Currently viewing the tag: "pancakes"
Nothing will settle me into a day of auto/train/plane travel than a hearty breakfast. And there was still time to squeeze in another stop in Atlanta. Breakfast would be served at Stone Soup Kitchen, yet another bustling breakfast spot in the hip Grant Park area.
Stone Soup Kitchen offeres patrons a menu with vegan dishes clearly marked. Thank you for this, Stone Kitchen! They also offered me vegan butter for my delicious Blueberry Corn Meal Flapjacks, made with soy yogurt and my friend Bob Mills’ gluten-free flour. Finally, a meal that isn’t predominantly constructed and bound by gluten! I am ashamed to say that I ate 4 out of 5 of these darlings… Ashamed, because trip s like this make me feel like Audrey in National Lampoon’s European Vacation. It’s ok. With my entire day tied up in some kind of transport machine, it was the last of my gluttonous mission.
It was time to say goodbye to the 7-lane north and south ping-pong of my Hotlanta excursion, time to say goodbye to Southern drawls, time to say goodbye to the obscenely ugly, bright purple-blue Hyundai Accent. And with easy-on/easy-off interstate access around the block from Stone Soup Kitchen, I managed to return my vehicle to the airport 3 days later on the exact minute of my pick-up. Stick a fork in me, I am done!
Here are some other non-food sights:
Cornelia, Georgia is home of the Big Red Apple, a bright, sweet fruit in a salad of the Gods. Why the apple? Pardon the Wiki paraphrase: The embrace of apple production in the 1920′s saved the area from the evil boll weevil who munched the heck out of the state’s cotton fields and pushed rural folk to the bigger cities.
The town was empty, save for an awesome old couple taking pictures of the apple.
I past this impressive auto salvage castle on Interstate 365 on the way to Cornelia. I thought I’d stop in and take some pictures on the way back. The friendly white-bearded proprietor let me know this was a very common occurrence. The elaborate auto salvage “theme park,” lined by a stacked-car fence, is visited often. An area college’s photography class does field trips there.
I had free roam to the expansive property, but I wasn’t going to stay long. For a million reasons. The eerie feel of the place began to make me feel claustrophobic. All of these vehicles were destroyed and they still seemed angry about it.
But I had to take a closer look at these buses. These were like the ones that got thrown at Superman.
School buses in fetal position.
If cars had a hell, this would be it.
I saw a billboard for Cinderella’s Closet, a pageant shop, and knew I had to capture some of the color. I was disappointed that the gaudiest dresses were bagged up. The place had two mini-stages with cat walks.
Bad taste for every age!
Back at the hotel I spied these two little kitties on top of the dumpster. I watched them intently for a few minutes, missing my little buddies back in New York.
It was time to say goodbye to the beautiful pumpkins that graced my home and classroom for weeks. I really love this part. Opening ‘em up, pulling their stringy innards and seeds from their packed, dense flesh with my bare hands, I imagine the procedure is akin to butchering. Processing pumpkin is a very worthy way to spend an afternoon.
I roasted a variety of pumpkin together, including some winter squash. White pumpkins are often smaller and seem to ripe at a snail’s pace. I find orange pumpkins to roast better, i.e. more quickly, and have thicker seeds than the white. When the orange pumpkin flesh was soft and velvety, pulling away from its paper-like skin, the white flesh was barely penetrable with a fork. In the end I was left with a slew of puree. Here are some of the things I made.
I whipped up a batch of apple butter pancakes using the rest of the apple butter. These were hearty cakes I ate during the week for lunch, packed with rolled oats and ground flax. For the topping, a pumpkin coconut milk whip cream. This was barely sweet but that was no concern given maple syrup is always on my pancakes. With a side of persimmon, a fabulous breakfast, lunch, or dinner!
Ok, more pancakes. This time the pumpkin was in the pancakes! I let the puree strain on cheesecloth to ensure a more potent pumpkin flavor. I also used ground salba “egg” substitution instead of flax. Holy omega-3s! These were thick and delicious though The Electrician and I agree that cloves was a bit much. With potent allspice and ground ginger already in there, I’d omit it next time.
Want more pumpkin? How about pumpkin bread? A moist and wonderful spiced loaf from Hell Yeah It’s Vegan. With a cup of sugar and maple syrup in this baby, how can it not be good? This is my sweet fix for the week… if it lasts.
More pumpkin adventures to come. Stay tuned.
With summer on the outs, and a stock of Asian noodles to utilize, I wrapped up some end-of-summer rolls. Fresh, vibrant and with a variety crunchy textures, these see-through beauties have all the elements of a delicious summer snack.
Inside: vermicelli, basil and mint from the backyard, cilantro, sliced English cucumber (for their seedlessness), red/yellow/orange peppers, sliced green chili pepper, diced scallion, and crushed peanut. 
They were so good, but I hardly had the appetite after eating so many nibbles during prep. Luckily they store well and are perfect right out of the refrigerator.
With a hankering for wet cake batter (I get this odd hankering once in a while), I whipped up a batch of lovely vanilla cupcakes. I usually make Isa’s basic vanilla recipe from VCTOTW, but wanted to switch it up. I used this recipe from All About Cupcakes and I love it! They had a nice, fluffy and a not so oily-wet texture. So I dressed their outsides to the nines to match.
I wanted to use the beautiful yellow sugar crystals from India Tree so I added a litte lemon juice to the icing… and a leave of mint from the yard. I love having it out there as a garnish option.
With the fig season here, I have been rejoicing. So as to not shove the entire pint in my mouth, I though fig pancakes were in order, inspired by Cinnamon Snail‘s recent menu addition. Here those fantastically-textured fruit sliced and getting cozy in the pancake batter (always this recipe).
As always with most of the times I make pancakes, I enjoy making them so much that I forget what is a rational portion. The combination of fig pancakes didn’t work so great. The seeds became a bit overwhelming and the large wet slices didn’t help the pancake’s texture. Of course, this was with a stack of three. One might have been just fine. 
Do you know how much I love arugula? I can’t open the fridge without sneaking a leaf as if it was this decadent, forbidden food. The bitterness blows my mind. Add roasted yellow beets, crisp red pepper, a heavy hand of sunflower seeds, and a dousing of Bragg’s ginger and sesame vinaigrette and Wow! 
It is time to eat pancakes!! Yes, the annual Pancake Day is upon us, when we must use up fat, butter and eggs to make way for the marked abstinence of Lent. Of course, in my case, these pancakes contain no butter or eggs… so am I in the clear? Who knows! Either way, I’m eating pancakes… and based on the stack I made, I am probably eating them the remainder of the week.
Now that I am working again I need to get myself back into the kitchen. I need to start making lunch again. It has been a long time since I cooked anything, sadly, and I’ll have to start again slow. Slow like with one of my easy favorites: pancakes.
I made some for a late lunch today to wet my appetite.
Perfect salty and sweet, oh how I love pancakes.
So for the week, a whole slew of lil’ silver dollar ones. They aren’t the greatest re-heated but that’ll motivate a better choice for next week.
Before it got too hot out, I got a little playful on the stovetop: chocolate swirl pancakes. Mixing two teaspoons of cocoa with a half cup of pancake batter, I marbled up my breakfast to make a slow morning of naming genres on my iTunes a bit more productive. Plus, I was heading back to Brooklyn, which meant a kitchen constantly coated in industrial film.
I had hoped for a darker contrast of colors, but the chocolate mixed up quickly. Next time I’ll pour separate bowls of batter straight on the pan. Beware: it’s difficult to see those cooking bubbles with these flapjacks.
Huge, cake-like pancakes fluffed up real high! The baking powder might have been responsible. So excited in this heat wave, it had the batter’s soymilk in huge fabric-y bubbles as soon as it was added.
Breakfast is served.
Strawberry pancakes–golden, thick and fluffy pancakes pebbled with slices of strawberry. Food Perfection. Use this recipe for perfect pancakes.
Fruit salad with nothing but the best stuff. No pushing around boring cantaloupe and tasteless honeydew. Just the most coveted in the fruit salad: strawberries, pineapple and watermelon tossed with fresh mint. I am going to name this Karen’s Fruit Salad.
I am all riled reading In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan of The Omnivore’s Dilemma fame [which, for shame, I've never read... because, frankly Scarlett, I don't have a dilemma]. I am enjoying the book a great deal, though not without a bad taste in my mouth. Refined flour has become appalling to me. As one of the first processed industrial food, I find its stark white quite sickening, the attempt to fortify what has been processed out [fiber, B vitamins, etc] feeble and both a symbol of a warped and troubled food system. That being said, I’d like to ween off the white stuff… refined, processed, nutritionally-void belly-filler and its accompanying spikes in glucose… which then converts to fat. To celebrate this, my heart, and another happy morning at The Electrician‘s, I made heart pancakes: whole wheat flour cut with just a small dose of the white stuff… and yet loaded with pure maple syrup. ♥
Can you figure out what these are?
They’re kind of the coolest thing ever to happen to pancakes. Star Wars pancake molds from Williams Sonoma. Yes, that’s an Imperial stormtrooper, Darth Vader and Yoda, a great birthday gift The Electrician received. Of course I just had to break them in with a batch of vegan pancakes.
They’re trickier than they seem. Using a pancake pen, I filled them with my unsteady hands and struggled to flip them as they had cooked onto the molds. I managed only to make one of each head for the birthday boy before creating several fully operational Death Star pancakes (uh, round ones) for myself. Next time I will add a bit of oil to the molds.
1. Watching the butterfly activity around the Electrician‘s butterfly bush.
2. Collecting hugs.
3. Trying to return to baking. Here is a two-layer orange cake with lemon glaze icing. For my Pop’s birthday.
4. Weekending in the Hamptons. That’s an outdoor shower next to the “Love Shack”.
5. Seeing the family.
6. Eating A LOT of pancakes…
…and French Toast.
7. Making videos of my “best of” baking endeavors.
8. De-cluttering.
9. Making tons of lists.
10. And my all time favorite, bothering Frankenstein.
Welcome to state #4 of the wandering Ford Focus mission: Colorado! After a long ride on the empty, desolate interstate north of Santa Fe, the highway expanded to three times its former width and a slew of drivers crowded the road to one of the country’s most rapidly growing boomcities… Denver, Colorado. Home to the Broncos, Coors, and, more importantly, My friend Andrea and her wonderful family, who will host us through the holiday weekend.
But before the holiday hullabaloo, lunch was in order. CP and I made a pact. No more soda… it fills you up fast, trumps up the bill and spikes the blood-sugar level. Buuuut, this one last time, on this hot steamy day, we had to partake: Oogave! Agave-sweetened cola from the fountain. The first taste of scrumptious meal at Denver’s vegetarian institution WaterCourse Foods. I visited WaterCourse in the February of 2009 (post here) during a quick visit to the Colorado area. I haven’t soon forgot about how friendly the menu is. The entire vegetarian menu can be made vegan, save for the regular pancakes.
Although it was a hot and muggy day in the mile-high city and a fresh light meal would have been nicer to my belly, I had to try one of Watercourse’s fabulous comfort food fried delicacies. After all, when have you ever seen crispy fried artichoke as a sandwich main? So the polenta-encrusted artichoke quarters on a cake-like sweet potato-y bun and dressed with lemon-caper aioli was my choice. For my two sides: quinoa salad and their famous oil-drenched onion rings.
I pass Fall Cafe in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Monday through Friday when I go to work. And Monday through Friday I look at the chalkboard sign hanging in the window announcing their Saturday-only vegan brunch plate! Thing is, I’m never near my job on Saturday. Usually I am nestled in a quiet dead-end in the suburbs. But with a shuffle of plans, I headed to brunch with my favorite veg power-couple, Foodsparrow and TimX. We caught up over the perfect portion of vegan pancakes, tofu scramble, tempeh bacon and cut fruit. The plate hit the spot! It was nice to learn that the dedicated fellow who mastermined adding this dish to the rotation of this small coffee shop’s offerings is a 20-year vegan (not a 20-year-old vegan!) spreading his love with a small hot plate behind the counter. Stop in and tell him you love that he offers you the whole tub of Earth Balance to take to your table.
Vegan Reporting By Location
