Vegan Sweet Potato Pancakes

I made potato pancakes with my sweet potatoes this weekend. Mashed sweet potatoes, some grated raw red potatoes, diced onion, spelt flour, and baking powder. I used ground flax seeds and water as an egg substitute. Served with some curried cherry chutney on top. I received the chutney as a gift. It's not for the culinary squeamish, it's got a really strong curry flavor. It went very well with the pancakes.

Green Onion Griddle Cakes with Cool Gazpacho

I received some more recipes from The Flexitarian Cookbook coming out this fall to test.  They came at the right time for my weekend cooking adventures.  I made a few of the recipes for our meals this week.  Last night I tried the Green Onion Griddle Cakes with a Cool Gazpacho salad.  Our garden is starting to produce daily vegetables, I was able to use a lot of things we grew ourselves, like the onions, parsley, and nasturtiums for this meal.

Onion Potato Pancakes with Cool Gazpacho

This recipe is a different style of making potato pancakes than I have seen before.  It's a combination of mashed potatoes and raw grated potatoes.  I mixed it all in the food processor until it was a nice smooth consistency.  They came out really fluffy and flavorful.  The recipe called for creme fraiche, but I served them with plain soy yogurt.  This is a vegetarian meal as there is an egg in the batter.  The gazpacho is made with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, fresh picked onions, garlic, chili oil, and balsamic vinegar.  The recipe directions were to blend it to the desired consistency.  It is supposed to be a soup, but my desired consistency this time was whole vegetables.


Yes, I eat the nasturtiums.  Nasturtiums are a watercress.

Watercress contains significant amounts of iron, calcium and folic acid, in addition to vitamins A and C.  Many benefits from eating watercress are claimed, such as that it acts as a stimulant, a source of phytochemicals and antioxidants, a diuretic, an expectorant and a digestive aid.  It also appears to have cancer-suppressing properties; it is widely believed to help defend against lung cancer.

Buckwheat Teff Pancakes - Vegan Sunday Brunch

While browsing through my Vegan World Fusion Cuisine cookbook yesterday looking for a fun way to use my beets, I noticed a recipe for buckwheat pancakes.   I love buckwheat pancakes, I have since I was small.   They have much more body and flavor than the traditional white flour pancakes.  Of course they do, whole grains have more texture and flavor than over-processed white flour.  I didn't have quite enough buckwheat, but I did have some teff.  I ground some teff and used half a cup of buckwheat and half a cup of teff instead of 1 cup buckwheat.   I didn't have any applesauce, as called for in the recipe, so I just threw a small apple in the blender.  I served them with a drizzle of pure maple syrup and fresh fruit salad made with papaya, kiwi, plum, avocado, and lime juice.

Buckwheat Teff Pancakes with Fresh Fruit

Benevolent Buckwheat Pancakes

Vegan World Fusion Cuisine, page 182

Dry

1 C Buckwheat flour

1 C Spelt flour

3 TB Sucanat

1 TB Flax seed, ground

1 TB Baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp Sea salt

Wet

1 ¼ C Filtered water

¾ C non dairy milk (soy, oat, almond, hemp, rice)

2 TB Sunflower oil

2 TB Apple sauce, unsweetened (chopped fresh apple will work just fine)

Pinch Cinnamon Powder

Place Wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix well. I used the blender as I used a whole apple. Combine the Dry ingredients in another bowl and mix well.  Combine all ingredients in one bowl.  Grill as you do any pancakes on a lightly greased grill. Flip over as the bubbles form and pop, about 3 minutes on each side.

Serve with warm fruit, jam, almond butter, or whatever you like on your pancakes.

Shadows, Sunset, & Dairy Free Pancakes

Yesterday was pretty calm, work has been fun, I got some exercise in and some gardening. The weather this time of year is so funny. We have a saying in Washington: "If you don't like the weather, just wait 15 minutes, it will change." This is so true this time of year. We can have sunshine, fog, clouds, rain, hail, and then repeat the same all over again in the same day. I noticed it was nice around sunset so we went for a walk and

followed our shadows 

 through the sunset.

And when we got home had whole grain dairy free pancakes with blueberries and pears for dinner.

Dairy Free Whole Grain Pancakes

1/2 cup w/w flour (use gluten free four for gluten free pancakes)

1/2 cup spelt flour

2 TB Sucanat

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp sea salt

1 cup coconut milk, or any non dairy milk

Egg re-placer for the equivalent of one egg (Bob's Red Mill makes a good one)

1 TB Sunflower oil

1. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. combine dairy free milk, egg re-placer, and oil; add to flour mixture, stirring until smooth. 

2. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter onto a hot nonstick skillet coated with a little coconut oil. Turn pancakes when tops are covered with bubbles and edges looked cooked.

The yields about 5 servings, 2 pancakes per serving.

For the fruit topping all I did was take about 2 cups blueberries and about 1 cup frozen pears and put them in a saucepan with 1/4 cup water and 2 TB pure maple syrup and let them cook down until it just started to boil. Then added a TB of corn starch and simmered it for a few minutes to thicken a little.

Happy Days.