I have a sweet tooth to end all sweet tooths. And yet, somehow, traditional pancakes are too sweet for me. The heavy batter, when combined with incomparable but intense maple syrup, would leave me feeling rather queasy. Sometimes I would eat them without syrup, but they often didn't taste right that way either.
Eventually I discovered the secret to the perfect pancake experience. First, I make the batter from scratch. It's quick and easy and this way I avoid overly sweet mixes. (I have nothing against mixes and I'm sure there are some great ones out there, but all I can say is that when I discovered how easy pancake batter is to make, I tossed my crappy mix that gave me heavy, leathery, funny tasting cakes and never looked back.)
Second, I eat them plain or with jam, not with syrup. Don't get me wrong, I love maple syrup. It's just a bit much first thing in the morning. I prefer my sweets later in the day.
Once I discovered how to make a pancake I loved, I made a lot of them. My all-time favorite recipe was this one. Sadly, amaranth flour is not for sale in all parts of the country, but here in the Pacific Northwest it's part of the Bob's Red Mill line of specialty flours.
These pancakes are crammed with flavor before you dress them up at all. Due to the use of amaranth and whole wheat, they're also slightly higher in protein than traditional recipes.
And if you, like most people, like your pancakes drizzled with liquid tree blood, that works too.
Amaranth Banana Pancakes
Mix:
In separate bowl, mix:
Combine two bowls and mix. Adjust the thickness of the batter by adding a little water or a little flour if necessary. It will be thick and lumpy, but should be thin enough so that when you ladel it on to the griddle, it oozes into a disk about 1/4" thick.
Fry on griddle set to 350°F. It isn't necessary to butter the griddle, but doing so will give a slightly crispy, buttery edge. Fry one side until bubbles develop. Then flip once and fry until ready.
The above recipe serves a crowd. It can be cut in half if desired.
My mom called, and said, "Turn on channel 9 now, they're showing Julia Child making omelettes."
Oh, yeah, I have TV now, but that's another story.
Anyway, I switched to the TV input and watched the episode, it was really inspiring. For the plain omelette, she mixed the eggs with some parsley, pepper, salt, and water. She got a pan hot, then added about 1 tablespoon butter, it sizzled and foamed, and she added the "2-3" eggs. After about 4 seconds, she started swishing the omelette around in the pan, and then some number of seconds later, she flipped half of it over onto itself. To flip it, she did these little jerks where she pushed the pan away from herself, and then pulled it back sharply.
Once it was flipped, she scooted it around and then flipped it onto a plate by putting the plate over the pan, and then flipping them around. Then she fiddled with it a bit to tuck the edge under. She showed how to tuck it under using two forks, or, "If you're in the kitchen alone, you can just use your fingers like this."
Then she sprinkled the top with more parsley.
She showed putting various fillings in, and ended with a nice omelette party setup.
Since watching, I've tried a number of omelettes, both with and without fillings. And they're delicious! I used to think that I didn't like omelettes, because I don't like firm, leathery sides. These aren't like that at all, they're fluffy and flavorful. And even if you mess them up, they still taste great.
Here's some tips:
Ingredients:
Directions:
Put the stock, ginger, lemon grass, and lime leaves or lime peel in a stock pot. Gradually bring to boil over medium-high heat. Boil for one minute, then add the coconut milk. Return to boil, then add the chicken. Return to boil, and then add the chili-tamarind paste, the lemon juice, sugar, and fish sauce. Stir until the paste and sugar are dissolved and blended, then add the mushrooms. Simmer until mushrooms are tender, about 1 minute.
Float chilies on top and turn off the heat. Serve.
Notes:
This is from one of my favorite cookbooks, True Thai by Victor Sodsook. I've now made it twice, and it turned out delicious both times. This dish is among both my favorite Thai foods and my favorite soups.
I used the lime peel option, the galanga, and palm sugar. The only place I've managed to find galanga is Uwajimaya. Both times I've been a bit heavy on the chicken, just because that's what the package was.
I've deviated from and modified the above recipe in the following ways.
Instead of chili-tamarind paste (which I couldn't find, and didn't feel like making), I used a mix of sweet chili sauce and tamarind extract. While this seems to work well for flavor, I'm thinking about adding something to make the dish hotter.
Since I used stock from bullion both times, I made up the stock first, and added the galanga, lemon grass, and lime peel to that pan, and then let it sit while I prepped the other ingredients.
Similarly, I prepped the sugar, juice, fish sauce, chili sauce, and tamarind extract into a bowl ahead of time, though I'm not sure that actually saved me any effort.
The second time I made it, I used the juice from the lime instead of lemon juice, and it worked fine.
The Siamese ginger, lemon grass, and lime peel/leaves aren't meant to be eaten. Eating the chilies is an option for the hardy.
Ingredients:
Spice Mix:
beef was marinated cooked on high started with onions added garlic and cloves added beef added sugar add sherry added soy sauce added spice mix and salt added broccoli and water added oat flour to thicken
Tasted great, next time leave out salt as soy sauce provides, Carol says "not quite broccoli beef". serve over rice
I've written about Irish soda bread before, but now I've gotten the recipe perfected.
Ingredients:
Start oven preheating to 425°F. Mix vinegar and milk in glass, and leave it to sour for at least 5 minutes. Place some parchment paper onto a cookie sheet. In a large bowl sieve and combine all the dry ingredients, mixing thoroughly. Pour in soured milk and mix together. Briefly knead dough into a ball and place on parchment paper on cookie sheet. Cut cross into top of bread, cover with large metal bowl, and put in oven. After 30 minutes, remove metal bowl. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes longer, until done.
Bread is done when browned and top is firm. You can double-check doneness by thumping on the bottom of the loaf, it should sound hollow. Place bread on rack to cool.
Dough should be sticky. You can use buttermilk, I use milk soured with vinegar because I always have milk around, and never have buttermilk around.
This is a really fast and easy bread.
I leave it on the cutting board, with the cut side down, that helps it last a little longer without much fuss.
Don't knead it very much. It rises from the reaction between the lactic acid in the milk and the baking soda. If you knead it too much, you'll lose a lot of the gas.
Because it's chemically leavened, you can use all sorts of flours. So far, my two favorite variations are 100% white all-purpose flour, and 50% all-purpose, 25% whole wheat, and 25% amaranth.
Ingredients:
Meat Mix:
Condiments:
Mix up the meat mix and get a steamer started. Form into small patties in the steamer and cover. Steam for a total of 8-10 minutes, flipping and pressing down with the spatula once. A minute or two before they're done, top the patties with one cheese slice each.
Cut hot dog buns into thirds. Each third is one hamburger bun, put hamburger in bun and add desired condiments.
I got a yield of 32 patties out of about 1-1/3 pounds of ground beef. The beef was "lean", no more than 20% fat. I'll generally get leaner ground beef than that, but this was on sale for 99 cents a pound.
I'd normally put cumin, mustard seed, and soy sauce into the meat mix, but I'm out of all three. Time to restock.
Next time I'll add more condiments. I'd like to try cherry tomato slices, and maybe shallot slices. I also thought it might be fun to top them with fried quail's egg.
I plan to work on baking my own tiny buns, but for now, the hot dog buns work really well.
I've been wanting to make tiny hamburgers for a long time, and never got around to it. Now that I finally have, they turned out great! Even cjo (not normally a hamburger fan) liked them. And they're fun!
Ingredients:
First, start frying the peanuts in the peanut oil in a non-stick skillet for maybe a minute, and then add the sugar. Keep stirring and frying between medium and medium high, until the sugar turns into slightly golden crystals about 1/8" diameter. During that process, you can see the sugar liquefying on the bottom of the pan, and then crystallizing as it's lifted back towards the top of the mix. Once it's to that stage, turn the heat to low and stir in the chocolate chips and peanut butter. Once it's all melted and mixed together, drop chunks of it onto wax paper on a cookie sheet, and then put the cookie sheet in the freezer for about an hour until it's fully cooled and hardened.
This is a quick and easy chocolate candy. It's crunchy from both the peanuts and the sugar crystals.
Because of the peanut butter, it doesn't get really firm unless you put it in the fridge or freezer. I cool it in the freezer just so that it'll be ready quicker, and then I put it into a container in the fridge, separating layers with wax paper.
I usually measure the chocolate, peanuts, and sugar, and do the peanut butter and peanut oil by eye.
You can drop them onto the wax paper in whatever shapes you like, I tend to prefer thin bars about 3 inches long.
Ingredients:
This started as a mistake, but it turned into quite a treat.
First, I started frying the peanuts in little bit of peanut oil in a small cast-iron skillet. Then I added it a bunch of sugar, mixing it the whole time. Then I added in the cocoa powder and kept cooking and stirring.
When I thought the sugar had caramelized enough, I stirred in some sherry and let it reduce a bit. Then I poured in the heavy cream, cooked it until it thickened a bit, and then poured it over vanilla ice cream.
I had a particular idea in mind, and it didn't go as planned, so I kept working on it and adding stuff to try to salvage it, and eventually it turned into an ice cream sauce. And a great ice cream sauce it made, too! There are crunchy chunks of crystallized sugar, and the chocolate sauce itself is fairly crystallized, as well. And the peanuts, freshly roasted in the pan and coated with sugar and chocolate, are delicious.
The leftover sauce, still full of peanuts, I put in the fridge, where I ended up nibbling at it by itself for the next week or so. Quite a treat!
Ingredients:
Spice Mix:
Just another stir fry I did tonight.
First, of course, I prepped all the ingredients. Then, I started by caramelizing the onion in peanut oil, in the cast iron skillet. I also continued adding peanut oil as necessary during cooking, and stirred frequently and vigorously during the whole process.
Added in the garlic, fried for a short bit then added the peanuts, ginger, and celery. Fried for a couple of minutes, then added the broccoli stalk and green bell pepper. Fried for another minute or two then added the spice mix, then dumped the sugar in an open part of the pan and let it start caramelizing, then mixed it in. Added the beef, fried it until it browned, then added the sherry. Let it reduce a bit, then added the tamari sauce and the broccoli floweretts. Added some flour to thicken it, cooked it until it thickened slightly, and then removed it from the heat and served
Ate it over brown rice. Not as good as some of my dishes, but better than the food we've been eating out lately. I haven't been cooking because of getting sick and then being tired.
My opinion of cauliflower was forever altered when I read a comment describing its taste as "slightly nutty." Before then, I had never noticed the nuttiness. Most of my experiences with cauliflower involved cheese, which overpowered its subtle flavor. After that comment, I tried cheese-free cauliflower. To my amazement, I discovered that I preferred it that way. Here I always thought that cheese improved everything, but so far, cauliflower appears to be an exception.
This hearty soup is my all-time favorite to make. The recipe was inspired by the Colophon Cafe's African Peanut Soup. I loved the original but wanted a vegetarian version to share with non-meat-eating friends.
If you don't have a blender, just leave the peanuts intact.
Ingredients:
4 cans tomatoes 2 cloves garlic 2 dried red peppers 1 inch ginger 1 vegetarian boullion cube (optional) 2 small cauliflowers 1 small onion 1 1/2 cup peanuts, roasted, with no extra flavorings 1/4 cup butter (for roux) 1/4 cup flour (for roux) 4 cups water butter or olive oil (for frying the onions, optional) black pepper (to taste)
Directions: Coarsely chop the peanuts in the blender. Use the lowest setting and just pulse it a few times. Many will remain intact, some will be cut into small chunks, and a few will be ground fine enough to slightly thicken the soup. If you don't have a blender or food processor, just leave them intact.
Peel and thinly slice the ginger. Chop the garlic and peppers.
I like a mix of crushed tomatoes and chunkier ones. My method is to puree two cans of diced tomatoes in the blender, and leave the other two as is. Alternately, use two cans of crushed tomatoes and two of diced. (We only bother stocking one kind of tomatoes, and I already have the blender out for the peanuts, or I'd mix tomato types myself.) Or, just use crushed tomatoes for the entire amount... Really, it's just a matter of how chunky you like the tomatoes, so do as you will.
Dice the onion. Fry in olive oil with the ginger, and garlic until soft and slightly carmelized. This will give a sweeter taste. However, if you're lazy you can skip this step. I usually skip it; the onions will soften and cook if you heat the soup long enough, and the spices are enough to tame the sharpness you get from not having carmelized them.
Chop the cauliflower into bite-sized pieces and set it aside.
Add everything except the cauliflower to the pot, and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat, and cook for at least 20 minutes.
Add the cauliflower, and simmer for an additional 15 minutes.
Prepare and add the roux. (Here's another step you can skip if you are lazy. This soup is actually quite thick just from the volume of cauliflower.)
Enjoy!