Saturday, February 21, 2015

Pancake Tuesday

Today isn't Tuesday, it's Saturday.  But I'm having pancakes anyways.



It's a snowy Saturday in Toronto which seems to be normal this winter.   I am happy to stay indoors and do some marking, and some tidying up and some cooking - anything to not go outside until tomorrow morning.



I have been thinking about having pancakes all week: Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday, a day I look forward to with great enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, I missed having pancakes on this day, because I left my cell phone in my sister's car and had to retrieve it.   I had evening engagements every night of the week, so I knew my only chance at pancakes would be this morning - a Saturday.

Today I have a helper in the kitchen - my cat Buddy.



Years ago when my son was an infant, we had a nanny, Allie, from the Netherlands.  Shortly after she moved into our house she said she was going to make pancakes for breakfast.  I checked my pantry and found that I had very little pancake mix on hand.  Allie looked a bit puzzled.  "Pancake mix?" she asked.  "What's pancake mix?"  So I showed her the nearly-empty box, and she appeared to be quite surprised.  She said she had never heard of such a thing. "Pancakes are so easy to make!" she exclaimed, "They are just flour, and baking powder and milk and a bit of oil - you don't need a mix!"    She made pancakes for breakfast quite often, never with a mix.  Sometimes she would cut up an apple into thin slices and mix the slices in with the pancake batter.  Sometimes she added chocolate, sometimes fresh berries.  She didn't have a recipe, she just mixed up the batter herself.  She used to say, "It's  one to one - that's all you have to remember!", referring to the ratio of flour to milk.  I must say, however, that I like a bit more milk in mine than the one to one ratio, but that's a personal preference.  I will write down the recipe as I received it from Allie.

In the years since she moved back to the Netherlands, I have used her recipe many, many times, but now I have veganized it.  I no longer use dairy milk, but still mostly keep to the one to one ratio.



 Sometimes I still add fruit.  I often add nutmeg (I did today) because it imparts an interesting depth of flavour to the pancakes.  These pancakes are light and fluffy and are always a hit.



This recipe makes enough for our family - at least twelve very large pancakes or twenty smaller ones.  You can cut the recipe in half or multiply it - it's easy to remember.

Dry Ingredients

2 cups of Flour


2 tablespoons of baking powder



2 tablespoons of vegan-friendly sugar
1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
1 pinch of salt
Note: if I am adding berries, I use frozen berries and add them to the dry ingredients.

Wet ingredients
2 cups of milk - I use President's Choice soy milk - it's fantastic (I prefer adding 2 1/3 Cups of milk)
4 tablespoons of canola oil



Directions

Pour some canola into a frying pan on high heat and allow the pan to get good and hot.

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a big mixing bowl.




Mix the canola oil and the soy milk (or other non-dairy milk) in a measuring cup - it won't stay mixed so don't worry if you skip this step.

Pour the oil-soy milk mixture into the dry mixture and stir until combined.  The batter makes better pancakes if it is not mixed perfectly smoothly.  You will notice that the batter is light and fluffy - much fluffier than boxed pancake mixes.

I use a 1/4 Cup measuring cup to scoop the batter into the hot frying pan, and I spread the batter a bit with the bottom of the measuring cup.


It's really difficult to say how long to cook each side of the pancakes, because different people have different ideas about what constitutes a hot frying pan.  For me, it's full speed ahead - I have the pan as hot as my stove can make it, or if I am using an electric frying pan, I turn it up as far as it will go.



Generally speaking, you cook the pancakes until the uncooked side is filled with bubble holes and the bottom looks golden around the edges, and then you flip the pancake over and cook it until the bottom again looks like it is golden around the edges.  Then you put the pancakes on a plate and enjoy them.



These pancakes are great with maple syrup, with Lyle's Golden Syrup (a non-corn syrup) or with brown sugar.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

My Shop

I'm still planning on having tshirts available on my shop but I can't quite figure out how to make my logo into a template for sending to the tshirt company.

Quick and Easy Soup - Revisited

It started snowing here yesterday morning and is still snowing now.

This is the view out my back door, looking over the deck.



It's a thoroughly rotten day designed for staying inside and keeping warm.  What you can't see in this photo is a small shelter we have made for a stray cat who lives in our neighbourhood.  It is made of insulation board and it has an outdoor-rated heated cat bed in it.  I don't know how warm the box is because it is open on one end, but I know the bed is warm - we found our cat Harry curled up in it the other day when it was -10 degrees Celsius outside.   Here is Harry indoors on his very own heated cat bed.  He loves that bed, and it probably feels good on his sore spots - he was hit by a car about nine years ago and he still has a spot on his side that he doesn't like to have touched.



Because it was such a miserable day, I decided to make soup.  I opted for my go-to soup - my sister Leslie's Quick and Easy Soup, but I changed it up a bit.  You can see the original recipe in February of 2014.

This time I omitted the onion - I know it seems like a crazy step to take when making soup - and instead added a few potatoes.   For spices, I added black pepper, Trader Joe's Everyday Spice Mix and a tablespoon of herbes de province.

Ingredients
1 large bag of frozen California mix veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots)
2.5 litres of vegetable broth
black pepper (I have a grinder - I used 15 twists of my grinder
Trader Joe's Everyday Spice - 10 twists of the grinder
herbes de provinces - about one tablespoon

Directions
Put all of the ingredients into a large pot and bring to a full rolling boil.



Turn the heat down and simmer for about 15 minutes, then use an immersion blender to blend it into a creamy soup.  If you don't have an immersion blender (they are very handy) you could transfer the veggies in batches into your food processor and puree them.



Also, to make this into a protein powerhouse soup, you could add a can of cannelloni beans and puree them too.  If you have a child who loves soup but is wary of beans, this is a good way to go - you can't taste the beans at all.


Sunday, February 1, 2015

Rawlicious - Delicious!

Yesterday I went for lunch at Rawlicious, a raw food and vegan restaurant in Whitby, Ontario.  I went with my father and one of my sisters.

The restaurant is very warm and inviting on the inside, and we were greeted pleasantly be a member of the waitstaff.  The tables and chairs were decently spaced, and of a pleasant and/or comfy design.

My father ordered the sweet potato fritters that came with a spicy dip.   We shared them and the verdict was very positive.



My sister ordered the zucchini noodles bolognese with nut loaf crumbles and marinara sauce.  It came in a very large bowl - she ate it all!  She said it was fantastic, and I can concur because I had a small bit of it as well.



I ordered the cannelloni - spiralize zucchini stuffed with cashew cheese and pesto - it was really tasty, and very good.  It came with a side salad - I had mine with vegan ranch dressing - and that was a nice counterpoint to the cannelloni.



For dessert, my sister had the cheesecake of the day, and I had the salted caramel square.   The cheesecake was good, but the salted caramel square was utterly sublime.  Vegans don't always get to find a good caramel - this one was fantastic.  My only regret was that I didn't buy a few extra to take home to have later in the day.



Would I go again? Absolutely - I'm adding this restaurant to my list of favourites!

Winter Warmer-upper

This is an update of a post that was originally written in 2014. This is one of my go-to winter soups. I had some squash in my freezer lef...