local whole wheat crepes with peach butter

 

Man, I am so impressed with these crepes. Whole wheat, no eggs, no milk, no problem! They still come out soft, flexible, and delicious, especially with homemade local peach butter. Adapted from this recipe.

Ingredients:
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 flax egg (1 T. ground flaxseed + 3 T. water) (not local)
2 c. water
1 T. honey (for sweet crepes)
1/8 t. salt (not local)
oil/butter for frying (not local)

Directions:
Mix up the flax egg and then add water, salt, and honey, mixing well. Then add the flour and mix well. I used an immersion blender and it worked well. Pour the batter on a oiled pan on medium, spread the batter thin with a spatula and cook until golden brown, then flip and cook some more.

Comments:
Participating in the Dark Days Challenge has been a nice way to challenge myself to try to make things more local. It always brings up interesting questions. In the case of these crepes, I replaced the egg with ground flaxseed, which is not local (but could be since I've seen it growing in gardens around here, although I imagine processing it would be time consuming). If I had chickens, I'd be putting eggs in everything. But I don't. So, weighing other factors, like cost, humaneness, energy intensity of transportation, ground flax is the clear winner.

As a side note, I took the opportunity to experiment with pour-able crepe crackers. In my cracker experimentation, I thought it would be cool to try a pour-able cracker recipe, so I didn't have to trouble with rolling out the cracker dough. So I poured a big, thin crepe and put it in the oven:

They were fine, but not as satisfying as actual crackers. They took a lot longer to bake, and didn't really save much work. Still, pretty nice with cheese and mushroom pate:

breakfast sandwich

Okay, this is a mundane post. There's nothing earth shattering about an egg patty in an english muffin, but then again there is something truthful and beautiful about the everyday, common place things in our lives.

(BTW, these egg patties got their shape by cooking the eggs in onion rings. You could also buy a metal doodad for this purpose)

tofu scramble

There is a lot you can add to tofu scramble to make it delicious no matter what season it is. Since it is winter, we added frozen corn, frozen edamame, and frozen spinach (all from the farmers market). This time we experimented with adding reconstituted dried bell peppers (red and green)--which adds more color to the scramble. You could also add reconstituted sun-dried tomatoes or mushrooms. Turmeric, nutritional yeast, and soy sauce finish off the seasonings of this hearty breakfast. I don't know if people started putting turmeric in tofu scramble just for the color, but now I can't imagine tofu scramble without the distinctive turmeric flavor. And I like nutritional yeast so I try to find a way to put in everything.

Serving Size: 4

Ingredients:

1/2 large onion, diced

1 lb extra-firm tofu, drained and crumbled

2 large cloves garlic, minced

2 t. turmeric

1 c. frozen corn
3/4 c. frozen spinach, minced

1/2 c. frozen, boiled, shelled edamame

1/4 c. dried bell peppers bits, reconstituted in 1/4 c. red wine
1 t. basil
1 t. thyme
1/2 c. nutritional yeast

1/8 c. soy sauce

salt and black pepper to taste

In a frying pan, saute the onions with 1 T. oil and a pinch of salt until translucent. In the mean time, crumble the tofu into small pieces. I like to squeeze the tofu brick between my fingers over a colander. I then push the tofu down in the colander with my fists, squeezing out as much water as I can.

Add the crumbled tofu, turmeric and half of the minced garlic to the frying pan. Mix once then allow the tofu to brown on one side. Once browned, continue to saute stirring more often. Add frozen corn, frozen spinach, frozen edamame, reconstituted peppers, basil and thyme. When the frozen ingredients have thawed add soy sauce, nutritional yeast and the remaining minced garlic. Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Serve with hot sauce if you like and buttered toast.