Curried Kale Pancakes with Maple Glazed Onion topped Eggs!

Now I  know that all of the experts say that the key to a good food blog is enticing pictures of the dish that pull people in to read further and maybe even attempt your dish.

But I made something so delicious for brunch today, that I just had to tell you about it immediately.  I wasn’t even thinking that I would write about it because I had no idea it would be so good.   But then we gobbled it down and I never got a chance to take any pictures!

Hopefully just my description of the item will be enough to do the trick for you!

As anyone who has been following this blog for any length of time knows all too well,  I am a big fan of kale!  And that I like to use it in untraditional places.  Case and point in my kale pancakes.  But I have to say that this recipe is one of most looked at postings on this blog.  And in fact, if you Google kale pancakes, it is the first item listed!  On ALL of the interweb!!

So this morning I felt like making some eggs, but was out of bread for toast and it is a bit of a dreary winter Sunday so I didn’t feel like going out to get any.

What to make?  I didn’t really feel like anything too sweet………of course the kale pancakes!

So I whipped up a batch of the pancake batter, only I changed it up a bit and actually this version is completely Vegan.

Into the blender went:

• 2 whole cloves fresh garlic
• about 2 cups worth of ripped kale leaves, stems removed
• 1 cup plain almond milk
• 1 cup ( or more till you achieve right consistency) chick pea flour (or flour of your choice)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp curry powder

Whiz that all up in the blender and then let sit a bit.

Meanwhile, heat up your skillet ( I used two at a time to move things along quicker).

Once they are ready, add a bit of butter or oil of your choice and make your pancakes as you normally would.

Keeping the cooked ones warm in a low oven.

Once your pancakes are all cooked, use one of the skillets to caramelize an onion.

When it is well caramelized, douce it with a generous glug of good maple syrup!

Meanwhile, in the other skilled, fry up as many eggs as needed.  I did them to a nice “over easy” so that when you put them on top of the pancake and cut into them, the nice creamy yoke will ooze all over.

When ready to assemble, place pancakes on the bottom, then over easy eggs and then top with the maple covered onion!

Oh MAN was that good!

And if you were so inclined, feel free to add a little bacon or sausage to the equation and some extra maple syrup on top and you will have an impressive brunch item indeed!

I really wish I had a picture for you, cause it was THAT good!

Vegan Challenge – Week 3

This week was the hardest so far.

I think my biggest complaint about the Vegan diet is that it is a lot of WORK.

I realize that some Vegans are okay with Vegan “convenience food” but in my opinion, that kind of defeats the purpose of this experiment.  I am eating Vegan to see if it makes any health differences and therefore feel I need to eat “healthy”.  Cause let’s face it, French Fries ARE Vegan!!

So I just find that the preparation of meals seems to take a lot of “steps” and use and AWFUL lot of dishes!!

I don’t know how someone could possibly be a Vegan without a food processor??   I know I have used mine every day since the beginning of this experiment!!  There always seems to be something that needs whizzed up!!

I’m not really a big fan of the one taste / texture meal, like a big pot of stew for instance.  I would need to have stew, with something else and something else so that I can mix and match the flavours and textures on my plate.   There ARE exceptions of course, but as a general rule.

So that’s what I mean by Vegan preparations seem to make a lot of dishes.

Say a “quick” Mexican meal for instance.   There is a pot for the rice.  Then a another pan for say some cooked bean product.   Then if you are making salsa, chopping board, bowl, knife.  And then if you make your own tortillas, a mixing bowl, the tortilla flattener, the griddle.  And then some guacamole, yet another bowl……….you get the picture.

I also find that my energy has been low even though I have been sleeping better.  And I AM being very careful to do all of my combining to get enough protean but perhaps it is too much bread or gluten products?

I also have a skin condition that I was hoping eating clean would alleviate, but instead it has actually gotten worse than it has EVER been!

So what does that all mean?  I don’t know.

One week to go.  All I can think about is how NEXT Monday morning I will be having a BIG cup of real tea with cow milk!!

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I made some little Vegan pancakes this morning.

They turned out surprisingly well without any egg in them!  In fact, I’m of a mind to never use egg in my pancakes again after trying this!!

Get your griddle warmed up and then add together in a bowl:

• 1 cup whole wheat ( or whatever you like) flour
• 1 tbsp brown sugar ( or sweetener of your choice)
• 2 tbsp baking powder ( this seems to be the key to the puffiness!)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• a handful of wheat germ ( optional )
• 1 cup almond milk ( or milk of your choice)
• 2 tbsp neutral tasting oil

Add in all of the dry ingredients first and give a quick stir with a whisk to combine everything, then add the oil, then lastly the milk and keep whisking.

You want a nice, smooth, wet batter.  So add a little more milk if it is too stiff.

Spoon or ladle on dollops of batter on to the griddle and you are in business!

I topped them with some toasted pecans and fresh raspberries.

And some real maple syrup…….it’s only from a tree…..so it’s cool for Vegans right?

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My new favorite toy

I just LOVE this thing!!

The Chef got it for me for Christmas and now I use it all the time!

I originally wanted it so I could make flat breads, Chapati and home made tortillas. I’d been making them in the regular skillet but sometimes it is too hard to get the lifter or spatula under them at that angle.  But this, with no real edge, makes it so easy!

But it also works just great for making pancakes, like kale pancakes, or otherwise!!

And then, what’s really great, it that when you are done, you can pile the pancakes on the griddle  and keep them warm in the oven, because it is all cast iron, no worries about melting any handles!!

And clean up is a snap, because we all know that we NEVER use soap on our cast iron products!!  Just give it a good scrub in hot water with a good stiff brush, dry it immediately and you are back in business!

My suggestion is you pick yourself up one of these.  You will be amazed at how handy it is!!

Pantata?

Or perhaps we might call it a Fritcake perhaps? What we have here is a cross between a Frittata and a Pancake!

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Quite by chance of course. It started off innocently enough.  I was going to clean out my fridge and whip up a nice little week night supper of Frittata and salad but realized after it was too late, that I simply didn’t have enough egg.

I had already sautéed up all of the other ingredients and was ready to go.  What to do?  Instead of the “several” eggs that I needed, I found that I only had two!

So instead I used those two eggs to whip up a batch of pancake batter, unsweetened, so a “savory” pancake, if you will.

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Start by going through the fridge and taking out all the little containers of stuff and you didn’t want to waste but didn’t get around to using.  For instance, we had:

• cooked sausage
• cooked cauliflower
• roasted peppers

Then I added some fresh:

• sliced mushrooms
• chopped onions
• chopped green onions
• fresh parsley

And get those all sautéed up together.

Meanwhile whip up a batch of your favorite pancake batter ( or try this one).

Once the left overs and veg are all cooked up, pour the batter all over them.  Then give the pan a good swirl and a jiggle to make sure that the batter has gotten down into every nook and cranny.

Cook on the stove top on medium heat until the whole thing stops looking jiggley  or look for those tell-tale pancake “bubbles”.   Now if you are highly skilled and want to attempt to turn it over.  Go for it!  But I was not that ambitious and so I popped it into the oven for a few minutes till it looked properly cooked.

Then I took it out, put the oven on broil, topped the cake with a good sprinkle of grated cheese and a some smokie paprika and shoved in under the broiler till the cheese got nice and melty!

Serve with a nice side salad of veggies and you are in business!!

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Potato Cakes

Some people call them potato LATKES while others call them potato pancakes.  Although in my opinion the pancake is just that…..a more of a pan cake item.

But whatever you want to call them, one thing would have to be yummy!

Click here to look at wonderful pictures of potato products!

Whether you are making them for a traditional meal like a Hanukkah feast, a fancy brunch or like I did as just a tasty side dish, it is pretty much all the same technique give or take, unless your Bubby tells you different!!

Here is what you will need:

• 1 poundish peeled potato ( I used half yam for extra nutrients!)
• 1/2 a medium onion
• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup or more flour
• a sprinkle  ( 1/2 tsp) of salt & pepper

After you have peeled the potatoes you will need to grate them.   If you are doing it by hand, you will need to keep the grated potato in a dish of cold water so they don’t discolour on you.

But if you are a slacker like me and grate them in the food processor which only takes seconds…..they don’t even seem to have time to go brown!!

So grate you potatoes as you will and then grate the onion, but DON’T put the onions in the water!!

Once you have both items nicely grated and ready to go, put them together in a CLEAN tea towel and squeeze the dickens out of them over the sink!  This is an important step if you want nice crispy cakes!

After you have squeezed them……try and squeeze them a bit more…..or get someone with bigger hands to have a go!

Then dump that out of the towel into a mixing bowl ( make sure you dump out the  soaking water!).

Working quickly…….add the flour, egg and seasonings.

Mix it all up very well, with your hands is best, making sure that all of the potato is covered with flour and egg.

Meanwhile, heat up some nice oil in a shallow ( non stick is most effective) fry pan.   Just enough to cover the bottom of the pan, no need to have them swimming!

Once the oil is hot, add in spoonfuls of your potato mixture and squeeze them down so that as much surface as possible is touching the pan.

The size is your choice depending on what you are going to do with them.   You can have small ones like I am doing this time, or one big honkin one that takes up the whole pan.

Whatever you like.

Cook till you see they are starting to crisp on the bottom then CAREFULLY turn them over.

Once done, place on a baking sheet lined in parchment or even a bit of paper towel and keep them in a very low oven just to stay warm till you are ready to eat.

The traditional accoutrements are apple sauce or sour cream.

But as you can see, I’ve just used them as my “potato side dish” with dinner.

Have fun.

Potato Cakes

Warning:  These ARE addictive.

Very Berry Cakes

I found myself with and abundance of berries.

I use them in smoothies and freeze them and all that but I feel that blackberries in particular kind of annoy me in a smoothie.  I find that the  seeds get caught in your teeth.

I was going to make some muffins but I didn’t have any baking cup liners and didn’t feel like greasing and cleaning and all that nonsense, so I just opted for some pancakes instead.

I always make my batters in the blender because then you can pour it easily into the frying pan.

So start with your favorite pancake recipe.  I use a lot of “groovy” stuff in mine to make them more nutritious, like oatmeal and chia and all that, but any batter will do.

Then add about 1/2 cup or more of black berries, or the berries of your choice.

The black berries make the cakes super purple, which in some circles is kinda cool.

While they are cooking on the first side, I gently add a few blue berries to each cake, that way they stay in one piece and don’t make the cakes double purple!

Keep the cooked ones warm until you are ready to serve.

I didn’t feel like the usual maple syrup so I added a dollop or two of my favorite lemon goat cheese and a few drizzles of honey.

Very Berry Cakes

Very nice way to start the day!

Salmon and pancakes

So put them all together and what do you get?

We have “What we had for dinner”!

However this would make a really good brunch or lunch too.

Start with the roasted tomato pancake as the base, top with salmon, add some healthy greens and then drizzle with a little left over salmon cooking juice and you have yourself a lovely meal.

Maple ginger salmon with roasted tomato pancakes

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Roasted tomato pancakes

If you saw my recipe for KALE pancakes earlier this year  ( click here to check them out ) you know that I am a big fan of savory pancakes.

I just really prefer them as the “starch” item on the plate, to rice or noodles or potato.   They have so much more flavour and soak up the flavours of whatever you put on top of them.

Here is a different version, roasted tomatoes.

So to start with roast off some grape or other small cute tomatoes  ( click here to see where we’ve done that before ).

Then make up a batch of your favorite pancake batter only omitting whatever sweetener it calls for.  Or just use the kale pancake recipe for a double whammy of goodness!

If using regular pancake batter add a clove or two of fresh garlic and a few leaves of fresh basil or 1 tbsp of  dried.   Make sure it is mixed well ( I do them in the blender) and then let the batter rest a little before you start.

When you are ready, heat the pan, and pour your first or first few pancakes depending on if you are doing big ones or a few small ones.

THEN strategically add the roasted tomatoes.

Strategically place roasted tomatoes

Let the pancakes bubble as one normally would with pancakes, flip and repeat!

Keep them warm while you make the rest of them.

Roasted grape tomato pancake

Now you are ready to pile her up with whatever you like!

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Kale pancakes

All right, I know what you’re thinking .  “WHAT??  Kale pancakes??  Really??”

Yes, it’s true.  But don’t worry, these are delicious AND a great way to hide the highly nutritious kale from the leafy green haters!!

I’ll admit that I have never eaten just kale pancakes, although I’m sure they would be just fine.  Instead I always use them as the base for other interesting dishes.  A side dish, an accompaniment, the starch item to balance a plate.  And they go with a multitude of things.

Pretty much anywhere you would use rice as a side dish, you could use the savory kale pancakes.

It is especially good with any sort of “saucey” item like stew, curry, even stir fries.  Just line the plate with them and start piling on the toppings!

Depending on the topping, these can be a regular dish, or a vegetarian dish.  Or if you make the pancake without the help of eggs, it can be a lovely vegan dish.

Here’s what you will need, in a blender:

• 1 small regular onion roughly chopped  or 4 – 5 green onions
• 1 peeled clove garlic

Whiz these up in the blender with a few drops of water till they are well blended.

Then add the ingredients for your favorite pancake mix but exclude the sugar or only put half what the recipe would call for.

• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour (or whole wheat, spelt etc whatever you are into)
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 egg (optional if eggs aren’t your thing)  just add 3 tsp of baking powder instead
• 1 1/2 c. milk  ( I use almond but any milk will do)
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Whiz all this up and then add 1/2 to one whole bunch of kale making sure to remove the middle stems.  I just rip it off the stem, that seems to give you small enough pieces.  Add it a bit at a time to the blender and whiz it down until all is mixed and you have enough.

Once you have your nice green batter, it’s time to make your pancakes!

Heat up your pan and add a little oil so they won’t stick.  Then pour in enough batter for what ever size you’d like your pancake to be.  You could even make more than one at a time if they are going to be smaller.

Then, just like regular pancakes, you will wait for the tell tale bubbles to appear on top of the cake and then it’s time to turn her over!

When they are done, keep them on a tray or heat proof dish in a 200 degree oven till you are ready to eat them.

And there you have them.  Now they are ready to top with your toppings.   The saucier the topping the tastier they get because the sauce will soak into the pancake making them double delicious!

Pancake Tuesday

Or Shrove Tuesday as it is traditionally known and observed by Christians as the last day before lent. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrove_Tuesday

I was always of the school that when making pancakes with things in them, lets say chocolate chips, or banana or blueberries, I would always just mush them in with the rest of the batter and then plop the batter on the griddle and see what you get.

But the problem with that is that you never get even distribution of what ever tasty morsel you have added.  There is always too much in one and not enough, or none at all in others!

So the resident Chef taught me a trick.

Make your regular batter……..put your dollop of batter on to the griddle…..and THEN add the goodie bits to each cake, distributing evenly.  This is done while you are waiting for the tell-tale pre-flipping bubbles to appear.

Adding the berries to the pancakes

Then when the bubbles appear, you flip the cakes as per usual and they cook up with a fair number of bits in each cake!

Blueberry pancakes

 Happy Pancake Tuesday!