chocolate chip banana pancakes

I'm on a breakfast kick these days.  Breakfast for lunch, breakfast for dinner, breakfast for... well.. breakfast..

And I have been really into pancakes.  Flap jacks.  Hot cakes.  Hot flips...  Vegan pancakes, eggy pancakes, wheat-y pancakes, crepey pancakes, apple pie pancakes, pancakes, pancakes, pancakes.  There was a point where my kids actually almost started to get sick of pancakes.  

Almost...

Then I pulled out these babies.

And that's really all I have to say about that.  I mean, come on!  Bananas, chocolate, and cinnamon!  In a pancake!!  With syrup!!!!!  Oh, and did I mention that they are dairy free?  Magical....

Yeah, ok, I'll see you later, I'm off to make some more of these....

chocolate chip banana pancakes

1 1/4 c. flour, whichever kind you like

2 tbs granulated sugar or coconut palm sugar (if you like, you can also substitute honey or maple syrup for the sugar, but if you do so, add it to the wet ingredients)

1 1/4 tsp. baking powder

big pinch of cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 1/4 c. oat milk

1 egg (if you want to make this vegan, substitute the egg with 1 tbs flax seed and 2 tbs water, or 1 tbs or so of vegetable oil)

1 banana, smashed

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3-4 tbs melted earth balance butter

1/4 c. enjoy life chocolate chips

1 tbs flour

Heat your skillet over low heat. 

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl, and mix well.  In another bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, smashed banana, and vanilla.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix until just combined.  Let the melted butter sit for a minute or so and then very slowly, while whisking the batter, drizzle in the butter.  To avoid cooking the egg, don't add the butter in all at once.

Turn the heat up to medium low.

Meanwhile, combine the chocolate chips with 1 tbs flour.  Make sure the chips are all nicely dusted.  I never really realized how effective this technique is in preventing the chips from sinking to the bottom of the batter.  Adding a bit of flour keeps those chips afloat in the sea of my soul....  

Hm, what?  Oh yeah, the pancakes.

Yeah, so add the chips to the batter and gently fold them in.  When the skillet is nice and hot, pour about 1/4 cup size circles.  Let them cook for about 4 minutes, or until little bubbles start to form and pop on the surface.  Flip the flips and cook for another 2-3 minutes, and you are that much closer to yummmm.....

skillet baked french toast

Wow, I haven't posted in quite a while.  I wish I had some exciting reason for being so absent, but, alas, I do not.  I have been tired and, quite frankly, lazy.  For some reason, the kids have decided to wake up anywhere between 2 and 4 almost every morning, alternating between the two.  It's almost as if they have coordinated their schedules..  Bad dreams, puke, wind, no clothes, twisted clothes, too many clothes, and my personal favorite "I just love you so much I need to be closer to you".  At 3 in the morning....

It has been cold, and then warm, and then cold, and then VERY cold.  I have been cold weather nesting (which is code for sitting in front of the fireplace and playing games with the fam), and if that's not enough to keep me from posting, get this:  my tripod has been ALL the way in the other part of the house.  A whole THREE rooms away, if you can imagine..

So I'm sure that you understand my not being able to post.  I am happy to say though, that I have indeed made some stellar meals: sushi, beef barley stew, chicken noodle soup, asparagus and mushroom risotto, chicken and waffles, roasted chicken and veg...  The list goes on and on.  And last night, all of this culinary deliciousness culminated in my grandest, most adventurous masterpiece of all time:  buttered egg noodles, with sides of bacon and peas.

Too bad I didn't take pictures of that one, huh.

But fret not, this is well worth the wait.  Skillet baked french toast.

I wanted to use up the last of an almost stale challah loaf and an almost stale whole wheat loaf and baked french toast seemed like a great answer.  The problem though, is that almost every recipe I found asked that the bread be soaked overnight.  I am not an overnight soaker kind of person.

Let me rephrase that.  I am not that organized, to have breakfast planned the night before.

My other concern was that I didn't want to spend 45 minutes making breakfast, since many of those recipes took that long to cook.  My answer?  Pull out the skillet.

I absolutely love my skillet.  And I mean L O V E.  My skillet is a permanent fixture on the stovetop.  I use it almost every day, making everything from pancakes to filets to chicken tenders to lamb to fried eggs to fish to croutons to anything that needs a beautiful sear.  I use it on the stove, I use it in the oven.  I use it on the stove and THEN in the oven.  I love my skillet.

So back to the french toast....  

I decided to put that skillet to good use, and what good use it was!!!  It gave the bottom a delicate, delicious, golden crust which was exactly what I was looking for.  And the best part?  It only took 15 minutes in the oven.  Perfect.

skillet baked french toast

4-6 pieces of bread, cut or torn into bite size pieces

4-6 eggs (I usually use one egg per piece of bread, if that wasn't obvious...)

1/2 c. vanilla almond milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbs Earth balance dairy free butter

topping:

1/4 c. oats (not quick cooking or steel cut)

1/4 c. flour, whichever kind you like

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

4 tbs Earth balance dairy free butter

Preheat the oven to 400˚F.

In a bowl or large plate, combine the eggs, milk, and vanilla extract.  Dump in the bread, and stir to coat.  Leave the bread in the bowl, stirring every once in a while, so the bread really soaks up the liquid.

Heat the skillet over medium to medium high heat.  While the skillet is heating, combine the topping ingredients in another bowl until crumbly, and set aside.

When the skillet is hot, melt 1 tbs of butter.  Once the butter is melted and has stopped sizzling, swirl it around the pan to coat.  Pour the bread into the skillet, and spread it around so that the bottom of the skillet is covered.  Sprinkle the topping on the bread, and at this point, the oven should be preheated, so stick the skillet in. If the oven is not yet to temp, turn off the skillet heat after you sprinkle on the topping.  The skillet will still be hot, but it won't have that added heat which may burn the bottom of the bread.

Bake, uncovered, for about 15 minutes, or until the top is bubbling and golden.

Bon appetit!

oatmeal and bananas

This morning, like so many others, I found my sleep deprived pre-coffee self struggling with what to feed my monkeys.  Normally, well I should say on school mornings, my daughter sleeps in.  This leaves me plenty of time to quietly and peacefully make french toast, scrambled eggs, pancakes, or other nourishing healthy breakfasts with enough time before school.

On the weekends, however, my daughter wakes up at the crack of dawn.  Forget for a moment that last night, my husband and I went out to see an old friend's band have their first show together in 15 years.  Forget that we didn't pick up the kids from grandma's until midnight.  The kids had fallen asleep at 930, but they both woke up after midnight.  If that had happened on a school day, she would have been impossible to wake up.  But it being Sunday, she woke up at 630.

When the kids wake up before I do, making a good breakfast is a bit more difficult.  They are hungry.  And trying to make a good breakfast while both kids are wide awake and hyper and whining and jumping on the couch and pointing scissors at each other just doesn't work for me.  Those are the days when they get cereal or toast, or even a spoon of peanut butter and peach cup, but I do try to get in as many healthy breakfasts as I can.

This morning, as I had mentioned before, was a crack of dawn morning.  But fortunately, my son was still asleep.  Those days aren't so bad.  My daughter usually is more reliable when she is running around solo.  Unfortunately, I had only gotten 5 hours of sleep, my head was thick from the previous night's whiskey (that's right- the ONE whiskey gave me a hangover), it was pre-coffee, and my eyes were struggling to stay open.  That's when I found the oats.

In my September Savorfull box, I received a bag of Bob's Red Mill Steel Cut Oats, and that made for the perfect Sunday morning breakfast.  Oatmeal is so easy to make.  For three servings, put three cups of water to boil, add one cup of the steel cut oats, give it a stir, set the heat to low, and simmer away for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Voila!  Easy peasy.  While it was cooking, and instead of taking a nap which would have been just way too irresponsible......  I found a banana.

I used to sauté bananas almost every day.  Mm mmm.  Just heat up some butter on medium high to high heat (or dairy free butter over here), slice up a banana into the sizzling butter, sprinkle on some cinnamon, and with a flick of the wrist, flip the pan to coat and stir the bananas.  We have these great eco-friendly nonstick pans that are very lightweight- I bought them from Target a few years ago and I L O V E them.  I always feel like such a pro when I flip the food around in those pans....

Anyway, I like to let the bananas sit for a spell in the hot butter so that the edges get nice and crispy.  You want to take them out before they get mushy- it only takes about 3 to 5 minutes.  The bananas pictured here were cooked in a pan that wasn't quite hot enough, and I didn't take them off soon enough.  So they got a bit mushy.  But they were so beautifully carmelized and delicious, it really didn't matter at all!

empty cupboard pancakes

I really love to cook.  And in times like this morning, I am really glad I am comfortable in the kitchen.  The kids wanted pancakes.  But our cupboards were nearing empty.  No all purpose flour, minimal spelt flour, almost empty milks...  After the pancakes, however, a trip to the store is in my immediate future.

Pancakes are such a wonderful intro food for the beginning cook.  They are so easy to make, and they are even easier to experiment.  You can substitute flours, sugars, add fruit, add spices, and the measurements don't have to be perfect.  The consistency can be a bit runny for a thinner pancake, or a bit thicker for a more robust pancake.  You can make savory pancakes, or sweet; seedy pancakes, grainy pancakes, potatoey pancakes, eggy pancakes.....  The list goes on and on.

These pancakes were completely improvised, and were absolutely delicious!

Since I had minimal flour, I took some old fashioned oats and put them into the food processor to make an oat flour.  And then I used the last bits of whatever flours we had left, and it turned into a downright healthy pancake.  Protein from the spelt flour, fiber from the oat and whole wheat flours.

empty cupboard pancakes

1/2 c. ground oats

1/2 c. spelt flour

very scant 1/2 c. whole wheat flour- I added just enough to make the right consistency

2 tbs sugar, or honey, or maple syrup, or brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

a few shakes of cinnamon

1 1/4 c. soy milk (I actually ran out of soy milk at about 1/2 c, so I supplemented the rest with almond milk, which also ran out- I really wasn't kidding about the empty cupboard!)

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla (this is approximate- I didn't actually measure.  I just emptied the rest of the vanilla into the bowl)

3 tbs melted Earth Balance dairy free butter

Combine the flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl.  Mix well.  If you use honey or maple syrup in place of the sugar, put that in with the wet ingredients.  In another bowl, mix the eggs, milk, and vanilla.  Pour the wet into the dry, and mix to just combine.  It's ok if there are lumps.  Slowly add the butter, mixing as you go, so as not to cook the eggs.

In a preheated skillet set to medium low, pour little batter circles.  My circle size is usually pretty small, maybe about 3 tbs.  Cook until bubbles form on top of the pancake, which will take about 3-4 minutes minutes.  Flip the pancakes and cook for about 2 more minutes.  

Stack em up, slather em with honey butter, maple butter, maple syrup, whatever you have left in your cupboards!

cinnamon swirl bread

We are planning a trip up to Charlevoix, to go see my mom.  There is a restaurant up there, Juilleret's, that is more than just a place to get food.  It is a landmark- nay, a monument.  

I have been going up north since I was 8 years old.  I have never, and I mean NEVER, gone up without having at least one meal at Juilleret's.  Their specialty is breakfast, and they are famous for the cinnamon bread and cinnamon french toast.  

So, of course, while planning our trip, I have been thinking about how to handle the Juilleret's situation.  This time we won't be able to go.  There is no way I will take Ian into that restaurant.  I am sure that the bread has dairy, as well as everything else on the menu.  

So I'll just have to make my own.

I have only made bread once before, and it was spectacularly disastrous.  The recipe I used promised a tender, moist honey wheat, but I ended up with a dry 10 pound rock that had to be chiseled out of the loaf pan. Actually, TWO dry 10 pound rocks that had to be chiseled out of the loaf pans.  I have now learned to read a recipe through to the end.  Why the recipe was for two loaves is beyond me....

This recipe, however, had all the right proportions.  It had all the right ingredients.  I had to adjust it a little to make it dairy free, but it was super easy.  

And absolutely delicious.

We're talking eating the whole loaf in one sitting delicious.

This is why it is so difficult to photograph food.  There are little hands everywhere in my house.

And little faces, too.  

Little faces who think it is absolutely hilarious to move my bread around with said little hands while I am perilously perched on the counter, wedged between the stove and the window, camera on my thigh trying to keep it steady, obviously in no physical position to prevent that little face and those little hands from moving my bread around....

Consequently, the pictures may be blurry.  But that happens when you have a houseful of little hands.  And little faces.

cinnamon swirl bread

Adapted from The Galley Gourmet

dough:

3 c. unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more as needed

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast 

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/3 c. white granulated sugar

4 tbs Earth Balance dairy free butter, melted

1/2 c. dairy free buttermilk (1/2 c. soy milk plus 1/2 tbs white vinegar mixed together and let sit for 5 minutes)

1/4-1/2 c. lukewarm water

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 large egg

filling:

3 tbs light brown sugar

3 tbs confectioners' sugar

2 tbs ground cinnamon

2 tbs dairy free milk (I used oat milk, but any would do)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

egg wash:

1 egg

1 tbs dairy free milk (oat milk, but again, any would do)

Combine the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, butter, buttermilk, water, vanilla, and egg in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the hook attachment and knead, on medium speed, until smooth and elastic, 5-7 minutes.  You may have to add flour a bit at a time to get to the right consistency.  You want the dough to be tacky, but not sticky.  Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface.  Shape into a ball, and place into a large bowl that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray.  Loosely cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel, and place in a warm draft free space to rise until doubled in size.  The Galley Gourmet found her bread to rise in 1 to 1 1/2 hours, but my bread took 3 hours to rise.  I haven't figured this out yet.  Maybe it was the buttermilk substitution, or maybe I needed more of the warm water for the yeast.  That's probably it, actually...  Next time, maybe I'll use 1/4 c. buttermilk, and 1/2 c. warm water, which is what I should have done in the beginning.  No matter though, the bread came out perfectly- it just took a bit longer....

Gently punch the bread down to release the gas.  Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface and shape the dough into an 8x18 inch rectangle, short side facing you.  In a small bowl, combine the sugars and cinnamon.  In another small bowl, combine the milk and vanilla.  Brush the dough with half of the milk mixture.  Sprinkle the dough evenly with the cinnamon mixture, leaving 1/2 inch border at the opposite short end.  With the short side facing you, tuck and roll the dough, brushing the remaining milk mixture on the dough, brushing and rolling as you go.  Fold the end seams under the roll and put the whole thing into an 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan that is lightly sprayed with cooking spray.  Loosely cover with plastic wrap, also sprayed with cooking spray.  Place in a warm, draft free space and let the dough rise until it gets to the size of a regular loaf, about 1 hour. (But with my screwy loaf, 2 hours.)

Preheat oven to 350˚F.  In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and milk for the egg wash and carefully brush over the top of the loaf.  Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a thermometer inserted reads 190˚F.  Loosely cover the top with foil if it starts to brown too quickly.  Remove the bread from the pan and let cool on a wire rack.  Slice, slather with butter, eat plain, soak in egg mixture and fry it up in a skillet, eat however you like.  But it is probably a good idea NOT to eat the whole loaf in one sitting.

strawberry pickin

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I found some rhubarb at the farmer's market.  The second I saw it, I knew that I had to make strawberry rhubarb pie.  Which means....  that's right.... strawberry picking!  I called my friend with two little girls, and we all went out into the fields.....

They ate, and chased, and ate some more, and otherwise had a ball.  I really can't believe I was able to pick as many as I did.....

So I knew that I would be making the aforementioned pie, but I also had some strawberry basil jam in mind.  I stumbled across the recipe, and since we have an abundance of basil in the garden, it really struck a cord. 

Not to mention that both of my kids eat basil off of the plants as if it was candy.  Basil, spinach, thyme, even rosemary!  The other ones I get, but the rosemary baffles me...  Raw rosemary just reminds me of floor cleaner.... 

I really love making jam.  It is so easy and so satisfying.  I don't know much about canning, or sterilizing, or jarring, so I like to make just enough.  This recipe gave me two jars.  I had fully planned on giving the other jar to my mother in law, but... well....  as you can see, our jar is quickly disappearing.  

This lemon was my jam enemy.  

My jamenemy.  

My jameny.  

I like to condense words.  It saves time.

strawberry basil jam

Adapted from Alaska from Scratch

4 c strawberries

1 1/4 c sugar

zest and juice of one lemon, and if you're like me, the top skin of your knuckle as well

1/2 tsp vanilla

handful of basil leaves

Wash, hull, and chop strawberries.  Place them in a Dutch oven, followed by the sugar, zest, juice, knuckle, vanilla, and basil.  Over medium heat, stir the fruit until the sugar dissolves.  With an immersion blender or a potato masher, blend/mash strawberries to desired consistency.  Raise the heat to high, and stirring often, let the mixture come to a rolling boil.  Keep stirring and cooking until a candy thermometer reaches 220ºF.  I kept the boil going for several minutes after it came to temp, stirring constantly, until the spoon was coated.  Pour into jars, put the lids on, and put them in the fridge to cool.

better than breakfast shake

For me, it's all about the bananas.

A few weeks ago, I made a morning shake with spinach, flax seed, a banana, almond milk, and some ice cubes.  It was good, but there was something........ not right.

So I froze a banana.  Mmmmmm....  And my latest addiction was born. 

First you slice them.  I find that sliced bananas are the easiest to blend.  They are just like ice cubes- as opposed to putting a whole frozen banana into the blender where it would sound like armageddon in the kitchen.  And trying to cut a frozen banana, I would imagine, would again sound like armageddon (although the sounds would be coming out of the cutter's mouth)...

Place bananas on plate or cookie sheet.  Stick em in the freezer, uncovered, until frozen.  

I also find that if you freeze the bananas on their sides, they are easier to get off the plate.  If you place them flat on a sliced end, you have to get a spatula to chip them off, and more expletives may suddenly start to fly.

Pop em into freezer bags.  I like to do a banana per bag, so I don't have to think and measure first thing in the morning.

These bananas are frozen.  They look lovely, don't they?

When making my morning shake, I usually just put everything into the blender all at once, but for demonstration purposes, I blended these first.  Blended frozen banana is just like eating banana ice cream!  A great treat on a hot summer day for the kids (little, or big).

And then, the shake.

This is obviously not an exact science.  Anything that comes together first thing in the morning has to be as easy and foolproof as possible.  And with all of the goodness in this, you will be satisfied well until lunch, left with enough energy that you may not even need that cup of coffee.  But oh how I do love my coffee...

Oh, and did I mention that my kids love it?

They. love. it.

better than breakfast shake

1 banana, frozen or not

2-3 cubes of ice, if not using a frozen banana

2 spoons of ground flax seed

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 full handful of spinach leaves, stems and all, or swiss chard, kale, or whatever hearty green you have

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 cup chocolate almond milk (you can obviously use whatever milk you like- but you will need about a cup, give or take)

Put everything into the blender in this order.  Blend for a couple of minutes, until nice and creamy.  Easy peasy.

blueberry crunch tops

When I stirred the buttermilk soaked oats the very first time I made these (over a decade ago), there was such an instantly sensationally visceral palpability in the gloriousness of that gorgeous texture.  And yes, all of those words are necessary.  And no, they probably do not all belong in the same sentence.  But there you are.

Switching from dairy buttermilk to non dairy buttermilk was a bit daunting at first, and I have to admit that I kind of put these on the back burner until I was able to find a suitable substitute.  I have made these with soy milk mixed with white vinegar and with lemon juice (both work very well) and to be honest, I am not really interested in trying out my other buttermilks from The Challenge, because the others didn't thicken up as well as the soy.  This recipe, for me, is as much about recreating the loveliness of the texture as it is about the depth of flavor; both attributes, fortunately, are very much present...

Blueberry Crunch Tops

1 c. oats

1 c. soy milk

1 tbs fresh lemon juice or white vinegar

1 c. all purpose flour

3/4 c. light brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 c. dairy free butter, melted

1 c. blueberries

for the topping:

2 tbs dairy free butter, cubed

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. oats

1/4 c. light brown sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400.

In a bowl, combine the soy milk and lemon juice.  Let stand for a few minutes, give it a good stir, and add the oats.  Set aside.

In another bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Mix well.  Stir egg and butter into buttermilk mixture.  Add wet ingredients into the dry, stirring until just combined.  Fold in the blueberries.

Combine the topping ingredients in a bowl with fingers.  Sprinkle on top of the muffins, pressing gently to adhere.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.