing of some sort. Good with beets too, and goes very well with sage.
Thyme is wonderful with tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, onion, beans though I haven't had thyme with raw sprouted legumes yet (might try a bit with lentil sprouts some time). Nice to add to the fermenting jar too .

Don't put liquids into the spice mill, only dry ingredients. Generally wiping with a dry or damp cloth is enough to clean it out, if it's gotten oily from nuts or seeds use a clean dry cloth or bit of paper product to sop it up. Any remaining taste or odor might require a slightly soapy sponge but the unit should never get very wet.

Grind the seeds until they form a paste, place it in a small bowl & then add the lemon juice. After preparing it a number of times, you'll get to know the consistency you like it & will adjust the juice accordingly. To clean, I wipe it with a damp paper towel. Don't immerse the grinder although you can immerse the plastic cap. Ground up nuts such as almonds or walnuts make a nice dressing as well. To those I've added a small amount of juice from a fresh orange as well as lemon. You don't want or need to combine a nut with another nut.
rawne

IMO nuts are fine combined together unless they upset your particular system. To each their own, I am fine with more than one kind of nut or seed (even though I generally have sensitive digestion).

BW,

What about small batch tahini? 1/2 cup unhulled sesame seeds ground into a paste used either as a spread or as an ingredient in raw salad dressing? I have a coffee grinder and I may try that! Been meaning to.

Paul

Once the oils start to come out of the seeds it will all just stick to the sides, small mills in my experience can't handle making a paste or butter out of nuts. Go ahead and give it a try, I have just had sticky, disappointing results with that.

Grind up flaxseeds!
I take a spoon full every morning with my lemon water.
Great cheap source of omega 3 and amino acids.
Vinny

Thanks, guys.

Paul, I think that was one of the things I wanted to try. I have experimented with sesame seeds in the food processor but they are so small that I feel I'd probably have more success in the coffee grinder.

Coco, you keep saying 'food mill.' I thought those were the non-electric things that you crank and they grind stuff up.

I make herbal formulas that I put in capsules. A lot of times I can't get pre-ground herbs and will grind them in the coffee-grinder. It's one of the best tools I have.

Coffee grinders when not used for coffee are often referred to as spice mills . I don't think I said "food mill", those are different. I had one for both babies, awesome tool.

Speaking of small appliances that can be had for the same price as a cheap coffee grinder, I love my Toastmaster 1109 Citrus Juicer, which you can get at Amazon for about $15. This is the best orange juicer I've ever had, and its very cheap. It has decent power in the motor, and it autoreverses, so that it rotates in both directions. I find it a very well designed little product and does a great job of juicing oranges and tangerines as well as lemons and limes, because it has 2 different size juicing elements.


Another convenient appliance I use often is my Tribest personal blender. I use it for the small jobs, like if I want to just make one serving of salad dressing, say 1/2 cup or less. Another small blender like the Tribest is the Magic Bullet, which you can pick up on ebay used sometimes. I use the personal blender to grind nuts and seeds, but mostly I use it for the small jobs. And I take my Tribest when I travel, to make my smoothies and salad dressings in motel rooms or when I camp and have access to electricity. These small blenders run $50 to $80, depending on what accessories are in the set. It looks like Cuisinart also makes one of these.

Prana, I just bought a $3 citrus juicer (the plastic kind that fits into a little container, which was included) and I find it very handy. I am thinking that it does just as good a job as an electric one would.

I am starting to wonder if I should return this thing. I really don't want to have an item that I am not going to use very often. If I could grind the flax and hemp in the Vitamix, then it's not really worthwhile to get another device.

You know, OJ is tasty when juiced that way but I prefer it put through the Omega along with it's pulp. That part has lots of nutrients in it and offsets the sugar which I like.