hearty healthy pancakes

I have a picture! This is my rendition of healthy pancakes. Plating would be nicer if I had some fruit to garnish with.

Usually my grocery trips revolve around what's on sale, rather than what I need. This tactic saves me a lot of money, but sometimes I end up not having food to eat a certain meals. Usually breakfast is forgone, leading me to struggle for a solution to my morning meal. I met up with a friend for coffee this morning and I bought myself some coffee and banana bread. To my dismay, the coffee tasted burnt and the bread, dry. Weariness prevailed but hunger did not. I finished the coffee for the caffeine, but opted not to do the same for the banana bread. By the time I got home, I was famished. After a quick rummage through my pantry, I decided upon pancakes for my second breakfast.

I based my recipe off of the highest, most reviewed one on allrecipes.com. I halved the recipe and made a few edits to fit the ingredients I had on hand and to make it healthier. It ended up looking something like this:

hearty healthy pancakes

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

dash of salt

1/2 egg

1/4 cup vanilla yogurt

1/4 cup water

2/3 cup soy milk

1/2 cup milled oats

1 tbsp coconut oil

Combine everything, mix well till incorporated. Lightly grease a pan and turn burner onto medium high heat. Pour mix with 1/3 cup scoops (larger or smaller as preferred). Flip once the pancake starts bubbling consistently. Serve with agave nectar syrup and powdered sugar.

Notes: Coconut oil is a solid at room temperature. It's very solid when mixed with fridge temperature soy milk. I'd recommend microwaving it for a few seconds to melt it so it incorporates better with everything. I'm not sure if I would substitute coconut oil for vegetable oil next time though. It might be a little healthier, but I didn't notice a difference in taste. It did, however, carry a faint aroma of coconuts.

I added much more soy milk than I needed. I didn't originally include it in my recipe, hoping that a mix of yogurt and water would suffice for the lack of milk. The mix turned out very thick and dry so I started pouring in soy milk little by little. The last pour was too much, resulting in very thin pancakes, rather than a nice puffy feel. The original recipe also included a 1/2 tbsp of sugar, but I forsook that with the addition of the yogurt.

Whole wheat flour definitely has a unique taste unto itself and if you're not used to it, or expecting it to taste like regular flour, it might be an unpleasant surprise. The oats cooked well and didn't make the pancakes as crunchy as I feared they might. I might even dare to double the amount of oats next time.

As far as trends go

I have a habit of obsessing over a certain food for a period of time. It involves iterations, experimentation and once satisfied, never looking back. I've had a few of these recently. I recently wrote about naan; the results of which I am satisfied. I've also been pining at different forms of ice cream and omelets. A staple among my friends have been Ricky Mo burritos.

I've made two batches of ice cream in the last two weeks. The first was avocado ice cream. My neighbor has an avocado tree that grows into our yard and we've been given free reign of the fruit that bears over our fence. As a result, we've grown quite accustomed to making a variety of avocado dishes. Some have been thrown into my omelets and other cooking endeavors. Most of the time, my roommates make it into guacamole. I wanted to try something different and conjectured as to the quality of an avocado ice cream in a discussion with a foodie friend. I found a recipe by Alton Brown that seemed simple enough. Borrowed an ice cream maker and set to making it.

Ingredients
12 ounces avocado meat, approximately 3 small to medium
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream

Directions
Peel and pit the avocados. Add the avocados, lemon juice, milk, and sugar to a blender and puree. Transfer the mixture to a medium mixing bowl, add the heavy cream and whisk to combine. Place the mixture into the refrigerator and chill until it reaches 40 degrees F or below, approximately 4 to 6 hours.

Process the mixture in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. However, this mixture sets up very fast, so count on it taking only 5 to 10 minutes to process. For soft ice cream, serve immediately. If desired, place in freezer for 3 to 4 hours for firmer texture.


The result was ice cream that tasted a lot like avocado. I guess that's to be expected, given the ingredients. It was a little bland. I would add more sugar or some other sweetener next time to curb the straight creaminess of the avocado. The avocados were also medium to big. This might have contributed to the avocado overpowering the milkiness. Regardless, it was a hit at the party and in the end, that's what really matters.

A more recent expedition into home made ice cream was banana ice cream. I needed to make more ice cream, lest I be forced to find another recipe that included heavy cream and milk (being lactose intolerant, I don't usually pursue dairy products. Ice cream is just too delicious to ignore!). I had mashed bananas in the freezer (another thing that took a few tries to make really convenient. I used to freeze whole bananas when they ripened. They were really hard to peel so next time I had peeled bananas in my freezer. Then they were really hard to mash. That's when I discovered peeled and mashed bananas were the best in the freezer, all you need is defrosting) that I had planned on for banana bread, but I made like a dozen loaves of banana bread in May and was kind of sick of it at this point. Ice cream was a great idea to finish up my milk, heavy cream AND bananas.

I subbed bananas for avocados in Alton Brown's recipe and this is what I came up with

Ingredients
5 bananas, mashed
1 tablespoon squeezed lemon juice
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup heavy cream

mix together all the ingredients well and refrigerate. Make ice cream following the machine directions.

This came out fantastic. The bananas are a lot sweeter than avocados to start with, combined with the mix of brown and granulated sugar gave it an excellent flavor. I would have done all brown sugar, but that would have changed the color of the ice cream to a less pleasant brown color. It might actually be a little too sweet, and would cut out the 1/4 cup of granulated sugar next time. The bananas were also really watery once defrosted out of the freezer. I'm not sure if that's a byproduct of defrosting somehow collecting water, or if the moisture simply separated from the bananas. This was good for the ice cream though, because it made it softer. I froze this batch after making it instead of eating it as soft serve. With the extra moisture, it retains its softness, rather than getting really hard in the freezer.

a bl(a)g beginning

I've started my foodie blog! What with finals upon me, I couldn't think of a better time to do so. The goal of this blog is for me to challenge myself with more interesting foods and record them for you guys to see!

Yesterday I made Naan, an Indian style flat bread. I've made it before, using this recipe . Well, I pulled it up again and it turned out fairly well. Last time, I broiled them a little too long and it didn't have the chewyness that I was looking for. This time, I tried it on the new propane grill my roommate just got. This time I had it on too high of heat and the inside wasn't cooked. I'll have to find a happy medium between the two. I have plenty of dough in the fridge, we'll see what works best.

I paired the Naan with premade curry I bought from my local grocery store (Spencer's). It was a little pricey for $5 a serving, but I wanted to get a taste for (presumably) real curry in hopes of being able to recreate it. Unfortunately, their ingredients list was somewhat sparse (listing "spices" instead of actual spices), but I'll do some research and hope to make some later this week.

Ingredients:

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons minced garlic (optional)
1/4 cup butter, melted

Directions:

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.
Punch down dough, and knead in garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
During the second rising, preheat grill to high heat.
At grill side, roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle. Lightly oil grill. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned. Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

Notes:

I went with three cloves of minced garlic and that worked well. It didn't taste overwhelmingly garlicy, but you can definitely taste and enjoy it. I brushed the butter on with my finger (for lack of a brush) while grilling it. That made it a little dry, I'll try brushing it on after it's done cooking, or both. I used 1/2 cup of sugar instead of 1/4 cup by accident. I mixed up the measuring spoons and didn't realize till it was too late. Still, it came out fine and I didn't notice a sweetness in the bread. Using the KitchenAid was easier, but I still had to hand knead the dough quite a bit. I was a little confused as to when to add all of the flour. The directions say to put some of it in, but I just threw it all in at that point.

EDIT:

3 cloves is the perfect amount of garlic! After trying a few more batches on the stove top, they taste great. I've been using Pam to grease the pan, but I think it's unnecessary. The Pam burns easily and leaves undesirable burnt oil stains on the naan. I think doing a light pour of oil will do. I have the stove on high heat to get the lightly toasted marks, then lower the heat. I'll try doing med heat so I wont burn the oil next time. Also have to substitute coconut oil and see how the flavor is. PICTURES COMING SOON.