Category Archives: pancakes

by | November 15, 2010 · 9:23 am

Visual Utopia!

     Hi, I’m Becki. Welcome to my life. It is jam packed with creativity (mostly created by other people, but sometimes I have inspiration and get all artsy).

Some artists are scary. Very, very scary!
     My life is also full of food. TONS and TONS of food!
Yesterday’s roasted veggie scramble with fresh tortillas and salsa at Sofrita.
OH YES!
Lemon pecan pancakes, full of lemon zest and crunchy pecans.
The lightest pancakes I’ve ever eaten!
Coffee is food.
Peanut butter cookie topped with apricot jam!
Gigantic turkey legs and foot-long hot dogs… turkey legs are food, as for the hot dogs – the verdict is still out on whether or not these are actually food.
Puppies are delicious, but again, not food.
Margaritas with salt are not food, but when you send it back and get one WITHOUT salt, it is the consumable.
Tex-Mex rolls with a chipotle-ranch dip. FRIED! Yum.
     
     Last night we (the artist and myself) went to Visual Utopia, aka VU Bistro, for dinner with some clients.
I ordered the grilled salmon with garlic mashed potatoes and roasted baby carrots. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had such perfectly cooked salmon!
Of course we had to get dessert! Our awesome waiter brought us the very last slice of flourless chocolate cake. I almost cried tears of joy, but that would have made the cake too salty.
Visual Utopia. It’s named that for a reason!
It’s a small romantic and exquisite restaurant with live entertainment. Last night’s singer, Tommy Holloway, has a vocal range of FIVE OCTAVES! Unheard of! How does he not ridiculously famous yet???
     My time in Fountain Hills is coming to an end. We packed up the booth tonight, I suffered many crushed and bloodied fingers, and tomorrow we’ll head back home where I can breathe a sigh of relief and prepare for the next trip. I love my life. I’m blessed beyond words.

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Filed under art festival, Flapjacks, margaritas, pancakes, Sofrita, Tommy Holloway, Visual Utopia, VU Bistro

by | September 30, 2010 · 8:44 pm

Green Monsta Pancakes!

     I made pancakes for breakfast. Again.

     We only had about 2 cups of spinach in our fridge this morning – definitely not enough to make three Monstas for three hungry roommates, so I decided to create something new, exciting, and scary!

Green Monsta Oatmeal Pancakes
Dry Ingredients:
1/2 cup whole grain rolled oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup soymilk
2 cups spinach
1 small carrot
1 banana
1 teaspoon vanilla
Soymilk to thin out the batter
     1. Combine all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
     2. Put the first five wet ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
     3. Stir 1 1/2 cups of the spinach blend into your dry mix and whisk until smooth.
     4. My first batch ended up too thick and didn’t cook all the way through, so I added another 1/4 of a cup of soymilk to thin it out. Use your own discretion – that’s what makes it fun!
Frightening! This might be good for breakfast on Halloween…
     5. Spoon a heaping tablespoon of batter into a large greased pan.
This doesn’t look appetizing…
     6. Let the pancakes cook through for a few minutes, and flip them when the bubbles around the edges pop.
Since there’s banana blended into the mix, they tend to caramelize pretty quickly.
     7. Cook the pancakes for another 3-4 minutes, then attempt to serve them in an appetizing fashion. This will prove to be very difficult.
See what I mean?
I’m not sure this angle helps it at all…
     This was an interesting try for me… The pancakes tasted like banana pancakes, but had a bitter aftertaste due to the raw spinach, and I don’t know how to get rid of that for next time – maybe steam the spinach beforehand?
     I’m going to go gargle some mouthwash for a bit. Okeybye!
Any suggestions to get rid of the bitterness without adding an artificial sweetener?

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Filed under ATTACK OF THE PANCAKE, banana pancakes, bitter aftertaste, green monster, green monster pancakes, pancakes, scary

by | August 4, 2010 · 9:41 am

Baking and Pottery!

     Today was a perfect day. All of my perfect days start with a Green Monsta! Today, I had a Monster Monsta!

This thing had five cups of spinach in it! FIVE!!! It definitely tasted a little more spinach-y than usual, but in a good way. I could feel myself absorbing that green energy with every sip!
     My roommate and I, fueled up with green, went on an hour long hike down and back up our ridiculously painful trail. It was a hot one outside, but it felt great to finally be moving again!
     After we got back, I threw some of the leftover Oatmeal Blueberry-Cocoa pancake batter into the pan.
The batter really thickened up overnight! I mixed up the leftover mashed banana into the batter and didn’t need to use any to top it.
They were good the first day, but today they were AMAZING! Thick and rich and gooey inside!
     Since I had gone to all the effort to make my CocoButta, I decided to put it to good use and make Angela’s Summertime Cherry, Banana, Coconut Butter Bread. This recipe has been on my mind since she first posted it in June. Prep was very easy – I find that vegan baking setup generally is very fast.
I used the cherries that I pitted, halved and froze last week.
It took a little longer to cook than she stated. Mine was in the oven for roughly an hour.
Delicious and gooey! Overall impression: it’s good, but very, VERY dense. It was so thick that I stopped after 1/4 of a slice. I think next time I’ll use fresh cherries, add another tablespoon of coconut butter, and try a different flour (I used oat flour). I also added 1/4 of a cup of walnut pieces to the batter for some added crunch.
     All that baking made me hungry, and since I’d only had a quarter of a slice of the bread, I threw together a mini-burrito.
A small raw tortilla topped with 1/2 of a cup of refried beans, 3 tbsp of salsa, 2 tbsp of guacamole, 1 tbsp Tofutti’s “Better Than Sour Cream”, all on a bed of lettuce. I finished about 3/4 of this before I was satisfied and made myself stop. So. Hard. To. Stop!
     I did a little work for the manager from home, ate 2/3 of a cup of leftover Potato-Corn Chowder from yesterday, and then it was time to head to POTTERY CLASS with my mum!!!
I was excited and grungy! I wore all old clothes, prepared to get dirty!
     We got to the studio, which is located in an adorable little neighborhood on the beautiful property of the owners/teachers. I wanted to dig up their backyard and transplant it to my house.
We went under an archway that is covered in grapevines, with HUGE bunches of grapes on them! This backyard really is magical and alluring.
     We got inside, got on our aprons, and had a quick lesson on kneading the clay, throwing it onto the wheel, centering it, opening the clay, drawing up the sides, and shaping it. It was really that quick of an introduction, then she let us get straight to the wheel.
Boo to the Yah.
Yay, mom!
     My mom made 3 bowls, a mug and a soapdish, and I made 4 (really, really flat) bowls, and a small teacup. The teacher watched us center, helped us even out the clay, and walked us through every step. It was nice to get right into it and get our hands (and clothes) dirty – I’m not a fan of watching, I like to DO! This class was perfect for me, and I got some awesome girl-time in with my mom :).
     We got out of class around 8:45pm, COVERED in clay (I found some underneath my ear when I washed my face), and headed home. I had a big mug of caffeine-free peppermint tea, and a few water crackers with a little smoke gouda on top. Since I have another day off tomorrey, I’ll be hanging with the parental unit and enjoying being HOME! Charlie St. Cloud might make an appearance too, depending on our lunch schedule :).
What’s your favorite arts/crafts to make?

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Filed under burrito, Cherry-Banana-Coconut-Butter Bread, clay, green monster, Home, Ohsheglows, pancakes, Pottery class

by | August 3, 2010 · 9:25 am

Pancakes and CocoButta!!!

     “The Chief” aka portion-control, is going wonderfully! It’s ridiculous how much food I was stuffing myself with. Taking my time to enjoy every meal and starting with smaller portions really cuts down my consumption! As of now, I’m satisfied food-wise, full of chamomile tea, and very happy.

     I did something DIFFERENT today! I made a new recipe… kinda… We were out of spinach for Monstas, so I whipped up some pancakes: adapted from Angela’s Blueberry-Carob pancakes. Thanks, Angela!
Oatmeal Blueberry-Cocoa Pancakes!
1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup quick cook rolled oats
1 tbsp Trader Joe’s sipping chocolate powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/3 cup unsweetened soymilk
3/4 cup blueberries
1/8 tsp sea salt

In a large bowl, mix together the oat flour, rolled oats, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Pour the soymilk into the dry mixture and whisk. The mixture will look VERY watery, but don’t worry, the oatmeal soaks it up after a few minutes! Stir in the blueberries.
Chocolate milk!

Pour a HEAPING scoop of batter into a pan that has been sprayed with canola oil and heated over medium for 3 minutes.
See? They turn solid! It’s like magic!

Wait until the tops of the cakes have begun to dry out and the little bubbles have popped (about 2-3 minutes), then flip the pancakes and cook the other side for 2 minutes. Plate and top with some mashed banana instead of syrup!
(I took the mashed banana tip from Angela as well. Delish!)
This made about 12 small pancakes. I had 3, made some for the roommates, and now have some leftover batter in the refrigerator for tomorrey morning :).

     After my awesome culinary expedition, I had to go to work. Sigh. This is how I spent my day:
This is a piece of paper that I sliced into oblivion using a pair of small scissors. It took me 2 hours to do this. I think I need a new job that mentally challenges me a little more…

     Lunch was the same old, MSTRwBR. You should know what that means by now. From now on, just assume that’s what I eat for lunch – If it’s ever anything different, it shall be photographed and blogged about!

     On the way home, I swung by Sprouts to pick up some unsweetened dried coconut to make my own CocoButta! I spent a lot of money on this coconut, so if it didn’t turn out, I would have been bummed!
That’s right, I splurged and spend $1.41 cents on this half-pound of coconut!

     I threw the whole thing into the food processor and pulsed it a few times.
Hmm, that didn’t do much…
7 minutes later…COCOBUTTA!!!!!
(Thanks for the recipe link, Justin!)

     I poured the CocoButta into a tupperware and set it on the counter. I’m still waiting for it to solidify. Am I supposed to refrigerate this? Does anyone know?

     Dinner was made for me by the roommate! I am so freaking spoiled!
1/2 cup of Summer Corn, Bacon and Potato chowder (soymilk was used instead of regular milk), and a glass of Brochelle.

     We took our amazing Zinfandel (Brochelle is EPIC!) outside and spent the evening enjoying the (somewhat blurry, thanks to my camera) view.
Now I’m off to start my “weekend”! I’m really looking forward to making some coconut-cherry-banana bread tomorrow, then throwing around some clay at pottery class with my mum!

What are you most looking forward to this week?

6 Comments

Filed under bacon, Brochelle, coconut, coconut butter, pancakes, potato chowder, summer corn, sushi, work