MAM Whole Grain Pancake Mix

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MAM Whole Grain Pancake Mix

I really love the convenience of the prepackaged mixes, but hate the prices, sugar, and all the preservatives. This is just as easy to use as the store mixes and takes less time to mix up than a trip to the store for the fancy box! Using your own reusable storage containers also means you will save on the garbage bill as well! We use this mix enough that it's just as easy to make a double batch.

3 1/2 c. Whole Wheat Flour
3 1/4 c. White Flour
3/4 c. Sugar or Splenda
1 TBS. Baking Soda
1 TBS. Salt

Directions:
1.) In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together thoroughly with a wire whisk.
2.) Store in a 10 cup container with airtight seal or gallon Ziploc type bag. The rigid containers are easier to measure out of, but the gallon size bags are quick and easy if you have them.
3.) Label with Use By date (6 months from the date made) and contents. Store in a cool, dry place.

Makes enough for approximately 5 batches of pancakes.

Adapted from the Make-A-Mix Cookbook by Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward, and Madeline Westover

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Mmmmm.... Food.....

Comfort food of Pancakes, Hashbrowns, and... What is that?

Picture it: You wake up one morning and it already feels like a good day. The thought of breakfast tumbles into your mind, accompanied with rarely felt memories of Saturday Morning and Cartoons. Your thoughts gather a bit more, like fluffy white clouds bumping into one another, hearing long ago shuffling in the kitchen as your mother works on breakfast. Saturday mornings sometimes meant golden pancakes with a special crunchy ring on the underside edge. It was like getting dessert for breakfast once you added homemade maple syrup on top of the buttery pancakes. Sitting next to them on the plate is a golden and crispy hashbrown decorated with a blop of ketchup. To complete the mental stroll down memory lane adding an ice cold glass of orange juice and a couple of pieces of bacon...

Wait! That's not vegan!!

This is what my mind went through last Tuesday. The recollection and memory of Saturday morning and cartoons was the strongest I can recall in about 15 years. My husband and I frequently have pancakes, but this particular morning I wanted Mom Pancakes. To me that means instead of using our non-stick electric griddle that I'd use our new cast iron pans and cook them in Earth Balance. Don't get me wrong, I really do like the healthier pancakes regularly, but for some reason today I was really missing not being able to crunch on the 'deep fried' pancake ring on the bottom of the pancake.

I must have been on a good luck streak that day because we also had orange juice in the freezer (I try to avoid premade orange stuff because of a serious bout of hives from some cheap orange juice that didn't state that it contained pineapple) as well as a new bottle of Mapleine flavoring in the cupboard that I previously hadn't bought in years.

Personally I have been very timid at trying tempeh, for one thing it just looks questionable. After doing some research online about how to spot spoiled tempeh and at least felt better about knowing it was supposed to look like that. I read a quote somewhere a few years ago that said pretty much you either like tempeh, or you don't. Fermented soybean patties. Sounds horrifying to tell you the truth. Being well reassured that I did not end up with a spoiled packet I decided to attempt to make tempeh bacon. The tempeh itself was just fine, although a bit crumbly, but the recipe I worked from was really lacking and really needs some work before it's publishable. Perhaps I will just stick with tofu bacon.

Hashbrowns growing up were in their entirety, grated russet potatoes, cooked in a patty shape in a hot cast iron skillet with bacon grease. For obvious reasons that wasn't going to work, but also I've always had the problem of the middles not cooking all the way. So I looked into a recipe that seemed promising, more like latkes, but because of my husband's severe allergy to onions and pepper we had to leave them out. They were mostly alright (although they do look pretty) but I think there was too much flour in them and leaving out the onions and peppers really affected them I think. So I won't be posting those recipes, but here is a couple I will post!

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Whole Grain Pancakes

Cinnamon and nutmeg added to the batter give the pancakes a very Autumn flavor that I just adore. This recipe looks a lot more complicated than it really is. My husband and I love this recipe and the flax seeds go with it just wonderfully! I often dump other things into the batter (extracts, spices, nuts, fruit) for whatever I'm feeling like that day. Feel free to have fun with it. Very versatile and the additional bonus is that these pancakes freeze really well! This is a slight variation on the one I posted on Vegweb in March.

1 1/2 cup unsweetened Soy Milk
1 1/2 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Flax Egg (2 1/2 tablespoons ground Flax Seed + 3 tablespoons Water whisked together)
1 1/2 cup dry MAM Whole Grain Pancake Mix
1 to 1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1 to 1 1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
2 tablespoons Canola Oil
3 TBS Earth Balance

Directions:

1.) In a small cup or bowl, mix together soy milk and vinegar then set aside.
2.) In another small cup or bowl whisk together the ground flax seed and water until thickened (usually takes me 2-3 minutes.)
3.) In a medium size bowl whisk together soy milk, flax egg, dry mix, cinnamon, nutmeg, and oil until combined. Small amounts of dry mix or water can be added to attain desired consistency.
4.) Heat a 10 inch cast iron skillet on medium heat with about a TBS. of Earth Balance to coat the pan.
5.) Measure 1/3 cup batter for 3 pancakes in a pan and cook until the outer bubbles on the raw side of the pancake have popped and not reformed but the inner bubbles are still there, flip, and cook the second side until light golden brown.
6.) Repeat with remaining batter and Earth Balance.
7.) Serve with your favorite toppings!

Makes approx. 9 pancakes

Veganized from the Make-A-Mix Cookbook by Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward, and Madeline Westover

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Low Sugar Maple Syrup

I am very well aware of the fact that there is commercial sugar-free syrups available but for this nostalgic Saturday I wanted to see if I could make homemade sugar free syrup to be close to what my mom taught me to make when I was a kid, but with my own twist.

2 c. Water
2 TBS. Cornstarch
1 c. Splenda
1/2 c. Imitation Honey
1/2 tsp. Canola Oil
1 TBS. Mapleine
1/2 tsp. Vanilla

Directions:
1.) In a medium sauce pan whisk together cornstarch and water until all lumps have been removed, then add Splenda, imitation honey, and oil. Stir until imitation honey thoroughly dissolves.
2.) Cook on medium high heat until it begins to boil, cook for 5 minutes, whisking continually to prevent scorching.
3.) Stir in Mapleine and vanilla and let cool for 15 minutes in the freezer. The syrup should thicken up a bit once it cools.
4.) Serve with pancakes, french toast, or vegan danish pancakes!

Makes 2 1/2 c. of syrup

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I told my hubby that this is what I want for my birthday breakfast in October! It was one of the best I've had in a long time to trigger so many long buried happy memories. And a special thanks to our baby girl, Dimples, for being so silly. (although she almost looks more like a furry worm with a gaping maw!)

Take me home, country roads...

Tom Turkey and Rammy Kin sitting on my fabric cabinet.

I was born and grew up in a small town. Life was quiet and relaxed overall, the cattle ranchers and other farmers held onto their western roots. Every Labor Day weekend they hold the “world famous” county fair, parade, and rodeo. It was one of the candidates for being Washington State's capitol, with a college that is now Central Washington University, and even the Governor's castle until a fire burnt down a large portion of the town in 1889.

Being a country girl isn't about what you do, its about who you are. It has taken me a lot of years to realize that fact, because I have never lived on a farm. My mother was a student at the university to build a future for herself and her four children, working, and taking care of her mother who lived at one of the local nursing homes. My three older siblings were born in the larger town where I now live, but I was born in my beloved home town. I think my mom was never quite sure what to make of her tomboy little girl who went around chewing on twigs, running barefoot whenever she could, and digging up earthworms because they were cute. Eventually she started calling me an "Ellensburger" on occasion because I was more like the country folk in town than her citified self knew what to do with.

Over twenty years have passed since then, sixteen of those years I have lived in an overwhelming larger city that is slowly taking over the surrounding hills. There were acres of orchards when we first moved here, now I think there are two very small ones. Two weeks ago when my husband and I were heading home on the city bus the driver commented to another passenger that he could deal with a lot of kinds of weather, just as long as the wind didn’t blow. As simple as that was, it shocked me to the core. I had just been thinking of how nice it was to have a real breeze for the first time that I recall this year. It was comfortable and felt really nice. Most people who move to Ellensburg quickly comment on the wind, mostly because its hard to ignore. I remember walking home from school when I was twelve and the wind was blowing enough that I could significantly lean into it and not fall over. I have never been a skinny person and it almost knocked me over a few times in that walk. Needless to say I thought it was great fun (although a bit cold) and still makes me giggle.

Being in the country to me evokes the feeling of wide open spaces, blue skies that stretch to the mountains that hardly poke up in the distance. It’s a type of freedom, of spirit and heart, happiness and the feeling of being home. When I’m there, I never want to be anywhere else in the world. Sometimes over the years I’ve worried that somehow the country part of me would be overtaken by the city girl. But from what my heart says it is as alive and well as it has always been.

I am a relatively new vegan (less than six months now) but I had been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for a little over three years. I finally made the shift because of multiple allergies that I was so tired of being paranoid of eating the wrong things and ending up with hives, or just extremely uncomfortable. I’m happy and excited to have a small arsenal of pure vegan cookbooks filling my shelves to learn new techniques from, discover new strange ingredients, and enjoy food that I had never even heard of in my cattle ranching hometown. I’ve gone through the phase that I think most of us do once we chose a meat-free diet of buying lots of prepackaged foods resembling familiar meals. My country girl brain is tired of spending too much and feeling like nothing has really changed after eating faux chicken sandwiches for a week, although I actually haven’t done that in quite a few months. At the same time it is hard not to feel like most vegan recipes use huge ingredient lists of often rather ‘fancy’ stuff, almost like having five star dinning at home without the bonus of it being made for you. Personally, I like simple foods, not bland food however, a pantry that is stocked and organized, a full freezer that I actually know what’s in it. I love convenience foods but hate the price tags and the numerous preservatives. Hey, I don’t want to be mummified while I’m still living!

My mother knows I love her a lot, but she’s the hardest on me about being vegan. I know she thinks she’s just gently teasing me, but I get royally tired of her thinking I simply eat weird foods. On the plus side however, she’s the first to want to try whatever I’ll let her and tells me if she likes it or not. Now if I could just get her to quit calling it ‘vague-en’ (it’s only vague to you mom…)

"Its Ellensburg, its Ellensburg, its Ellensburg Washington! A pretty little city in the center of the state, its Ellensburg Washington!"

So sit for a spell and see what vegan comfort foods are brewing in my kitchen!