Pancake day!

 I love a food ritual - so pancake day obviously means pancakes!  Veggie ones for the veggie - and added a bit of bacon for the veg dodger.  Gluten free for this household, but doesn't have to be.

olive oil
leeks
garlic
red pepper
mushrooms
italian herbs
mustard
spinach
Cheddar

bacon

plain flour (GF for us)
2 eggs
milk (or soya milk)
olive oil for frying

salad leaves

1.  Chop and sautee leeks in olive oil, add crushed garlic, a pinch of herbs, chopped red pepper and mushrooms and cook until soft (you could add a little water or stock and simmer gently), stir in a teaspooon of mustard.
2.  Make the pancakes - whisk 2 eggs and milk into flour  the batter should be about the consistency of emulsion paint.  Fry a ladle full at a time, toss when first side is done, and cook the other side.  Stack, with greaseproof paper in between.
3.  Fry bacon.
4.  Fill the pancakes with a couple of spoonsful of veg and a small handful of grated cheese (add bacon if using), roll up.
5.  Pack pancakes into an oven dish and cover with more grated cheese.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Serve with a simple salad - they are surprisingly filling.

Yorkshire tacos

There was pancake mix left over from last night. There was root veg left over from veg box, and a red cabbage.  All lovely stuff, but not always an instinctive "turn to" when time is pressing.  Tonight, I achieved this inside an hour.... it's frenetic at the beginning, then you can chill, then a bit of faff in the last 10 mins.  (Using last night's pancake batter).

Red cabbage
olive oil
white wine
garlic
swede
beetroot
parsnip
carrot
butter/margarine
turkish beans
salt, pepper

1. Chop red cabbage.  Tip into big pan. Add crushed garlic, salt and pepper (fennel, caraway, juniper or sweet spices eg ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg could also be added now), Tip in liquid - white wine and/or water, cider, fruit juice .... simmer
2.  Start root veg mash - peel a nd chop into 1 cm cubes (ish) whatever root veg is to hand - today - swede, beetroot, carrot and parsnip.  Boil for about 15 minutes.
3.  Put beans in oven proof dish, and put in the bottom of a medium oven.
4.  Make pancakes - keep warm.
5.  When root veg are done (you can easily push a sharp knife into them) - drain, put back into the pan - add knobs of butter - slash in all directions with a sharp knife ... it's not mashed, but its all cut up into tiny pieces and the root veg are all mixed together - grind in some black pepper.
6. Serve, scoff ...

Was delish ... I did a taco type thingy with all the veg bits inside the pancake - but do exactly as you fancy.

Pancake day: pancake with sugar and chocolate hazelnut spread

Pancake day!  Gluten free pancakes were made ... and "decorated" with chocolate hazelnut spread AND! sugar!!!! (you may be able to tell, this wasn't entirely my idea!).

Gluten free flour
eggs
soya milk
salt
almond oil (I would use peanut, but I had run out)
sugar
chocolate hazelnut spread

1.  Put the GF flour in a bowl, make a well in the middle.
2.  Break in an egg (or two)... whisk in a tiny bit.
3. Splodge in about a cup of soya milk, and whisk again.  Add a pinch of salt.
4.  For the batter, you are aiming for a consistency of double cream, so whisk, add more milk if required.
5.  Leave to stand.
6.  Heat oil in frying pan - when it hits smoking point - add batter and tip pan around to make a thinnish pancake ...
7.  Give isa couple of minutes, when it looks dry on top it's time to flip ... flip - cook the other side.
8.  Turn out onto plate - add topping - hazelnut spread if you really must!  but lemon and sugar for me, maple syrup ... or savoury ...

Smoked trout pancakes

We had a huge lunch out - so didn't really feel like much tea - but about 8pm we got a little peckish, so I rustled up this - and it was delicious.

Pancakes

SR flour - gluten free for us
fennel seeds
1 egg
Soya milk
salt and pepper
peanut oil
smoked trout
Lemon
spinach
lettuce
basil
tomato
red onion
olive oil

1.  Sprinkle fennel seeds and salt and pepper into the flour.
2.  Add the egg, and then soya milk, whisking to form a batter.
3.  Fry pancakes in batches in peanut oil.
4.  Top pancakes with trout and spritz with lemon juice.
5.  Mae simple salad by tossing together shredded lettuce with baby spinach and basil leaves.  add tomato and onion, drizzle gently with olive oil.

Scoff

The fennel seeds make a difference!

Leek and mushroom savoury pancakes

 Pancake day!  But neither of us like sweet stuff much, so, I picked some tasty stuff from the veg box and some halloumi .. and these were the best pancake day pancakes ever.

Gluten free pancakes

Gluten free flour
Egg
Natural yogurt
Soya milk
Peanut oil




Leek and garlic mushrooms

Olive oil
1 leek
Mushrooms, sliced
Crushed garlic
Butter

Salad

Baby salad leaves
Baby rocket
Radish
Spring onions

Roasted beetroot
Roasted cherry tomatoes

Fried halloumi

1.  Start with the pancakes - make the batter.
2.  Then gently with the veg sweated down in oil and butter.
3.  Make the pancakes, keep warm.
4.  Fry the halloumi.
5.  Put everything on the table, and let people assemble their own.

Delicious.

No duck pancakes

Peking duck pancakes, from an Asian supermarket, freezer section
Hoisin sauce
Onion
Carrot
Fennel
Cucmber
Sesame seeds


1.  Steam pancakes for about 10 minutes.
2.  Julienne vegetables
3.  Scoff - by smearing sauce on pancake, topping with veg and sesame seeds - roll up

Delish - quick and healthy

Gluten free breakfast pancakes with apple and cranberry sauce

Truly rubbish pic, dunno what was wrong with the camera.  These were birthday breakfast pancakes for someone who is giving gluten free a go, to see if it helps with general aches and pains.

Olive oil (for frying, could be any vegetable oil)
Butter
Gluten free flour (Self Raising Doves in this instance)
Soya milk
Egg
Natural yogurt
Pinch of salt

Apple sauce

3 cooking apples
handful dried cranberries
sugar

1.  Put flour into bowl and crack in egg.  Stir in to start the process.
2.  Add pinch of salt and about a cup of soya milk.  Whisk.
3.  Add about 3 tbsp natural yogurt and whisk until flour has been incorporated, and the mixture is smooth.
4.  The texture should be of very lightly whipped double cream - if too thick add some milk, if too liquidy add some flour (easier to add a little mixture to some new flour, mix, then mix this in to the big batch - fewer lumps).
5.  Heat oil and butter in frying pan until just smoking.  Fry pancakes in batches - about 6ish cm across.  You know one side is done when you start getting tiny bubbles at the outer edges creeping in about 1 cm.  Flip and fry on the other side.
6.  Meanwhile peel and chop apples, put in a pan with sugar (to taste) and cranberries.  Add a tbsp water and cover with a cartouche (greaseproof paper scrunched up and wet and plonked over the fruit to seal in moisture).  Stew gently until pancakes are done.

Scoff, with or without maple syrup, sing happy birthday (badly).

Chinese chicken pancakes

Marinate chicken breasts in soy sauce, rice wine, chinese five spice, star anise, garlic and szechuan peppercorns for a few hours.  Poach in marinade topped up with water for about 15 minutes.  Fry off, add some of the strained poaching water to reduce.  Remove chicken and shred.  Steam pancakes.  Shred chinese cabbage, spring onions, cucumber and radish.  Serve chicken with spicy reduced marinade over, hoisin sauce for pancakes.  Get stuck in.  Grins and licked fingers from victim.

Pancakes, a day or so late, but lactose free

One year I'll get to pancakes on the right day, but obviously not this year.  Chuck about a cup of flour in a bowl and add a decent pinch of salt.  Whisk through to break up any tiny lumps, and introduce some air (lazy seiving).  Make a bit of a well in the middle and crack in an egg.  Splash in some soya milk.  Whisk in flour by starting with the whisk in the centre of the egg and breaking it open, stir around gently incorporating soya milk and flour.  When it starts coming together into a paste add some more soya milk and repeat ... what you are aiming to do is to draw the flour into the mixture without generating any lumps, so add more soya milk and whisk again until the consisitency is like double cream.  Leave to stand for 20 minutes, whisk again. On a crepe pan, or frying pan, heat - to hot - the smallest amount of peanut oil - you really only need a film - I have done it by wiping kitchen paper dipped in oil on the surface, but usually can't be bothered.  When pan is hot add ladle of mixture and swirl into a pancake.  Leave on the heat until pancake moves with a bit of a shake - then flip and cook the other side.  Yum - served, tonight, traditionally with lemon and sugar.  Infact it was that squeezy lemon out of the lemon bottle - but I thought it tasted of plastic, so will not be tempted by that again - it was the down to victim having a flash of nostalgia.  Victim loved them - I think even the plastic lemon nostalgia thing.

1st BBQ of the year & pancakes with blueberry syrup for breakfast

And not particularly exciting - mini burgers with *hot* stir fried veggies - boy, Nando's hot sauce is HOT HOT HOT.  Pancakes and blueberry syrup was for breakfast - yum, chortle, yum.