Pancakes with Fresh-Ground Flour

Fluffy, nutty, gritty: the fresh-ground whole wheat pancake. Something you need to try.

I think that pancakes are probably one of the finest foods in the world. They’re easy to make, impressively adaptable, and fabulously delicious. Eaten plain, with a little maple syrup? Yes. With fruit and whipped cream? Yes. Studded with chocolate chips and stuffed with peanut butter? Yes. While its true that there exists some debate about whether they should be thin and crispy or thick and pillowy, this is an argument kept afloat by fools: they should most certainly be big, puffy, and ready to sop up whatever’s beside them on the plate. They’re a near-perfect comfort food.

While the pancake’s ability to stand up to anything you can throw at them has helped them to be one of the world’s most popular foods, a little something can be lost through these additions. The rise of the garish, stuffed-to-the-gills pancake seems to have accompanied the advent of boxed pancake mixes made from inferior ingredients: when you’re cooking with leaden bleached white flour, or a just-add-water supermarket mix, you could probably be forgiven for needing to throw in a bunch of sugary extras just to make it palatable (though you’d not be forgiven for purchasing that boxed stuff in the first place). Can’t we cheer, every so often, for the dish at a far more basic level? Can’t we enjoy a pancake made from pretty much just wheat, baking powder, liquid, and a little salt? We can — especially when we’re lucky enough to be able to mill the flour ourselves.

Vegan Carrot + Ginger Soup

My love affair with carrot ginger soup started in England, when I was around 13 or 14. Before tetra paks became a popular way to package premade soup, the British were packing soup in milk cartons and keeping them on the refrigerated shelves of the supermarket. For whatever reason, this is a distinct memory of mine from childhood – going to grandma and grandad’s house in England and eating soup out of a milk carton instead of a can. Anyway, my favorite flavor which I could never get in America was carrot ginger. Now, it seems, this flavor has gained popularity and is available everywhere, though none of the soups I’ve ever purchased have been as good as the vegan version I made for dinner last night.

Hungry Bruno had mentioned in her CSA Week Twelve post that our carrots from our Stone Soup Farm CSA were a bit woody this week. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to boil them up and obliterate them with an immersion blender along with some ginger to recreate one of my favorite childhood food memories. When I was browsing the internet for inspiration, I found that almost every recipe for this soup contained dairy. Not understanding this, or thinking it was necessary, I went ahead and made my own vegan version. I had about 1/4 of a can of coconut milk in my fridge so I decided to use that to make the soup creamier, and it really worked. The end product was silky and delicious. To make it a little bit more filling, I cubed up some firm tofu I had leftover from making fresh spring rolls for a party this weekend and mixed it in.  It works either hot or cold, so it’s a versatile summer or winter soup. Delicious!

Homemade Sourdough (Part 2/2)

This is a baguette that was made last winter for a friend. You've heard of San Francisco Sourdough? This is Southie Sourdough. Cool, right? Yes.

Welcome to Sourdough Primer, Part 2/2. Before giving this a shot, you should have active starter. See Part 1 for how. The below will also work for a starter you’ve obtained from someone else. If it’s dormant, skip down to the bottom of the article for information on reviving it. This isn’t really written out in a strict, linear format; forgive me, I’ve indulged my urge to dally about this subject. Besides, sourdough isn’t a one-and-done cooking process. It’s an ongoing thing. That’s my excuse for not giving you a stepwise recipe, anyways.

At this point, you’ve got your sourdough starter, and are probably totally enamored with it. Since you’ve been actively building it an maintaining it, you’ve also essentially got the first part of the recipe over — your starter is doubling as a sponge, which is just a term for an active sourdough batter. If you’d been storing it in the fridge, you’d have to wake it back up, but since you haven’t, it’s all bubbly and frothy and very eager to get to work.

Homemade Sourdough (Part 1/2)

Naturally-leavened rosemary rolls, one of the eight billion breads you can make with the help of your friendly neighborhood (literally) microorganisms.

Bread is one of the oldest food products known to man. For many home bakers, it’s probably also one of the most frustrating. You have to make a dough of the right consistency. You have to knead it, but not under-knead it or over-knead it. You have to shape it. Then, after you’re done, you have to wait around for hours just to see if it worked. If it doesn’t work — usually meaning that it didn’t rise — you’ll get something which, when baked, will come out more like a dense, crumbly brick than the familiar hearty loaf you’re looking for. If you want to try again, that means more kneading — and more waiting. 

Heather – 1, Risotto – 0

I tend to be apprehensive about trying new techniques due to a self-propagated fear of food failure. Once I’m familiar with something it’s no sweat, but it’s the breaking the ice part that gets me panicked. It’s all due to my own ridiculous expectations of my cooking, and my pastry chef father who had no qualms with telling his young daughter why her chocolate chip cookies weren’t bake shop quality.

Risotto had always been something I feared making. Most of what I’d read said making a good one was a tricky process. Eek! You mean it might turn out BAD?  Gluey? Sticky? Soupy? I don’t really know what sparked my confidence, but one night I decided to just go for it. If it fails, it fails, and Finn will eat it anyway.

Well, let me tell you. My risotto is the queen of all risottos. It did not fail, and much to my delight it was absolutely delicious! You can basically put anything you want in it, including leftovers. In recent weeks I’ve made risottos of the plain fish stock (to go with some grilled swordfish kabobs), butternut squash and roman cauliflower, and asparagus varieties. I even made a rice pudding with dried cherries risotto-style. Though all remarkably good, the most successful bites were the ones full of nutty, sweet butternut squash.

One thing I love about this risotto is that it’s rather deceiving. Without the addition of cream, milk, butter, parmesan this risotto comes out incredibly creamy and rich. If you were really in a pinch, all you’d really need is Arborio rice and water, though I don’t suggest that. Unless you like your food bland, in which case, go for it. For the rest of you, try this recipe and then pat yourself on the back for a job well done, then come back here and tell me all about it!