Whole Wheat Lemon Buttermilk Pancakes

 

I like pancakes.

I REALLY like pancakes.

I get pancake cravings while others are getting chocolate cravings

But I am no pancake expert. Actually, last semester I had the luxury of a boyfriend who makes really awesome pancakes, but he left me ( not like that! He’s in Guatemala), so now I need to fend in the pancake world for myself.

But it’s ok. I’m having fun, and I’m totally getting better at making delicious whole grain pancakes.

Ok, you may be thinking what’s so hard about making pancakes?? But I want fluffy and light and packed full of random grain pancakes! And that is not always easy…or I suck at making pancakes (Sam come home and make me pancakes!)

Anyways, I’ve been making a decent number of pancakes, and this one came out blog post worthy!

So  here we go: Whole Wheat Lemon Buttermilk Pancakes

My roommates description of the lemon flavor in these was “it takes like a glass of water with lemon in it”

…basically I think he means there was a slight refreshing lemon taste to these, which was true. The lemon was a delicious side note. Plus, I think adding lemon helps to increase the reaction between the acid and the baking soda (therefore more fluffyness!!)

 

mmm I want them!

Ingredients (This is half a recipe-it made about 12 small pancakes)

• 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup oat flour (or some other fun flour, or just all purpose flour)
• 1/4 cup wheat bran or wheat germ
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 1 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

In a small bowl, rub the lemon zest into the sugar until fragrant. Sift together the flour, wheat bran, baking powder, baking soda and the lemon infused sugar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk and lemon juice. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk together just until there are no more lumps.

 

Melt  some butter in the pan. Pour out enough batter to make a small or medium sized pancake and watch until bubbles form in the batter. Then gently flip the pancake and allow to brown on the other side for about 2 more minutes.

 

These were good, and I think you should make them on Saturday (duhhhh that’s why I posted about them). They were fluffy and delicious and excellent stacked with banana and yogurt (you should also try that because not only does it taste good, you get a crazy high stack of pancakes).

 

Please Don’t Hate Me!

 

I left you.

I’m sorry. I have an excuse I swear!

Can we still be friends?

I can bribe you with bread!

It’s delicious, easy to make, and seriously, you can’t screw this up bread!

 

Irish Soda Bread (or Brown bread?)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

People celebrate by wearing green, eating cabbage, drinking absurd amounts of alcohol. I celebrate it by making bread!

It honestly is the easiest bread you can make. It took me a whole 15 minutes from start to finish to get this bread in the oven. FIFTEEN! If you don’t know anything about bread, that is unheard of!

Soda bread is what I make when I’m lazy.

Instead of using yeast, soda bread uses the magical reaction between the acidity in buttermilk and baking soda to create delicious lift. The result is a slightly more dense bread, which is fantastic with soup or just with some butter and/or jam. It’s more of a slice and enjoy bread than a sandwich bread, but I’m sure you could prove me wrong.

There are so many debates, statements and lost friendships over what “traditional” Irish soda bread is. Apparently raisins and caraway seeds are not traditional? Frankly I don’t care. I’m not Irish, I’m not really traditional, and I think raisins are a tasty addition to this bread…

Unfortunately I seemed to have misplaced my currents at the moment (who loses food…?), so my bread had none. I assure you, I have made it both ways and they both are fantastic.

No buttermilk? No problem! I don’t know who keeps buttermilk lying around in their fridge. And being cheap and lazy, basically any time a recipe asks for buttermilk I just substitute warmed milk with about a Tbs of either lemon juice or vinegar. MAKE SURE YOU HEAT THE MILK!! Then just let it sit for about 10-15 min, and bam! Instant buttermilk. Problem solved. I saved the day.

 

OK anyways. 

Go make this bread. 15 minutes + about 40 minutes of baking until deliciousness. Hell put raisins in it! I wont tell!

Brown Soda Bread

Friends forever?

-Leah

PS. I made a fancy pants soda bread last year that had ground black pepper and chopped fresh rosemary. AMAZING! (few TBS of each) Give it a try if you’re feeling adventurous.

Curried Lentil Soup

 

Jar of lentils, meet blog readers.

Blog readers, Meet my jar of lentils

 

Yes, it really is that mighty looking in person, and yes it really does tower over the highest sky scrapers.

There are a number of reasons why I have a jar of lentils that could feed 100 men. Let me list a few in single world explanations.

• protein
• budget
• excuse to use jar (damn that’s 4)
• protein
• awesome?

Ok that was kind of lame…

The point is, when I stopped eating meat, about every time I talked to my mom she made sure to tell me that I need to make sure I’m eating protein, and that plant based forms of protein often require mixing sources to form “complete proteins” such as rice and beans (by the way this is vegetarian 101 right now). Well mom, I listen to you (crazy right?).

Lentils are an excellent solution to the protein problem. Not to mention they’re cheap, they last forever, they’re healthy, and when you cook with them you end up making about 4x as much food as you thought you would because lentils go a lonnnnnnnggg way.

Moral of the story? Lentils are a vegetarian student’s best friend.

Still paying attention? The recipe is coming, I promise.

The problem with lentils? Most people have NO idea what to do with them!

BUT with a few simple ingredients you can make this delicious Curried Lentil Soup!

It’s warm, it’s happy, it’s easy, it’s cheap, it “warms your heart” as one of my friends puts it. It’s also really ugly, so I’m going to distract you with more pictures of my jar of lentils.

Curried Lentil Soup

Adapted from Oh She Glows

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 medium-large onion
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1.5-2 tablespoons curry powder
• 1 cup uncooked green lentils, rinsed and picked over
• 4 cups water
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• Kosher salt & black pepper, to taste
• 1 lemon, cut into 6 wedges

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in heavy large skillet or pot over medium heat. Add chopped onion, optional celery, and carrot and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook until onion is translucent, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes or so.

2. Add finely chopped garlic and stir until vegetables are soft but not brown, about 5 minutes longer. Reduce heat if necessary to avoid burning.

3. Add curry powder. I started with 1.5 tablespoons. Now, add the rinsed uncooked lentils and 4 cups water. Season with a sprinkle of kosher salt and pepper, add in lemon juice, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.

4. When lentils are tender, I poured about half of the soup into my blender and I blended the soup for a minute. I did this to create a very thick texture. After blending, stir the soup back into the skillet/pot and you will have a very thick soup with some chunky pieces left from the soup you did not process.

5. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and additional curry powder, if desired. Sprinkle with thinly sliced green onions and serve with lemon wedges.

Makes about 4-5 cups.

Seriously good stuff. I made this last night. LAST NIGHT! That’s how excited I am to share this with you! I never post that fast! Give it a shot. Winter is cold. This soup is not.

 

Happy lentil cooking!

-Leah

Cinnamon Snap Cookies

 

Oh look. It snowed again. That’s fun.

Yawn.

Have you noticed how many posts of mine are baking? I like to bake…and my baking is wayyyy more interesting to post about than my cooking.

My cooking generally is pretty uninspired and straight forward. Occasionally I get creative.

Baking though? Baking is magic in the kitchen. And delicious. And it makes everyone happy, including me.

Also the lighting at night sucks, and who cooks dinner during the day?

Moving on.

Do you miss Christmas? Christmas seems to give a point to this winter mess. It’s an excuse to curl under a blanket, or sit by a fire. Now that it’s February, winter is all about shoveling your car out of the snow and yelling at the weather man.

These cookies kinda taste like Christmas.

Let me bring you back.

I regret to inform you that I apparently was NOT thinking about taking pictures at all while making these cookies. I didn’t even get a picture of them when they were done! To be fair, they didn’t stay around for very long.

They were super good. Simply flavored, just as they sound. They’re basically a gingersnap cookie with a very present cinnamon flavor instead of…gingersnap flavor.

It’s a munchable cookies.

They take a bit of time just because they need to chill for a bit, but then it’s just slice, bake, and eat.

…eat a lot

…quickly

What? They’re munchable…

Cinnamon Snap Cookies

(Adapted from Simply Recipes)

Ingredients

• 2 cups four
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp ( 1 and 1/2 sticks)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 large egg
• cinnamon and sugar for rolling

1. Mix together flour, baking soda, salt cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the honey, egg and vanilla and beat until combined (a minute or so).

3. Mix in the dry ingredients until incorporated and the dough is smooth.

4. Divide the dough into two parts, and lightly roll them into logs on a floured surface. The logs should be roughly 2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for at least 2 hours.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or simply grease. Mix some cinnamon and sugar on a plate to any sort of proportion you like (the suggested is 1/4 cup sugar to 1 teaspoon cinnamon but i  generally put more cinnamon).

6. Slice the dough into 1/4 inch rounds with a knife. Press each round into the cinnamon sugar mixture, and place on the baking sheet (give them room, the spread).

7. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until they are a dark golden-brown. They burn pretty easily so I’d watch out! They become crisp when cool.

This recipe makes A LOT (about 4.5 dozen) which is a lot of slicing and baking. You can always make a batch and freeze a log for later though!

Happy munching! (seriously…they’re so munchable)

-Leah

 

P.S. I swear, it will be warm again some day

Oatmeal Pancakes, and a little something called Mexico

This title might seem a bit confusing, pancakes and Mexico don't tend to fit in the same sentence too often, however these two things currently share something- a good friend of mine. Wait... now it sounds like the pancakes contain person (they do say love is an ingredient...?), let's pull a Tarantino and jump back to this past summer.

As some of you readers may know, I spent summer here in Worcester. Having had my friends-in-the-area group reduced to a good handful I became an e-mailing/facebooking/texting fiend. Thankfully between visits to Leah in Cambridge, weekly themed parties, some awesome roommates, and regular conversations with Sasha I survived. During one such conversation with Sasha, a particular oatmeal pancake recipe was mentioned. After a desperate plea on my side and a fit of giggles on the other I had my recipe!

The recipe comes from a family friend of Sasha's and makes for some pretty darn quick and tasty pancakes. They are simultaneously light and dense, and are just sweet enough not to need any sugary garnishing, but certainly don't suffer from the addition!

Oatmeal Pancakes
Makes about 8 small pancakes

1 cup oats (I suggest rolled or instant)
1 1/8 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil


Mix the oats and milk together in a small bowl and let the oats soak for at least 5 minutes. Separately combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Beat the eggs with the vegetable oil. Mix all the ingredients together until just evenly mixed, and cook batter in small batches on a hot skillet (I normally set mine at about medium heat). Flip once the batter on the top side begins to look cooked (and the bottom has those awesome brown swirly marks).





Super easy and delicious!

Sasha happens to be spending the year in Mexico City, specifically in the D.F., volunteering at Casa de los Amigos. The house is a "Quaker guesthouse/social justice organization/community center/international community in the center of Mexico City that hosts travelers all over the world, as well as immigrants and refugees seeking political asylum." She even has her own blog, which you can find here, that is full of posts that range from beautiful pictures of the city, daily struggles of living in the city (air pollution and clean feet, for example), and brief illuminations on immigration and globalization. I recommend checking it out!

Also, I'd like to invite readers to post or e-mail us any awesome recipes you'd like to share. Who knows, maybe yours could be the next featured post!

Warm wishes and toasty regards,
~Kai