Berry tasty pancakes!

Dear Foodies,

Here is a quick weekend/weekday breakfast recipe for you. I found the Moosewood restuarants cookbook on a visit to the library and got it home sincerely after having read about it from Bee & Jai and Suganya. I really loved reading the book cos its filled with loads of information and advice pertaining to ingredients, cooking methods and meal planning. Though there are very few photographs the book does a brilliant job in tempting you to try its recipes. Being a newbie at reading cookbooks its the photographs that I look for the most in them. But this one is surely much more than a coffee table read. Do pick it up if you get a chance...

I made these pancakes the night after I brought the book home, it was a Saturday and I was all set to have a leisurely breakfast/brunch :D I hate the frozen pancakes and the ones served at IHop and the like, since they are too eggy for my taste. This recipe is for a vegan pancake, and is filed as Vegan oatmeal-walnut pancakes in the book I think.

So here goes the recipe, I went back to the library y'day and looked it up as I forgot the proportions :)) I substituted the walnuts with berries as I forgot they were lying in my freezer! I really need to run a inventory check on my kitchen! I did not want to use oil as called for in the recipe and sub'd it with butter. It some how felt better, don't ask me why :))

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup - All purpose flour
• 1/4 cup - Whole wheat flour
  I reversed these amounts, using more whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp - Baking powder
• 1/2 tsp - Salt
• 1/4 tsp - powdered Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp - powdered Nutmeg
• 1/4 cup - quick cooking Oats or 1/4 cup - rolled oats flour
  
I used the latter by running the rolled oats I had for a minute in the spice grinder

• 1/4 cup - chopped Walnuts (toasted in the oven)
I used dried cranberries & goji berries soaked in warm water for 5mins and chopped fresh strawberries

• 1 Tbsp - Oil
I used melted butter

• 1-2 Tbsp - Maple syrup/honey or a sweetener of choice
• Soy milk - enough to make the pancake batter (cannot recollect the exact amt)

Method: Prepare the batter when you are all set to eat since it should not be left to rest for long

• This is as easy as it gets. Simply sift/mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl along with the nuts and berries (+ soaking water). Add the oil, sweetener and soymilk and bring all the ingredients together to form the pancake batter (idli batter consistency maybe). The book clearly asked that we DON't overmix the batter, a few folds of the spoon and turns of the bowl will do.
• Heat a griddle/non-stick pan on medium heat and scoop 1/4 cup of the batter onto it, don't spread the batter with the spoon, if needed swirl your pan around to spread it out a little. In about 1min you will see tiny bubbles forming on the pancake, slide a spatula under it and flip it to cook the other side. The second side took less than a minute to cook.

Serve immediately or arrange them in a single layer in a warm oven or covered with a kitchen towel for a short while.

I had these with some fresh peaches and strawberries. Instead of the usual maple syrup, I thinned out some mango jam by heating it in the microwave for 15 secs and used that as a sauce. This was a really good breakfast, I loved the berries in it and I was also left guilt free :)

From the comments to this post I realized I had a recipe that fits two events! Thank you Mansi and Srivalli :)

The first event is Mansi's own Healthy cooking event that also has a cookbook waiting for its winner. You can find the rules and guidelines for this event here. This recipe seems to fit the bill well due to the use of whole wheat flour and oats flour instead of all purpose flour alone. Paired with fresh fruit and with the absence of refined/processed sugars, its healthier too. Both, the walnuts given in the recipe and the berries I used, are rich in antioxidants. At a seminar I attended in my office, I learnt that walnuts are a recommended vegetarian/vegan alternative for fish oil capsules, (a known supplement for omega-3 fatty acids), flax seeds being another one. You can find more information on other dietary sources for these essential fatty acids here. The qty of walnuts though that you would have to consume on a daily basis is a lot more for the same amount of fatty acids got from fish oil capsules. Adding a spoon of whole or ground flax seeds would also be very nice in this recipe. Ground flax seeds do not contribute much flavor wise, so you can safely add them to salads and cereals. From the past month or two I have been adding a spoon of it to my morning cereal for my daily dose of omega-3 fatty acids. I find them to be the best egg substitute so far while baking (used it in sweet/savory cakes, cookies and cupcakes), because when heated with water and beaten, they have a beaten-egg consistency that lends a support structure to the baked product.

The other event is Nandita's WBB event which is now playing at Raaga's blog this month. This is one of the best thought out events because running out of breakfast ideas is O' so common for me, and trying to shove something into my mouth in the wee hours of the morning needs a lot of motivation and determination! Raaga made an excellent choice of theme this month, 'Express' breakfasts, which is the first criteria on my list. You can see that though I said it was a leisurely Saturday morning I still did not want to spend time in the kitchen, the leisure part is exclusively for the eating :)