Whole-Wheat Banana-Buttermilk Pancakes

It's been so long since I've had a chance to make a weekend breakfast!  (John's been working some crazy hours lately . . . resulting in a wacky sleep schedule for him, and little time for a leisurely breakfast on the weekend for either of us.)  This past Saturday, however, I managed to whip up a quick batch of pancakes!

We were out of eggs (!) so I quickly whisked 2 tbsp ground flax seeds into 1/4 cup of warm water and let that sit for a few minutes to thicken.  However, in my opinion, flax seeds can impart a strong flavor to what would otherwise be a delicate baked good.  Bananas and whole wheat flour to the rescue!  Pairing the flax seeds with other assertive flavors definitely masked their strong flavor; John noted that he couldn't tell there were flax seeds in the pancakes.  Score!

Whole-Wheat Banana-Buttermilk Pancakes
Makes 8 to 12 pancakes, depending on size

Ingredients:
1/4 c warm water
2 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 c whole-wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 large, very ripe banana
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp oil (canola, sunflower, coconut . . . any light, neutral-tasting oil will do)
1 c buttermilk
chocolate chips, chopped walnuts, and/or blueberries (optional)

Directions:
1. Combine the water and ground flax seeds, stirring well with a whisk or fork.  Let stand at least 5 minutes, or until thick and gelled.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. Peel and mash the banana.  Whisk in the sugar, oil, buttermilk, and flax mixture.  Whisk in the dry ingredients until well-blended.
4. Pour batter onto preheated, lightly-greased griddle.  Sprinkle tops of pancakes with chocolate chips, walnuts, or blueberries.  Cook until dry around the edges and bubbles pop all over the surface of the pancake.  Flip, and cook the second side.  Keep warm on a baking sheet in a warm oven until ready to serve.
5. Serve with your favorite pancake toppings!  (I added chocolate chips to the batch I made last weekend, and topped my share with peanut butter and sliced bananas . . . a delicious, healthy, protein-packed breakfast!)

What do you like on your pancakes?

happy birthday to me!

It was a short week, with little cooking, I guess!  Perhaps we have been eating out too much lately?  :)

(I suppose that's not entirely a bad thing?)

Homemade pizza and roasted asparagus:

The front pizza is topped with olive oil, mozzarella, feta, artichokes, kalamata olives, and dried tomatoes; the back pizza is topped with caramelized onions, asiago, mozzarella, and three different kinds of mushrooms!  The mushroom pizza was definitely the hit -- I give credit to the caramelized onions.  They add an amazingness to meals, don't they?

Pancake breakfast!

I made buttermilk pancakes with half whole-wheat pastry flour, half chickpea flour.  Delicious, albeit a little "beany," (they benefited from a little extra syrup, is all.)  I need to figure out my buttermilk to flour ratio a little more, as my buttermilk pancakes tend to spread too much and be a little too tender (i.e. nearly impossible to flip in one piece.)  Ah, pancakes just aren't my specialty, I guess!  I'll stick to waffles.

My "birthday dinner!"

Yes, we had veggie dogs, coleslaw, baked beans, and veggies for my birthday dinner!  We were supposed to go camping this weekend, (hence, the veggie dogs,) but then with the nearly constant threat of severe thunderstorms, we decided to postpone.  Veggie dogs don't taste quite as good at home, but were still pretty tasty.  I used Liz's coleslaw dressing recipe, adding pepper and poppyseeds, and tossing it with shredded cabbage, carrot, and sliced green onions.  John doesn't like coleslaw!  Oh well. More for me.  :)

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I've enjoyed having the last two days off from work for "birthday fun" -- and we'll keep it up through the weekend!

last weekend

A couple of meals . . .

Four-cheese lasagna with spinach and artichokes:

Whole-wheat buttermilk pancakes, fruit salad, and breakfast sausages:

That's all for now . . . busy getting ready for the best cooking holiday of the year!  Stay tuned . . .

weekend eat-a-thon, again!

Recently, I described my weekend as an "eat-a-thon," as I tend to do most of my cooking over the weekends while John is around, and live off leftovers during the week.  This past weekend was no exception!

Our weekend started a little early this week, as I had some downtime between jobs.  I decided to plan a fun Thursday night dinner -- baked potato bar!  I ended up coming up with so many ideas for toppings, I had to split my potato in half and "theme" each one.

Potato #1 -- the "traditional"

Following a bit of butter and salt, I piled on sauteed mushrooms, steamed frozen broccoli, homemade sour cream, Coconut Bacon, and minced garden chives.  A note on the coconut bacon . . . I really liked it, John didn't.  He doesn't care for coconut, so that makes sense.  :)

Potato #2 -- the "southwestern"

Plenty of seasoned black beans, Cheddar Cheese Sauce, salsa, and garden green onions.  I was really happy with how this batch of beans turned out, and that cheese sauce?  Awesome.  I think this was the first time that I've made a cheese sauce that hasn't broken!  Woo!  The trick?  Let the sauce cool a LOT longer than you think it needs to before whisking in the cheese.  We both loved this sauce -- it was light, creamy, cheesy, totally easy to make, and a budget-friendly way to stretch a small amount of cheese out into several servings.  I think I'll make this sauce again soon, and add it to some hot cooked macaroni for a healthier version of stovetop mac and cheese!

John had a long day working outdoors in the cold on Friday, so I figured he needed a pretty hearty meal at the end of the day:

Nutloaf, homemade-buttermilk-garlic mashed potatoes, Quick Gravy, and oven-roasted green beans.  Nutloaf, while neither inexpensive nor terribly healthy, is terribly tasty.  :)  I recommend leftovers sliced, with ketchup, in-between two slices of good wholegrain bread.  We both really liked the gravy, too, (and it really was quick!) although I think I'd add an extra tsp of flour next time -- it was just a little too thin in my opinion.

Breakfast Saturday -- Carrot Cake Pancakes:

Who doesn't want to sneak in a serving of veggies at breakfast?  :)  I didn't have quite enough carrots this time 'round, so I ended up using about half shredded carrots and half shredded garden zucchini, with good results.  John was out of whole wheat flour, so I used all-purpose . . . and we both decided we preferred the hearty, nutty flavor of the whole-wheat flour in this recipe.  The AP pancakes were too sweet and too plain tasting, in our opinion!

A picnic lunch Saturday:

Homemade butternut squash soup, Kalamata Olive Bread with Oregano, sharp cheddar, and an apple.  The soup turned out really well, and I was excited to use some of the squash we grew in our garden this year!  I also really liked the olive bread -- it was dense without being heavy, savory but not too salty, and held up well during backpack transport.  (I also got to use some fresh oregano from our garden!)

Breakfast today:

Cheesy scrambled eggs, Buttermilk Waffles, orange juice, and coffee.  Have I mentioned lately how much I love buttermilk?  Yeah?  Well . . . these waffles were another excellent use of my new favorite ingredient.  Crispy, light, slightly tangy, offset by a sweet drizzle of syrup.  Waffle perfection!

Dinner tonight -- Festive Chickpea Tart:

This was quite tasty, and very easy to make in advance -- I prepped the filling on Friday afternoon, stuck it in the fridge, and spooned it into the pie shell tonight before baking.  Superfast dinner in the oven!  However, I did make a couple of changes to the original recipe, including adding more oil and a couple of well-beaten eggs to the base.  My filling looked so dry after I mixed everything together, I wasn't convinced it was going to set up at all, and didn't want a crumbly mess on my hands!  Adding the eggs and extra oil gave the tart a beautiful structure, although it was no longer vegan.  Thoughts?  I might try this again using hummus as the base, adding some whole chickpeas for texture, and keeping the other veggies and seasonings basically the same.  Flavor-wise, this was fantastic, and surprisingly filling!

Better get to bed -- big day at the new job tomorrow!

Bad pancake gene?

I used to think I had a "bad pancake gene" - like my Dad, my pancakes often used to be over-brown on the outside, while not quite fully cooked in the center. :( Lately, I have been working on overcoming my issues with pancakes, always setting the burner lower than I think I should, and exercising incredible patience before flipping. Seems to be working!

We had "Carrot Cake Pancakes" from Cooking Light for breakfast this morning. They were fantastic - hearty and filling, but not heavy. The only change I made to the original recipe was subbing whole-wheat pastry flour for the AP flour, which worked beautifully. Double-bonus? These pancakes used up several carrots that have been lingering in the produce drawer ... and incorporated some homemade buttermilk. Woo!

Here's a link to the recipe:
http://m.myrecipes.com/details/searchR.rbml?id=10000001949746.xml&bcat=search&cat=Search%20Result&fl=recipe/carrot-cake-pancakes-10000001949746/

eat-a-thon

Sometimes the weekend feels like an eat-a-thon . . . or more accurately, maybe a cook-a-thon?  I do the majority of my cooking over the weekends these days, (i.e., when John's around,) and have a tendency to live off leftovers during the work week.  Does anyone else seem to follow this pattern?

Here are a few more things we made/ate this past weekend . . . 

Magic Kale Salad with Maple-Glazed Tempeh:

Fluffy Sprinkle Sugar Cookies:

Homemade pizza:

Zucchini Bread:

And breakfast -- scrambled eggs with feta and basil, courtesy of John, and whole-wheat buttermilk pancakes with strawberries:

It was a tasty weekend!

finishing up leftovers

This weekend has been busy as heck, but also kind of uneventful when it comes to cooking -- we have mostly been finishing up leftovers, skipping meals in favor of huge bowls of frozen yogurt topped with every candy known to man, and enjoying somewhat boring, yet still fun meals of egg salad sandwiches while out hiking.  :)  I did manage a little cooking yesterday, though!

Breakfast:

Whole-wheat and chickpea flour blueberry pancakes, with a side of blackberries.

Dinner:

Cuban Black Beans and Rice, with sauteed chard from the garden on the side!  The chard is really kicking butt lately -- it seems like every time we harvest a big bunch, we turn around fifteen minutes later and there's another big bunch ready to go!  What fun.  This recipe for black beans and rice was excellent, by the way -- relatively quick to the table, simple yet flavorful, nutritious, and inexpensive!  I enjoy beans and rice from time to time, but I have a hard time finding recipes that make me want to eat huge quantities.  This one was definitely worth going back for seconds for!

Red, white, and blue breakfast

Greek yogurt pancakes topped with strawberries and blueberries ... and I figured it was ok to use white flour this time, in keeping with the theme. :)

today in food

After an incredibly busy day yesterday, which involved spending WAY too much time in the car driving all over the metro for a variety of reasons, we made today a quiet day.  We did little besides cook, eat, and lounge, although we did get out for a walk this afternoon.  Here's today in food:

Breakfast:

Homemade buttermilk pancakes, topped with strawberries and syrup, with a side of maple-glazed breakfast sausages!

Lunch:

Homemade pizza, using up leftovers from the party last weekend, with a spinach, cucumber, and tomato salad on the side.  (P.S. LOVE "Goddess" dressing.  The only bottled dressing I buy.  Anyone have a good recipe for a homemade version?)

Afternoon baking project:

I can't think of anything better to do on a dreary Sunday afternoon besides lounge around watching Forrest Gump, while periodically stirring the granola -- can you?

Dinner:

Chili-Glazed Tofu Over Asparagus and Rice was a new recipe, and a good one!  I, of course, didn't follow the recipe as written . . . I pulled the asparagus component out of the rice pilaf, roasting it in the oven instead, and added red bell pepper and mushroom to the pilaf, per a suggestion someone made the comments section of the recipe.  Kept the glaze on the tofu the same, though, which was excellent!  I'll definitely make this again -- healthy and easy.

Off to finish the movie . . . !

so much for that hiatus

So much for my blogging hiatus. :) John cooked dinner on Friday night, and insisted I take a picture and blog about the meal he planned, shopped for, and prepared! I was forced to sit on the couch during dinner prep, and was not allowed to help at all. Being "lazy," especially regarding stuff in the kitchen, is challenging for me, but it was definitely nice to relax while someone else did all of the work!

Lookit:

"Tortellini with Nutty Herb Sauce," from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. This was a rich and flavorful pasta dish, that could have only benefited from a little lemon zest to wake things up, and maybe a green salad on the side to lighten things up. :) Well done, John!

(P.S. John kept calling this dish "pasta with creamy nut sauce." I shake my head.) :)

And here was breakfast this morning:

John requested cornmeal pancakes, and after an extensive internet search, we found a recipe that was . . . okay. The batter was far too thin, (I ended up adding quite a bit more flour,) and far too low-fat for my tastes, but I think I have a good idea of how I'd like them to be next time. :) We had a couple of Morningstar veggie breakfast patties on the side, and plenty of strawberries tossed with a little sugar and lemon zest on the pancakes. Delicious!

Here's what I think might make ideal cornmeal pancakes . . .

Dry ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups fine cornmeal
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Wet ingredients:
2 cups buttermilk (2 tsp vinegar + 2 cups milk, which is what we used this morning)
1/4 cup oil
1 egg

Ideas? Input?

getting caught up

In no particular order, here's what I've been cookin' up as of late . . .

In exciting kitchen-related news, I bought a waffle iron!

I've realized that the thrift store is a great resource for purchasing goofy appliances for my kitchen. I don't really need a quesadilla maker or mini-cupcake baker any time soon, (I was quite surprised by some of the kitchen appliances out there!) but the popcorn popper and waffle iron I've picked up recently have both been stellar finds on the cheap! I made a batch of "Amazing Overnight Waffles" from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe this past weekend, and they were as spectacular as I remembered. I spread mine with peanut butter and drizzled them with syrup, and enjoyed a few Breakfast Sausages on the side. I followed Vegan Dad's directions for maple-glazing the sausages this time, and I can't imagine NOT glazing sausages in the future. :) I still think the sausages could be a bit saltier and a bit spicier for my palate; I'll play around more with the recipe next batch.

I've been sick (AGAIN, ugh,) so John and I made some soup last Friday night:

Chickenless Noodle Soup, containing olive oil, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, vegetable broth, egg noodles, salt, and pepper. No more, no less, and it's downright perfect in its simplicity.

A somewhat fancy, healthy, impressive, yet speedy Monday night dinner:

Seitan in mole (using seitan I made late last week and mole from my freezer) over brown rice, with sides of sweet potatoes and chard. This also made a fantastic lunch leftover today! (Shout out to John for delivering my lunch to work for me today, as I forgot it in his fridge this morning! Double shout-out, as he included chocolate with the lunch delivery. :) I didn't realize we were celebrating Valentine's Day, but there you go! A lovely Tuesday surprise!)

Another weekend breakfast:

Eggs scrambled with onion, garlic, spinach, tomato, and feta, with a side of banana pancakes. Pancakes AND waffles in the SAME weekend? Hell yes.

Last, more soup:

Corn Chowder with Roasted Poblanos

with "Vermont Cheddar Bread," from AB in 5, on the side:


Consider me all caught up. :) Off to work through the leftovers!

Weekend in food!

Meals from the weekend - whole wheat pancakes and breakfast sausages,

burritos,

and Smoky Split Pea Soup with Cheese Muffins.

YUM!

breakfast and dinner, lower-cal style??

Although the tedium of counting calories is still kind of frustrating me, I'm really not finding this whole "diet" thing all that challenging -- I like the program I'm using to track my calories and exercise, I found a really helpful website that has made calculating calories/etc. of homemade things fairly simple, and my active lifestyle and already healthy eating habits have allowed room in my "diet" for a substantial treat at least daily -- homemade popsicle, slice of pie, homemade cookie, etc. Not bad, if you ask me!

(Is it wrong that I absolutely despise the word "diet?" Sigh.)

Anyhow, I found plenty of room in my daily calories yesterday for a truly indulgent brunch:

I made some whole-wheat buttermilk pancakes with Buttermilk Syrup, and enjoyed a side of fresh, local strawberries and a glass of iced green tea. Yum yum! (That syrup isn't healthy at all, but it's so caramelly-good, a tablespoon or two is a fantastic treat!)

Tonight's dinner leaned much more toward the healthy side, although it didn't taste that way!

Quinoa topped with sugar-snap peas, tofu, green onions, cilantro, and homemade peanut sauce.

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I've found, so far, that the biggest changes I've made in my eating habits have actually been really, really small -- I've mostly been paying closer attention to portion sizes, and have avoided mindless eating/snacking at work. (The new job helps -- there really isn't much in the way of "junk" laying around, and if I get desperately hungry, I just eat a graham cracker or a few vanilla wafers. Plain, bland, and unappetizing, I'm actually satisfying hunger, as opposed to boredom or frustration, which was often the case at my old job.)

I just hope things continue to feel this easy! I am already making appropriate progress, but definitely have a ways to go!

dinner party, packing party

I have been excited to throw impromptu "dinner and games" parties lately -- basically, I call all of my friends, see who is free that evening, cook something, and everybody hangs out, eats, and plays board games. My friends Tiffany and Christine came over last night, and we had a great time!

I made a triple-batch of chickpea pancakes, just to make sure there were enough to go around :)

We topped our pancakes with copious amounts of roasted asparagus, and plenty of herbed yogurt, too!

After dinner, we played a few games -- "Where's the Beef?" (an old game of Christine's from the 80s, which appropriately, the vegetarian (me!) won!), "Apples to Apples," and "UNO." I'm so glad my friends enjoy board games as much as I do!

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Today, my friend Dora kindly brought several boxes for me to church with her; I couldn't help but fill them up! It was a productive afternoon -- I sorted, purged, and cleaned the bathroom, my storage locker, and "junk tower" in my living room closet, took out a bunch of trash, added to the Goodwill pile, and packed 5 or 6 boxes, as well as all of my out-of-season clothing! Books are easy to pack, so I practically emptied the bookshelf; Oliver was confused:

"Uh, mom, where did all the books go? Not that I'm complaining or anything . . . it's much easier to reach and destroy my favorite toys, now." :)

Hope you had a good weekend!

major kitchen action

I have eluded to the overly-busy schedule I have been keeping up with these past few weeks, and coupled with plenty of stress, let's just say I haven't been feeding myself as well as I could have been; too much eating out for me! I was long overdue for a weekend full of cooking, and boy, was it fun!

Here are the results of all that action in my kitchen . . .

I haven't had much dessert on hand at home or at work, and I was craving something warm, homey, and tart-sweet. Enter, rhubarb-peach crumble:

Although peach is a nontraditional partner for rhubarb, this is quite good! I should have added a little more extra sugar to the fruit, since it is still VERY tart, but I love the contrast with the sweet-crispy-toasty topping. It's always a bonus when I can clear TWO bags of frozen fruit out of my freezer, and get a dessert out of the deal, too!

At the time of purchase, I had no plan for the parsnips I picked up at the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. The more I thought about those parsnips, the more Shredded Parsnip and Beet Salad in Pineapple Vinaigrette, from VCON, stuck in my mind -- and I figured, I better oblige!

The first time I made this recipe, I found it called for WAY too much dressing. I cut the dressing recipe in half this time, and am much happier with my salad. It's less soup-like, more slaw-like!

I should try this recipe with orange juice instead of the pineapple juice sometime. I always seem to have OJ on hand, but have to slap down four bucks to purchase the pineapple juice for this recipe. Anyone out there ever subbed OJ with good results? Do tell!

Lately, I have been mildly obsessed with the blog Anja's Food 4 Thought. Her writing is clear and concise, her photos are breathtaking, and her style of cooking seems perfectly aligned with my own. (Plus, she seems to be as obsessed with baked goods as I!) Even though I'm super anxious to try her Almond Butter Granola Bars, I found myself whipping up Herbed Chickpea Pancakes for dinner last night:

OK, someone please help me figure out WHY I have never made savory chickpea pancakes before? They are dead easy, super-cheap, and SOOOOOOO good -- I especially love the herbed yogurt recipe she includes. It took me a couple of tries to find my mojo with this recipe, learning that I needed to use a little more oil and a little higher heat than I thought, and I just couldn't help but flip them, even though she calls for them to be cooked on only one side. Since I destroyed most of my first batch on the learning curve, I sort of HAD to make a second batch for dinner tonight, right? At least now I have leftovers for lunches this week! MMMMMMMMMMMMM.

To continue on my quest to return to eating a more colorful, produce-rich diet, I tossed together a simple roasted red pepper soup for lunch today:

I really should have written down at least the measurements for ingredients, because I may never be able to replicate this one! (Lunch was a long time ago, you see.) Hmm . . . here's what I think I did:

1. Saute about 3/4 cup finely chopped onion in olive oil
2. Add 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped roasted red bell peppers, (I bought the hugest jar at Costco not too long ago, so I didn't feel bad about blowing through an expensive ingredient on this soup,) 3 cups vegetable broth, 1 tsp agave nectar, and salt (about 1/2 tsp?) and pepper to the pot. Bring to a boil.
3. Lower the heat and simmer the soup for 10 minutes, or longer, if you are busy doing something else.
4. Add 1 cup Greek yogurt to the pan, and puree. Garnish with any fresh herb you like -- I'm on a chive kick this week, so that's what I used. Simple and delicious!

Alongside my soup, I had a couple of tiny quesadillas:

I slathered homemade corn tortillas (!) with homemade refried beans (!) and queso fresco, and fried 'em up in my cast iron until crispy. It's been ages since I've made tortillas, and I forgot how EASY they are to whip up -- and how vastly superior their flavor and texture is to storebought corn tortillas! Homemade tortillas actually taste like CORN, not like dry paste. :) I used four for my quesadillas this afternoon, and stuck the other four in the freezer, to be enjoyed at a later date.

And last but not least, after a long, cold walk around the neighborhood I want to move to this summer, I felt like baking again! So, now I have a lovely batch of Tuscan Lemon Muffins for breakfasts and snacks this week:

I haven't tried these guys yet, but if the baked version is as good as the dollop of batter I licked off the spatula earlier, they will be a HIT! I made a few changes to the original recipe, as ever: I subbed Greek yogurt for the ricotta, omitted the lemon juice (figured the yogurt would provide enough acidity,) added 1 tsp lemon extract (to make up for the missing lemon juice,) and used 1 cup AP flour plus 3/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour, instead of all AP flour. I really wanted to use all whole-wheat flour, but lemon is such a delicate flavor, I was afraid it would get lost in the whole grainy goodness . . . this split seems to work well. I ended up with 8 standard-sized muffins and a dozen minis for the kids, too! (I thought I'd shower them with treats this week, since it's my last as their teacher.)

Hope your weekend was filled with good food, too!

very little actual cooking

Strangely, I did very little actual cooking this past week -- what did we eat? I have no idea! We did go out for dinner on Tuesday night, Dan made some pasta at some point during the week, and I met a friend for dinner on Thursday night, (shout out to Lauren!), but I'm still kind of puzzled!

Here are a few things that made their way from our kitchen to our bellies . . .

Wild Rice Soup!


Dan's Famous Stir-Fry!

(Dan has deemed himself in charge of dinner on Friday nights -- woo!)

Whole-wheat Blueberry Pancakes!


Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup!

(Yeah, this doesn't qualify as "cooking" in my book, but at least we ate at home!)

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I had a wonderfully pleasant day today! Dan and I ran a few errands this morning, including hitting the farmer's market, where we scored gorgeous produce and a gigantic, beautiful pumpkin! (Isn't it funny that Dan buys pumpkins based on how many seeds he thinks they might contain?) We chilled at home this afternoon, (I even took a nap!), before I headed over to church for a couple of hours. One of the women in my choir was married today, and the choir sang three pieces for the ceremony -- it was so much fun! Tonight, I have been busy in the kitchen prepping veggies and fruits for meals this week, starting some bread dough, making a pumpkin pie, and baking a loaf of banana-zucchini bread for breakfasts. Whew! I still have a pile of black beans bubbling away in the crock pot, so I still have to deal with those at some point. :) Hope you are having an enjoyable Saturday night!