Today I want to share with you my consistent kitchen disaster: Pancakes! I know, it is funny to imagine that anybody could have a pancake disaster, but I am here to confess that making pancakes has always brought disastrous results for me in the kitchen.

If I make them from a mix, things go pretty well, even if I soak that mix overnight. But if I try to make them from scratch using the same ingredients that are in the mix, things just get really screwy. Why? You tell me.

Recently I bought some buckwheat flour. Most of the Buckwheat Pancake mixes have some whole wheat flout in them, and even though I soak the mix overnight, I wanted to make a pancake that was truly wheat and rice free. I tried to make the recipe that was on the back of the package of flour, which called for whole wheat flour. Instead, I substituted coconut flour for the wheat. The recipe required overnight soaking, which I thought was great, since I do that anyway. It also used yeast, which I thought was weird…but I followed the directions, and then added some kefir (in the amount of water that was asked). I fear that is where I went wrong. I reckon that the yeast and bacteria in the kefir battled it out against each other all night and ended up killing each other off.

In the morning, the batter was really dry and had a funny almost fluffy consistency. So I added some water. The batter just kept soaking up the water, never reaching a thinner consistency. It was looking funky, so I added an egg, since most pancake recipes call for eggs – and I thought it might help the batter with the consistency and at least bind it all together, so I could cook them up.

I heated up my cast iron pan, added some butter to the pan, and tried to make a pancake. All it did was burn on the outside and remain raw inside. I tried again and again, but all I managed to do was smoke up the kitchen (setting off the fire alarms and everything), and allow frustration to set in.

I generally am not a pancake fan, preferring savory breakfasts, but sometimes I get a craving for them. Due to my problems digesting grains, I need to soak the flour, which means I have to wait until the next day to actually make the pancakes. So by the next morning, I really want them! So when I use all these ingredients to make the batter, and have to wait and it still doesn’t work out, it is upsetting and extremely frustrating!!!! It’s not like I can just whip up a new batch and try again…I would have to wait another day!

So I wanted to turn this disaster into a positive experience. I poured all the leftover batter into the cast iron skillet and threw it in the oven, hoping to make a pan-cake out of it. It baked at 350 F for almost 2 hours before the middle was cooked through. I took it out, and tried a bite. It was so bad, I literally could not swallow it. I had to spit it out, and dump the whole mess into the compost bin (the nice little blue bin in the photo). Un-salvageable DISASTER.

So I am asking all of my faithful readers, especially those who are into traditional foods and gluten free cooking: Do you have a recipe for a non-wheat, non-rice pancake or crepe that can be soaked with kefir or yogurt over night, that tastes great and is easy to make the next morning?

Help! I am desperate!!!

On another note, please remember that through the end of this month, all the proceeds of the sale of my e-book – The Secret Energy of Love Through Food will be going to Haiti Relief efforts. You only have a few days to take advantage of this sweet deal!

I have been playing with baking a lot lately. For a long time “carbs” and “grains” meant the same thing to me, in my mind. I don’t know why, but I blame the media and the “low carb craze”. So basically I have stopped listening to the media when it comes to my food choices and eat what feels the best to me, which has taken quite a bit of research and time. I recently took a DNA test, which I may talk about more on here (if you are facebook friends with me, I will be updating my results soon!), but the results showed that I had a low genetic probability to Celiac’s Disease, answering a question I have wondered about for nearly a decade.

However, just because I don’t have Celiac’s Disease doesn’t mean that wheat doesn’t affect me. For the past several months I have been soaking my flour in an acid, like whey, or homemade kefir or buttermilk for 24 hours before baking. I do this in order to break down the phytic acid that is in wheat, which makes wheat hard to digest for many people. I have found this to be very helpful with regard to the effects on my body that I usually attribute to wheat – like a “carb coma”. So recently I was looking through Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, to see what recipes they had for bread, and I found a recipe for Buttermilk Biscuits. I was very excited.

I was recently able to procure some Gjetost – a Norwegian brown cheese, commonly known as Brunost, which means “Brown Cheese”. It is generally a goat’s milk cheese (but there are cow, and mixed versions as well). Brunost is made by boiling a mixture of milk, cream and whey carefully for several hours so that the water evaporates. The heat turns the milk sugar into caramel which gives the cheese its characteristic taste. It is the most amazing cheese in the world. My favorite, and one that I ate several times a day when I lived in Norway. I used to love it on bread for breakfast and lunch, or on waffles, with a little raspberry jam for dessert. I thought these biscuits, slightly sweet, would be the perfect vehicle to eat this cheese, and I was right! They are also good with another Norwegian favorite (and one of mine) smoked salmon.

I really love the dough – it smells amazing and is a dream to work with. I have made these biscuits twice in the past week, and the second time, they were even better. I used the Parmigiano Reggiano Butter I talked about in my last post and it made so much difference. I also made sure the dough was thick enough when rolled out, and used a larger glass to cut them out – which made the resulting biscuits much more tender.

They are simple to make and delicious. Your house will smell like a bakery all day. I happened to have people come over in the evening both of the days that I baked them, and they both asked what I had been baking. So yeah, they are amazing. Try them today – and if you can find some brunost, slice some very thinly on top, using a cheese slicer and place a dollop of jam on top, and you will be in heaven.
I promise.

Buttermilk Biscuits
from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

Makes about 1 dozen

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup of unbleached white flour
2 cups of spelt, kamut, or whole wheat flour
1 cup buttermilk
4 TBS melted butter
1 ½ tsp sea salt
2 tsp baking soda
unbleached white flour

METHOD:

Mix flour with buttermilk and mix to form a thick dough. Cover and leave in a warm place (countertop) for 12 to 24 hours. Place in a food processor with the other ingredients, and process several minutes to knead. Remove dough to a well-floured pastry cloth or board and sprinkle with unbleached white flour to prevent sticking. Roll dough out to ¾ inch thickness. Cut biscuits with a glass and place on buttered baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes (my biscuits baked in about 15-20 minutes, so keep an eye on them!)

(My first attempts—deformed æbleskiver…)

Have you had Æbleskiver (pronounced EB-el-sku-wyr)? They are yummy and delicious, cute and round Danish Pancakes that can be eaten with syrup, like pancakes, or filled with anything from fruit to cream, or even Nutella! I imagine some savory combinations too – like apples and cheddar, perhaps?

I heard about them several years ago, but saw them being cooked for the first time in San Francisco, this past November, at the Foodbuzz Food Bloggers Festival. That is where I met Chad Gillard, co-owner of Aunt Else’s Æbleskiver. He was there in the afternoon’s tasting pavilion as part of the Foodzie crew, demonstrating how to make æbleskiver using Aunt Else’s Æbleskiver Mix which is made with organic, Minnesota grown wheat & organic buttermilk from Wisconsin and using Aunt Else’s high quality, locally made 9-hole cast iron æbleskiver pan. I was really intrigued and got in touch with Chad after the festival to see if he wanted to do a giveaway on Foodieblogroll.com, so we could start an Æbleskiver Revolution in the Food Blogging world! So that is how I came to be a lucky recipient of an æbleskiver pan and Aunt Else’s mix at no charge for hosting the giveaway.

I decided that my maiden attempt to make æbleskiver would be over Thanksgiving, while my family was visiting. I wanted everyone to have a chance to taste these little darlings, and I was excited to offer something unique for breakfast. I had prepared the cast iron pan the night before so it was all set. When it was time, I used coconut oil to prepare the pan for cooking. Making the mix was easy – just add eggs and water and you are ready to go! Just like pancakes, the first few batches didn’t really look as round and cute as Chad’s did at the festival – but then again, I comforted myself in that knowledge that he is a professional! I was about to get discouraged, but then the batches started coming out great! It is fun to make æbleskiver, after you pour the batter in, you turn them several quarter turns using a metal implement that comes with the kit. Back in the day, the Danes would use a knitting needle – but I suppose you could also use a chopstick!

I decided to make a simple version – just plain and sprinkled with powdered sugar! Powdered sugar makes everything look pretty – even my deformed æbleskiver! I served them with maple syrup for dipping.

(Practice makes perfect….)

I really love Aunt Else’s stuff, especially the fact that they are a small company making their product locally, and using local and organic ingredients in their mix. That is something I feel really good about supporting. For your chance to win your own Æbleskiver Kit, check out Aunt Else’s Contest Page on The Foodie Blogroll. Mange tak, Chad and Aunt Else’s!

FIRST BREAKFAST – “Breakfast of Champions”

(My “Breakfast of Champions”)

Today I want to talk about Breakfast – the most important meal of the day. I have spent my whole life sort of at odds with it. I generally prefer something savory in the morning, but I also like something that is quick and easy to prepare, without a lot of cleanup. I like a breakfast that gives me good balanced energy – that keeps me feeling full and energetic until lunch time. I am not really a fan of typical breakfast foods like bagels, muffins or pancakes. I like eggs, but cleaning the pan deters me from cooking them everyday – and I don’t like to rely on the microwave for an everyday meal. I avoid the micro as much as possible. Until recently, I never really worried much about breakfast, but lately it has taken a place of importance.

For the past few months I have become a total work-out-a-holic. I hate the gym, and have never joined one, but I do work out a lot at home. So now, my breakfast needs to stand up to and fuel me for the intense workouts I do 5-6 days a week (whether it is Combat Hapkido at the dojo or heavy weight lifting, strength training and intense cardio at home). It has become an important part of my lifestyle – something I really enjoy, makes me feel good, and keeps me healthy and fit. Plus I am married to a Sardinian – the first “Barbarians” so I might as well start looking the part! But, anyway,  I am not into all the supplements, or weight machines at the gym. I want to do it myself, with real food, a balanced diet and my own body.

So I tried to work first with my tastes. Some mornings I get a craving for last night’s chili or even a hot dog (grass-fed that is). I have tried protein bars and shakes, smoothies, cereal, oatmeal, and toast with all the toppings you can imagine. But nothing ever really cut it. So I made it a goal of mine to re-think breakfast and come up with something I could rely on, and also change up without a lot of hassle. I want to share with you three different breakfasts that really work for me in terms of flavor, nutritional value and energy giving elements.

The first one I want to share with you is what we call my “Special Breakfast” here at home, but really it is my breakfast of choice. I like to call it my “Breakfast of Champions”. Not that I am a champion or anything, but it has a wonderful balance of all the ingredients that are very energy giving, protein, greens, some carbs and dairy.

It starts by soaking a huge batch of barley and buckwheat for 24 hours in warm water with some whey. The soaking allows enzymes and other friendly organisms to break down the phytic acid, an organic acid found in all grains (and legumes) that may make the digestion of grains (and legumes) harder for some people, like me! Once the grains have been rinsed, I store them in a leftover container in the fridge. I make enough for about a month’s worth of breakfasts. I also hard boil 6 eggs (I do this about once a week).

When I wake up in the AM, while the espresso is brewing, I sautee a palmful of barley in some extra virgin coconut oil that I got as a sample from Tropical Traditions (if you are a food blogger, you can also get a sample from them!). Then I add a nice handful of chopped greens, swiss chard, arugula or kale, cook until starting to wilt. At that point I add a chopped hard boiled egg and another palmful of the buckwheat, and cook until it is heated up. I put it all in a bowl, add some fresh ground pepper, flax sprinkles and homemade goat cheese. Sometimes if I have leftover sausage from the night before, or an odd hotdog, I will add that into the beginning of the mix. The amount of the various ingredients can be tweaked based on your needs. But this is the base. It is nice, balanced, tasty and very filling. Gives you lots of fuel too, and cooks up in under 5 minutes.

SECOND BREAKFAST – Homemade plain yogurt with toppings

The second breakfast I want to share is a sweeter one. On the rare occasions that I am in the mood for something sweet, I will take a half cup of homemade yogurt, and add to it either peanut butter and blueberries or pumpkin butter, peanut butter and a handful of nuts or seeds. But I usually prefer this as an after workout snack.

Sometimes I will cook up the buckwheat and barley, and eat it like a hot cereal with a nice liberal splash of homemade kefir and cinnamon. This is good with soaked steel cut oats too, but I prefer the buckwheat and barley to oats. This is also a good snack – and way better for you than pre-packaged cold cereal. You can enjoy it cold too – but you do have to cook the buckwheat ahead!

THIRD BREAKFAST (or maybe Elevensies for the Hobbits among us) – Buckwheat Pancakes

On weekends, when we have a quiet morning, I like making buckwheat pancakes. In general I am not a fan of pancakes or waffles at all. But I do enjoy crepes, and I found that I really love buckwheat pancakes – they are not as sweet, and not as “bready”.

To prepare the pancakes, I soak a mixture of buckwheat and whole wheat flour overnight in ½ cup of filtered water and ¼ cup of whey. In the morning, I mix it with ½ cup of almond milk, 1 egg and some cinnamon and nutmeg. These pancakes are good with pumpkin butter, peanut butter, butter and Vermont maple syrup, or even nutella (that is Roberto’s favorite way!).

Make sure to get in your fruits (and veggies)

I always accompany these breakfasts with a bowl of fruit. Generally whatever is in season – watermelon, papaya, cantaloupe, blueberries, orange segments, apple slices, pear slices, peach slices, etc.

These are just some ideas of how to make homemade breakfasts at home that are delicious, fast, easy and full of nutrition, perfect for athletes, or just active people. All you need is a little planning. I have been at battle with breakfast in years, but I think I finally have my bases covered.

What do you like to eat for breakfast that keeps you going?

Body By Basic Homemade Goodness

As many readers of my blog know, I lived in Norway for a time. I don’t read many blogs where Norwegian culinary achievements are discussed, but I think that is kind of sad, because Norwegian food is very good, and quite varied. There is of course a lot of seafood and a meal wouldn’t be a meal without potatoes. But there are also a lot of lovely fresh tasting meals, and I usually cook up something with Scandinavian flair for Midsummer.

Of course, one of the shining glories of Norwegian fare are the baked goods.

Skoleboller is one of those pastries that you can get at any bakery in Norway – even the grocery store, convenience stores, train and ferry kiosks and of course coffee shops. The name literally means “School Buns” and are a very popular snack for school children, but because of its portability you often take them cross country skiing or on hikes. Sometimes you will just enjoy them with coffee. I ate them a lot when I lived in Norway because I am a huge sucker for custard and coconut, which are the flavors that go into these buns. Oh yeah, and cardamom, which is one of my all time favorite spices – and cardamom is a favorite spice among Norwegian baked goods. Basically Skoleboller are cardamom infused sweet buns (sort of like a Danish, but not exactly) and filled with vanilla custard, topped with coconut and a confectioner’s sugar glaze.

Despite the fact that I enjoyed Skoleboller very often when I lived in Norway, 15 years later, I had almost forgotten about them, that is until I came across the blog Transplanted Baker. *note* Unfortunately, since I wrote this post, Siri’s blog was mistakenly removed from the net She is currently working on a new site that will be up soon!

Now Transplanted Baker is written by Siri who is a native of Minnesota, but lives in Norway with her Norwegian husband and children who cooks up Norwegian favorites as well as developing some of her own original baked goods. This is an awesome blog and I love reading it because it makes me very nostalgic, even though she lives in a different part of Norway than I did, and here are two official forms of written Norwegian…and writes in Nynorsk on her blog, a different official written language than the one I learned when I lived there.

So onto the Skoleboller. I decided to take a Saturday and make these buns. There are several steps, but please do not let that discourage you – they are all fairly easy to accomplish and believe me, these buns are well worth it. I made the dough for the buns first and while it was rising I made the custard.

Here is a note on the custard. I am kind of an egg freak – I eat a lot of eggs, and because of this it is important to me that they are of good quality. This means that the hens live a life a hen should live. I am not going to get into it more than that, but the quality of these eggs are clear. I mean look at the color of the yolks here, beautiful, sunny, deep yellow – and the taste is far superior to your run of the mill (quite literally) eggs. So if you are going to make a dish where the cornerstone is eggs, you might as well use the best available to make your dish all the better tasting.

Anyway, back to Skoleboller. Siri had good advice, she said you can make 12 regular sized Skoleboller or 24 smaller, weight watchers sized buns. So I decided to make the latter. I followed her recipe exactly, except that I embellished a little.

Instead of using a confectioner’s sugar glaze, I decided to use some of the creamed honeys that I had from Honey Ridge Farms.

I also added some nutella (as well as the custard) to a few, and on some I placed a fresh blackberry in the center before popping them in the oven to bake. All varieties turned out really good and by making 24, I had enough to eat, freeze and give out. So I would suggest making them that way – plus less guilt!
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Lately I have been trying to make breakfast more interesting. We seem to be always on the move lately and so I have been experimenting with portable breakfasts that taste good and use up what I already have on hand. I found a recipe for apricot-almond Dutch babies – a kind of muffin with a soft center. You use a lot of whipped egg whites and it has a wonderfully creamy batter. I decided to turn the muffins into a cake that I would fill with the rest of a jar of apricot preserves and the rest of the Nutella from World Nutella Day. We have given up Nutella for a while because they now have switched to palm kernel oil in their recipe – and we are definitely off of that! If you missed my rant on the subject, click here. But I did make an exception for World Nutella Day.

So anyway, this little cake was born. The photos didn’t turn out too great, but it was very satisfying for breakfast and lasted about a week, which was perfect. Hope you enjoy it!
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Here is my O Foods recipe. If you have not heard about the O Foods for Ovarian Cancer Awareness month contest, please check the details on my last post!

Quick breads are like cake to me. I am not a big fan of icing and so for me the subtle sweetness that quick breads offer is perfect for me. I love the idea of banana bread and there are variations on banana bread wherever you turn, but I am not a lover of bananas. For some reason I just never really got into them. I find that their taste overpowers everything and for me they mess up and overwhelm and ruin the flavor of smoothies to quick breads. I understand that they add sweetness and bulk, and are great for binding ingredients together. But I am still plagued by childhood memories of the banana in my lunch box that made my turkey sandwich taste like bananas, and my chips too!

So when I came across a recipe for oatmeal date carrot mini muffins, I knew that I wanted to experiment with making it a quick breakfast bread. It is chock full of great ingredients that are healthy and delicious! I changed it up a bit using what I had and it turned out moist, flavorful and filling. This is a great bread for breakfast or snacking and perfect for an afternoon spot of tea (or coffee).

This is adapted from floridagirlinsydney’s blog Deviously Delicious
Don’t forget to start coming up with your O Foods recipe!

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(NOW WITH PICTURES!)

I was so excited to see that this month’s challenge was for éclairs! We are at my mom’s this weekend, and unfortunately although we brought the camera to take the photos, we did not bring the cable to download them. So I will have to put pictures up on Tuesday when we are back!

Anyway, I have always wanted to make them, and although there were things the recipe called for that I had never made in the past – namely choux pastry and pastry cream, the process didn’t look too difficult.

I waited until this weekend to do the challenge, because I have a really small kitchen and not a lot of pastry equipment, like pastry bags and tips and the like. But my mom does, and she has made cream puffs many times before. This was a crazy month for me, and so I felt this challenge had a better chance of getting finished, if I had her help. So I waited until yesterday to do the challenge, so I could do this fun project with her.

When Roberto and I arrived here yesterday afternoon, I hadn’t even gotten the challenge ingredients yet. But I knew that I wanted to do vanilla pastry cream with some kind of summer fruits and the chocolate glaze on top. The only requirement for this challenge is that we use the recipe for the choux pastry and have one chocolate component – whether it be chocolate pastry cream or chocolate glaze on top. So we went to the store after dinner and there was an abundance of beautiful fruits. We got kadota and black mission figs, fresh blackberries and blueberries, and something I had never had before, fresh currants. They were very reminiscent of the lignonberries I had eaten when I lived in Norway, but again, I had never eaten lingnonberries Both the currants and blackberries were tart, so I decided to combine them with the sweeter fruits.

We made 3 different fillings. Regular vanilla pastry cream, pastry cream mixed with currants and blueberries and the other with pastry cream mixed with black figs and blackberries. We also made 2 different shapes – éclair and puffs. Of course, as per Meeta and Tony’s specifications, we made a chocolate glaze for the tops. Everything turned out beautifully, except that a lot of the éclairs and puffs fell. My friend Judy, warned me that this might happen in sweltering humid Florida heat, but the cream and fruit perked them right up, and they turned out really wonderful. We finished the project at 11:30 last night, but before retiring, we each tried one of each flavor, and it was really hard to pick a favorite. All I can say is that I am glad there are some left and I don’t think I will turn them into ice cream. Although I am not too sure what I am going to do with the extra pastry cream!

If you want to try your hand at éclairs, please check out the wonderful recipe that follows after the cut by Pierre Hermé.

Thanks to Meeta and Tony for this awesome challenge!

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