Banana Walnut Oat Pancakes

Healthy breakfasts are so important and, yet, if you have a busy schedule and limited diet it can be difficult to come up with a reasonable variety 365 days a year—on an on into perpetuity.

If you divide my standard “go to” breakfasts - oatmeal, muffin in a mug, smoothies, scones - into that number you’ll see I’m eating each about 90 times a year. Boring! OK, occasionally I’ll make myself veggies or eat leftovers that might make a passable breakfast food.

Some days I just need something new. I’m all ears if you have some favorite breakfasts to recommend.

Very happily, this weekend I made a batch of these wonderful pancakes. And, there’s a few in the freezer as a test to see how they’ll heat up for a quick weekday morning meal. If that works I can reduce my redundancy to, let’s see, closer to 70 times a year. So much better!

These pancakes are not very sweet. They’re perfect with maple syrup, jam, or just plain.

Banana Walnut Oat Pancakes

1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons hot water

3/4 cups sorghum flour

1/2 cup gluten free rolled oats

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup hemp milk

1/2 large or a whole small banana

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

pinch of nutmeg

1 teaspoon brown sugar

2 teaspoons grapeseed oil

1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1/3 cup walnuts

Mix the flax seed and 3 tablespoons warm water together and set aside. It will become somewhat gelatinous.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, oats, and baking powder and set it aside.

In a blender mix together all the remaining ingredients except the walnuts. When they’re thoroughly mixed you can drop in the walnuts and pulse it a few times until they’re chopped up a bit. If you don’t want to mess around with a blender you’ll need to mash the banana and whisk it with the milk until smooth. Then whisk in the spices, oil, vanilla, brown sugar and flax gel. Chop the walnuts and stir in.

Pour about half of the wet mixture into the bowl with the flour and oats. Gently begin to stir together. Pour in the remaining wet ingredients and gently mix until everything is fully incorporated. At this point you can assess the texture of the batter. It will be thick. If you prefer thinner batter add some water a few tablespoons at a time until you reach the right consistency.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or skillet over medium high heat. You’ll know when it’s ready if a drop of water sizzles or dances over the surface. Scoop small ladles of batter onto the griddle, flip when you start to see bubbles forming and the pancake is browned.

Serve warm with banana slices, walnuts and maple syrup!

This recipe makes about 12 three-inch pancakes.

Note: You can probably substitute your favorite GF flour mix for the sorghum, any non-dairy (or dairy if you can have it) milk for hemp milk, and any vegetable oil for the grapeseed oil. Also, I used a very small amount of Earth Balance to grease the griddle and it worked perfectly.

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Update on Nov 22, 2009 by Nancy Kohler

For more GF breakfast ideas visit “What Can I Eat That’s Gluten-Free” posted on The Gluten-Free Homemaker.

Pickled Seckel Pears

Don’t you just love cookbooks? Me? I’m a raging cookbook-aholic. There’s tons of them tucked here and there around the house filling a big double cabinet in the kitchen, part of a bookcase in the family room and another in my office. Right now the coffee table is loaded with cookbooks old and new—a few borrowed from my mother and two that were just added to the collection yesterday.

At one point I gave a whole bunch away (and sometimes I regret that) to make more space for new ones.

This recipe is from one of my Mom’s favorite cookbooks. She has two “go to” cookbooks—the red one and the green one. The red one is the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, a standard in every house before The Joy of Cooking took that spot. The green one is the standard even before Betty Crocker! Yes, it’s that old.

The book is appropriately titled The American Woman’s Cookbook, published by Garden City Publishing Company, Garden City, NY and edited by Ruth Berolzheimer of the Culinary Arts Institute. It was originally published in 1938—although my Mom has a ’50s version. And, at that time it was the cookbook given from an aunt or a sister to a young bride when she first set up housekeeping.

In the town where I grew up there’s a local orchard—Stoneyfield Orchards—that grew seckel pears, apples, peaches, and pears. And, wouldn’t you know, the green cookbook had a recipe for pickling the seckel pears.

When I was young my family was big into canning and so that’s what we did with these puppies. I know the canning rules have changed and this recipe doesn’t call for canning so I’m not recommending you do that unless you’re a master canner and understand the new rules. But, definitely make a small batch to serve with Sunday dinner, for a special evening, or for Thanksgiving. You can make these days in advance and keep them in the “sirup” in the fridge. (Yep, they spelled it “sirup”!)

Here’s the recipe exactly as it appears in the book.  You’ll definitely have to scale it down—unless, of course, you really love them or have a big family.

Pickled Seckel Pears

7 pounds Seckel pears

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon allspice

1 tablespoon cloves

1 ounce ginger root

1 pint vinegar

1 pint water

3 1/2 pounds sugar

Pare pears leaving stems on. Tie spices in a bag and add to the vinegar water and sugar, and boil mixture 5 minutes. Add pears a few at a time and cook until tender and clear. Place pears in a jar, pour in sirup and seal. Makes about 5 pints.

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