Day Off Cornmeal Pancakes

I recently started a new job working at a farm stand in my hometown. Although I love the work, it's been hard on this body that's gotten soft not having to bike everywhere or carry tons of stuff each week to prep for volunteer projects. I am SORE. Today is my day off so I woke up slow and said to myself, "I want pancakes for breakfast." Unfortunately it's not always easy to make just one serving of pancakes, though I will halve the recipe next time. I read an article from Coffee Meets Bagel about "single people problems," one of which being leftovers. "Craving a brownie? How about twelve?"

I've always loved leftovers, which I'm sure you've noticed if you've been following along. But when I make pancakes I inevitably eat a few while cooking them and then just freeze what's left. So I eat maybe three or four and then save twice that. They taste almost as good when you microwave them, but still - fresh off the griddle is ALWAYS better. 

I was determined to use some more of my Louisiana cornmeal so I made the cakes. I had to take pictures because I have never - NEVER - not burned the first batch. And just look! 

Golden brown, fluffy, perfect! "It NEVER happens!" - Lewis Black

I used gigi's Batter Cakes recipe and made some changes.

I used powdered buttermilk (from the infamous pantry) and thought it was neat, all frothy like that.

The batter was WAY too runny. Perhaps you should only use 1/2 cup of buttermilk instead of a full cup? My envelope of powdered buttermilk made a cup's worth so I used the whole thing, but I had to add 2/3 cup of flour like someone suggested in the comments. 

The directions say to pour on the griddle in "heaping tablespoonfuls." Ain't no way you could make a heaping tablespoonful out of that runny mess above. 

The recipe said it made ten servings but I got a dozen small pancakes out of the batch. So unless the servings are... no, I don't even want to try to solve that. I have no idea what the serving size is supposed to be. One pancake? Oh well. 

Mm... they even taste good out of the microwave... 

What are your favorite pancake ingredients? 

Happy munching! 

 

Pantry Granola

I had it in my head that an icebox cake was so-named because you use up what you have in your icebox. Turns out I'm wrong and it's called that because you leave it to freeze overnight in your "icebox" - I guess the recipe has been around since people were using iceboxes. Although my analogy is shot, I'm still going to call this granola I made pantry granola in the spirit that I made it trying to use up as much in the pantry and on the counter as possible. My mom's kitchen is overstocked so when I cook or bake I usually work hard to use what's there instead of buy new things. 

We had a bag of Nature's Promise granola that I wanted to eat with the coconut almond milk (coconut soy? I don't remember the blend) that we bought. The granola was waxy and not very tasty, so I decided to make my own. Homemade granola tastes WAY better than anything you can buy at the store, plus it used up three cups of the ridiculous amount of oats we had in the pantry. 

I based my granola off of CHOW's recipe here . I added nutmeg with the cinnamon, whole flax seeds and a tub of dried nuts and fruit. 

the mixture

before baking

after baking 

served with fresh blueberries, dried cranberries and chocolate bits in coconut milk

and stored in fancy glass jars.

Homemade granola is one of those things that you can make a lot of in a short period of time. This cold weather is already making me think about Christmas gifts, and homemade granola in a pretty jar with a ribbon would be a great gift for a crunchy friend or not-too-distant cousin. 

What do you like to put in your granola? 

Happy munching! 

Carrots and Zucchinis, plus a whole lotta breadcrumbs

Although I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I had zucchini from the team at Appalachia that needed to be used up. I was given a vegan cookbook by a friend when I left Philadelphia and have never used it till now. There certainly don't need to be 2 full cups of breadcrumbs but aside from that it's quite a delicious recipe. I would recommend it for its taste and for its use of lots of vegetables - 3 cups of zucchini and 5 cups of carrots! 

So many breadcrumbs!

5 servings in one pan are hard to cut out. Look at the size of those servings! 

The texture was a little mushy. My "food processor" turned the zucchini and carrots into puree instead of grated vegetables. But the taste is so good that it doesn't matter. 

Thanks go to Ashley Flowers for giving me the book that provided this recipe! 

Happy (mush)ing!