Pancakes, lovely Pancakes!

Oh, I'm so happy. After over a year of a pancake-less diet, I finally had some on Thanksgiving morning. So Thankyou, Thankyou Bobs Red Mill GF Pancake Mix! Whoever Bob is - not sure if he is the little old man on the packet or not, he deserves a medal.
Now, being a good English Girl, I love a good British breakfast as much as the next person but there is something about American pancakes that just hits the spot for breakfast and I've missed them. If you've never had a good english 'fry-up' it basically consists of fried: eggs, bread, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, and some baked beans. A healthy combination I think you'll find!

So, before discovering Bob the Wheat free God, I have looked longingly at recipes to make your own Wheat free pancake mix, but never seem to have the inclination to try to bother with them. It pretty much feels the same as trying to make Gluten free bread. But now with Bob on my side I feel I can do anything. Yay!!

They were so tasty, even David liked them. We ate them with lots of maple syrup and fresh fruit. You do have to use an egg and milk in the mixture but you can use soy, rice or almond milk if you don't want to do the dairy. I also used a pancake maker (griddle thing) that I got as a gift and has never seen the light of day. It worked really well.

Experiments

I had a huge bag of organic veg delivered this week. When I ordered it I was obviously in a bit of an experimental mood as there were a lot of things I had no idea what to do with. There was Broccoli rabe which I had never used before but I know Rachael Ray uses it a lot so it must be OK! Also, some white turnips. I hardly ever even cook regular turnips so I was at a loss with the white ones. So, on a chilli sunday evening I thought I'd try to recreate those sunday dinners from back home. These are usually meat, loads of plain cooked veg, roast potatoes and gravy. Of course we can't have the meat part so I searched through every single recipe book in my collection (thats quite a few) to look for a simple vegetarian entree to fit the bill, something like a nut roast but I didn't have any nuts and I wasn't going back out in the cold. I'm not sure why but nothing inspired me from those books. Not a dang thing. All the 'loafs' required flour and egg and I wanted a vegan one. But then an overwhelming sense of creativity came over me and I decided to make one up. Usually these attempts don't come out all that well. Anyway this one was a bit of an exception - it was literally thrown together from the pantry. I call it 'lentil loaferole' as its a cross between a loaf and a casserole but tasted pretty nice.

Lentil Loaferole
Ingredients

1 cup green lentils
2.5 cups water
1 tbsp fresh rosemary finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh thyme finely chopped
1 medium onion chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 14oz can chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup oats

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Cook the lentils in water - simmer until tender - add more water if necessary. They should be tender but not mushy.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the oats, chopped rosemary and thyme.
4. When lentils are cooked and cooled, add to the oat mixture.

5. Sautee the onion and garlic in the oil until soft. Add to lentils. Stir in the tomatoes.

6. Transfer to a loaf tin, bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes until the top is brown and has formed a crust.

So, after all that experimentation I wasn't ready to tackle the strange veg so I served it with Steamed Brocolli, carrots and mashed sweet potato. I also made some gravy, as otherwise it could have been a bit dry. I don't have a recipe for gravy though as we use vegetarian instant gravy from the UK out of a box. Its yummy.

So, I still had the problem of what to do with the strange veg, so last night I made a soup. I love making soup as you can just bung it all in a pot with some stock and voila! So, we had White Turnip, Broccoli and Brocolli Rabe soup. Very tasty. I also made Burritos. However, I used the rice flour tortillas which are usually OK but I have now discovered that they don't hold up well to being put in the oven. They basically came out of the oven with the texture of a taco. But, they were rescued by dollops of Toffuti sour cream and salsa to moisten it up a bit.
Essentially the burritos were nice I just won't put them in the oven next time.

Vegetarian Bean Chilli Burritos
Ingredients

1 can kidney beans
1 tbsp chopped pickled jalepenos
1 tsp olive oil
1 zuchinni - sliced into half moons
1 green pepper - diced
1 onion - chopped
1 clove garlic - crushed
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
4 rice flour tortillas

Method

1. In a small saucepan, cook the beans and the chopped jalepenos in the oil for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and leave to stand
2. In a skillet, fry the onion and garlic in the oil with the cumin and coriander for about 5 minutes until starting to soften.
3. Add the zuchinni and pepper and continue to fry until all the vegetables are soft. Add the beans to this mixture and stir over a low heat to warm through.
4. Spoon the mixture into the tortillas but don't overfill. Wrap them into parcels.
Serve with Tofutti Sour Cream and Salsa.

A few food disasters this week

This has been a strange week. Not least because we have had visitors around since the 26th, so it has been a vacation from the norm. We have therefore been eating out a lot / getting takeout and having wine. The take outs haven't been too bad though - I've been sticking to Thai and Indian instead of pizza, for example.

We also went to Savannah for the weekend with some friends. It was great but of ourse you have no control really over what to eat. Its hard then to stick to the diet when you are eating out a lot - especially somewhere like that where a lot of the food is fried and there's not a lot of vegetarian options. I just try to make up for it by having healthier sides like rice or potato salad instead of fries and I had a greek omelette yesterday which had spinach and feta cheese, instead of the veggy one stuffed with regular cheese. Its not much but makes me feel better about having an omelette instead of the oatmeal I probably should have had.

In between visitors and going away I have experimented with some more new dishes but have been fairly disappointed by the results.

I have a Jamie Oliver recipe book that I hardly use as there's a lot of meat dishes in there but he had a recipe for Sweet & Sour squash. The picture looked lovely. Needless to say my version did not turn out like mr olivers. I definately cooked the squash too long and it came out rather mushy. So, not content with ruining that I decided it would be great to eat it with some rice noodles. Well, you couldn't have gotten 2 textures that went together least! I am lucky that David will pretty much eat anything I put infront of him and rarely complains.

Then a couple of days later I made some Chilli Bean Burgers. I love making burgers as you have complete control over what goes in them. Bean burgers are especially nice. This was yet another recipe from the Moosewood low fat book. They were really nice. They have mustard and ketchup in them though so may not be for you if you are really trying to cut out all processed food.
The book said to have it with their Brazilian rice which sounded lovely but was in fact pretty tasteless, so much so that I didn't even bother saving the leftovers. There is one burger left though that I will be eating for lunch...

Chili Burgers

1 cup chopped onions
4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup peeled and grated carrots
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
3 cups cooked pinto or kidney beans (2 15-oz cans, drained)
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp ketchup or 1 tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Saute onions and garlic in the oil for about 5 minutes until the onions begin
to soften. Add carrots, chili powder and cumin and cook on low heat for 5
minutes. Set aside.

Mash the beans in a large bowl with a potato masher or the back of a spoon.
Add the mustard, soy sauce, ketchup or tomato paste and the sauteed
vegetables. Mix in the oats. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Form the burger mixture into patties. Cook burgers in a nonstick skillet on
medium-low heat for 5 to 8 minutes on each side.