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:

chila: the original gluten free pancake

A friend had us over for dinner last night. She is bravely transitioning into a life free of gluten (wheat, barley, rye, etc) and since we like a good challenge, we offered to make a gluten-free flat bread.

But it actually turned out to be a crazy easy endeavor - thank you internet!  No, we did not recreate naan with all kinds of alternative flours (rice flours, potato flour, xanthan gum, tapioca starch, and so on) because there already exists a traditional Indian pancake called chila (or cheela or cheelay) that is very simply made of chickpea flour (aka garbanzo flour or gram flour)!  Here is the recipe that we used.

spent grain pancakes

Last night we started brewing a batch of cranberry porter. I've been trying to figure out ways to use the (potentially delicious) spent grain. Pancakes are one idea. These pancakes have a dark color and flavor because the spent grains from our porter included chocolate malt and black malt. I also made tea with the spent hops, and it made me sleepy.

This recipe is based on Tom's vegan pancake recipe.

Serving Size: 4

Ingredients:
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
2 T. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 T. sugar
2 c. non-dairy milk (we used almond)
1/2 c. water
1 T. canola oil
2 c. spent grain, pureed in food processor
1 t. caraway seed, ground (optional)

Mix dry. Mix wet. Combine. Make pancakes. Great with applesauce!

pumpkin pancakes

Eric made me pumpkin pancakes this morning! We've been eating pumpkin non-stop this week because I baked and pureed the flesh of a 22 lb pumpkin. So far we've had pumpkin seeds, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin polenta, pumpkin chili, maple syrup pumpkin purée, and now pumpkin pancakes. Pumpkin pancakes were definitely a highlight. Anybody have any other pumpkin purée suggestions?

Serving size: 14 unconventionally shaped/sized pancakes (for 3-4 people)

(recipe borrows heavily from Cookography)

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
3 T. white sugar
1 t. salt
1 t. ground cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
2 t. yeast

Wet Ingredients:
1 c. milk (we used soy)
1 c. pumpkin, puréed
1/4 c. oil
1/2 c. chocolate chips
1/2 c. water

Mix dry ingredients then mix in wet, adding 1/2 c. or more water for thinner pancakes. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Let sit out at room temperature for 30 minutes or more before cooking.