Healing Power of Pancakes

Very recently I was in a bike/car accident (I was the one on the bike), and was left in a state where I couldn't do much for myself. Miraculously, I wasn't thinking about food every waking moment. After one particularly grueling physical therapy session, I finally had a craving...for pancakes. I have to back up for a moment to say that I never want pancakes. It's extremely rare that I don't wake up wanting something savory and on the occasion that I do, it's a piece of chocolate not a baked good. I cut to the chase and freebase sugar straight up, none of that flour nonsense. Anyhow, my dear mother was in town playing nurse and she is a pancake person. I knew I was in good hands.

I wanted to pack in as many nutrients as possible, so we came up with a heavenly pancake recipe for a whole grainish number with what I had laying around along with a blueberry compote made from good for nothin wrinkly berries. Topped with peanut butter and washed down with a cold glass of almond milk drank from a pink neon straw, it made me feel a little less broken.

I gave directions; my mom cooked. We're a good team. Thanks mom.

Post-Accident Pancakes
* 1/2 cup organic all purpose flour
* 1/4 cup organic buckwheat flour
* 1/4 cup organic whole wheat flour
* Small handful of wheat germ
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups or so of kefir
* 1 large egg
* 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted; extra for cooking and serving

Whisk together all the flours along with the baking powder and soda and salt in a medium bowl. Mix in the egg and gradually mix in kefir until desired consistency - I like my batter on the thinner side but these make pretty cake-like pancakes. Heat up a pan - non-stick, cast-iron, what have you - and butter that baby up. In my humble opinion, hot fat and pancake batter make for a beautiful match. So heat your pan to medium and pour a third of a cup or so of batter into the pan leaving room for the other guys depending on how large your pan is. Patiently wait until bubbles (holes?) appear and then gingerly flip them. Wait a minute or so, grab straight from the pan and eat immediately. If you have the willpower to wait a sec, I highly recommend slathering a warm pancake with peanut butter and topping it with blueberry compote. It's like the best pb&j you've never had.

Serves 4...or 2

Blueberry Compote

* 1/2 cup - 3/4 cup blueberries, preferably ones past their prime
* water
* agave syrup
* lemon
* cinnamon

This is a loose recipe, which are honestly the only ones I am good at. I much prefer a compote on my pancakes rather than putting fruit in the batter as the latter often results in watery fruit and fugly looking pancakes.

After you pick out the moldy berries and treat them to a light rinse, throw them in a saucepan with a little water - just enough to cover the bottom of the pan should do. Bring it to a boil and let them bubble away until they begin to break down a bit and look jammy. Turn it down to a simmer and add water as you see fit so it doesn't get dry and burn. You can keep this on the back burner on low while you go about making pancakes. Taste them naturally because they may not need a lot of adjusting, but a squeeze of lemon and a shake of cinnamon does wonders. Stir in a bit of agave syrup at the end and that's it. You can basically do this with any fruit. It's great for impressing people and putting on top of ice cream too.

Makes 2 generous servings.

Self Assesment: Pudding

So, I am not good at a lot of things. Some of which include taking photos (the physical act of taking my camera/phone out) and keeping a disciplined regimen for anything aside from going to my job daily. This may help to explain my infrequency of blog postings. However, my inspiration for writing anything stems from something I am actually good at: experimenting with confidence. That sounds incredibly annoying, but I'm trying to be positive. It's 2010 dude!

This all brings me to caramel pudding. I was aimlessly snacking on an amaretti cookie the other day at work - likely a remnant of a holiday gift basket - and thought, this would be delicious on pudding. I had some friends round last night for dinner and decided to experiment on them. I have made pudding once (butterscotch) before which was for no less than 30 people, and while it had everyone licking their plates and asking for a recipe, I didn't have a recipe to share. Add that to the list: writing down recipes. Here's to turning over a new stone...

Caramel Pudding
serves 8

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
2 cups organic heavy cream
3 1/4 cups organic whole milk
3 large best quality (local, humane, whatever)egg yolks
healthy pinch sea salt (1/4 tsp or more)
vanilla extract
3 tbs cornstarch
1-2 tbs agave syrup
16 small amaretti cookies, crushed


Start off with the sugar and water and a medium, heavy bottomed saucepan. Bring it to simmer/boil and let it bubble up. You want to let it do it's thing for about 5 minutes, swirling the pan a little but not stirring. If sugar crystals form on the sides of the pot you can wash them down with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. But really, I find this mostly unnecessary and how many people have pastry brushes? Keep your eye on the caramel-to-be and watch it go from from a light amber brown to something darker and richer. Also, use your instincts and smell it. Once mine started to smell like toasted marshmallows, I took it off the heat and whisked in a cup of heavy cream. Keep whisking away and put back on the stove over low/med heat. Whisk in 3 cups of milk. Meanwhile, whisk the cornstarch and 1/4 milk in a separate bowl and the yolks, salt, and vanilla in another bowl. Stir cornstarch mixture into caramel and keep whisking. It will thicken very quickly. Take about a 1/4 cup of the caramel mixture and slowly combine it with the yolks. Then carefully add the yolk mix back into the caramel. Whisk and stir for another minute or so. Pour into a clean bowl or little cups, cover surface with plastic wrap to prevent a skin, and pop in the fridge for a few hours to chill and set.

To serve, whisk the shit out of the remaining cup of heavy cream until it turns in whipped cream (magic!) and fold in some agave syrup to taste. Top servings of pudding with whipped cream and crushed up amaretti cookies.