Friday Food Finds
Edition 8
Hi friends! This week our family has continued our run on pancakes. I didn’t snap a photo of them, but this King Arthur recipe for Homemade Whole Grain Pancake Mix is our all-time favorite. So we made a half batch of the mix last weekend to enjoy quick pancakes throughout the week. It’s truly the best meal prep investment you can make for yourself, as there is nothing like a hot stack of pancakes on a hurried school or work day.
I also tried out Shanika Graham-White’s (from the blog Orchids + Sweet Tea) recipe for Fluffy Vegan Oatmeal Whole Wheat Pancakes this week. These are undeniably fluffy and I really enjoyed that they were wholesome in both flavor and texture. There’s a little chewiness from the oats (which becomes less noticeable the longer you let the batter sit), and the flavor is beautifully sweet and grainy.
I mention these pancakes in juxtaposition to the King Arthur pancakes because the two could not be more different from one another. And yet they’re both made from a base of whole wheat flour and oats. The King Arthur recipe makes flatter, bendier, yet still tender pancakes; while Shanika’s recipe is fluffier and has a “shorter” (or crumblier) texture. The next thing to experiment with would be to try to make vegan pancakes from the King Arthur recipe. It seems feasible with a plant-based milk and perhaps a flax egg, or maybe even no egg at all, but I’ll keep you posted on that!
Testing notes: The only substitution I made to Shanika’s recipe was to use plain oat milk in place of the almond milk. Also, I used oil to grease the pan (after almost reaching for butter!) instead of the vegan butter. I imagine coconut oil would work too, but you’d gain a little flavor from it. I mentioned letting the batter rest. The only reason I did that was so I could feed the kids and get them on their way before making my own pancakes. But I think a 15-minute rest helps the oats soften and not have quite so much bite to them. They’re delicious either way, depending on what kind of time you have and the texture you like.
My lunches this week derived out of the surplus of egg whites that accumulated in my refrigerator after developing my Maple Cream Puffs recipe. Normally I use egg whites in baking, but I’ve had my fair share of cream puffs lately, so instead I decided to cook with them. I landed on this Egg White Frittata from Denisse at Le Petit Eats, which is loaded with veggies and not much else.
I don’t think I’ve ever made an egg white frittata before, but I was not the least bit disappointed with what this recipe produced. The peppers added bursts of flavor and texture to the otherwise neutral egg whites, and since I didn’t have a jalapeño or zucchini I doubled up on the peppers. I also added scallions for hints of onion and because I decided to eat my eggs with… You guessed it… More pancakes!
This recipe for Quick Sourdough Herb and Scallion Pancakes is a recipe I worked on early in the pandemic when many people were baking with sourdough. The pancakes are a great, super easy way to use up discarded sourdough culture — and a good excuse to eat pancakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They’re crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside with lots of herb and onion flavor. They were the exact right complement to the soft, scallion and pepper studded frittata.
Testing notes: I already mentioned a couple of changes I made to the frittata, but I also chose cilantro in place of the parsley and garnished with a spoonful of chili crisp.1 Although I didn’t consciously make any changes to the pancakes, I did mistakenly use baking soda in place of the baking powder (and lived to tell the tale). The pancakes were soapy and bitter in flavor, but with the chili oil, eggs, and avocado, I managed to palate them nonetheless. I won’t soon make that error again, though!
My photo above leaves a lot to be desired for this last recipe, but I can guarantee you that this Coffee Smoothie from Jenn Whittingham at Three Buds Apothecary is anything but unimpressive to drink. Sweetened with dates and frozen banana (primarily) and thickened with cashews and chia seeds, it’s simultaneously rich, refreshing, and filling. In one sip you’re hit with chocolate and coffee at first, followed by notes of nuttiness and dried fruit, and finally some distinct hints of butterscotch, banana, and malt.
I enjoyed this on one of the warm, sunny days we got this week, and can see myself making a habit of this when warm weather comes more consistently. One of the reasons I really liked this recipe was because Jenn takes the time to explore what is likely one of the lesser known ingredients in it: maca.2 I’ll get into this at some point soon (and will be speaking to it in a presentation I’m giving in a couple of weeks), but explaining the origins and cultural context of ingredients is something I feel strongly that all recipe developers should do.
Testing notes: I made a point of sourcing all the ingredients that go into this smoothie (except the coco nibs because I forgot to add them to my list), so I prepared the recipe as written using a rather dated blender. It worked beautifully save for a couple of smaller date chunks.
Hopefully there’s a recipe here that will entice you into the kitchen in the week ahead. If there’s a category or type of recipe you’re looking for, let me know, and I’ll be sure to include it in an upcoming edition of FFF!
Chili crisp originates from China and is an infused oil with crunchy pieces of chili, onions, garlic, scallions, and other aromatics. While the Chinese have been cooking with infused spicy oil-based condiments for centuries, it wasn’t until 1997 that it started being produced commercially. It was a noodle shop owner, Tao Huabi, who first manufactured her sauce under the brand name Lau Gan Ma.
Maca is a cruciferous plant that has grown in the Andes Mountains of Peru for over 3000 years. It has been cultivated for the consumption of its root, which is typically dried and cooked before being used to make dishes such as porridge (mazamorra), soup, jam, and empanada. The dried root can also be ground to a flour or powder (the most commonly exported maca product), or fermented into a weak beer (chicha). In this smoothie recipe, the powder form is used.