Pumpkin Paleo Pancakes with Cranberries and Apples

Ok, so I have been on hiatus from writing for a week or two. Life got busy and between running from jobs to projects, getting to the gym and back, and lets be honest- Netflix, the blogging lost out. I have been cooking a lot, things like soups which turn out well, but I took no photos of the process because...its just a soup and I was hungry. So I am back, and here is a weekend pancake recipe to kick off the Thanksgiving week with ingredients like cranberries, pumpkin and spices. Happy weekend before thanksgiving, which means menu planning and planning all the planning ahead we can do. Like, what day should I make my pie crust? As of now, still undecided. 

It is paleo, and thus low sugar. Wanting more sweetness in the pancakes, but not having any sort of sweet juice in the house I used an unusual technique of soaking dried fruit to extract some of the sugary flavors. Prunes, figs, or dates work well as they have a high sugar content. I used prunes here. So take about a 1/4 cup of dried fruit (9 prunes) cover with boiling water, let steep for 5-10 minutes, while you whip together the rest of the pancakes. You will want 1/4 cup of this fruit juice to put into the pancakes, the now soft dried fruit can be eaten or used on oatmeal tomorrow, or chopped up and put into quickbread, stuffing, or whatever!

So grab a can of pumpkin, some coconut oil, eggs, and your favorite "milk" product and lets go. Melt your coconut oil, I throw the jar into the microwave for 30 seconds and that does the trick. Whisk the eggs, pumpkin, "milk", and oil together.

Measure the arrowroot and almond meal into a bowl, break up any lumps before adding it into the wet ingredients. Add the spices and other dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture. (spices from top, clockwise are: cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg and clove.)

Then add anything we missed, like maple syrup, prune juice, vanilla and apple cider vinegar. The batter is thick and custard-like.

Fresh cranberries are easily run over with a knife for chunks and bits which cook quickly in the batter. I always have some fresh cranberries in my freezer, which can easily be sliced up while still frozen. Stir the beautiful red berries into the batter and away we go.

I find success in a medium low heat, number 3 on my stove. And in my cast iron griddle pan which takes up two burners. I use coconut oil to grease the pan, since there is already coconut oil in the pancakes themselves. And because it is tasty and makes pancakes brown nicely. (Yes, butter is awesome too, I'll leave this choice up to you.)

Pour batter onto the griddle in 2"-3" rounds. If it does not flow easily, add more "milk". Cook slowly, bubbles will appear across the surface of the pancake when it is ready to flip. These can be delicate and my favorite tool is a fish spatula, it has an angled tip and is very thin, so it slides right under the pancakes. 

Once flipped over, they PUFF up, and when the pancakes reaches a puffy stage which is at the maximum puffyness and just before it begins to deflate...this is when it is done. Remove the pancakes from the griddle and begin to pile them up. Pour, cook, flip, cook, pile up. Repeat until done. 

Call everyone to the table and serve pancakes with maple syrup and cut apples.  

Pumpkin Paleo Pancakes with Cranberries and Apples

Serves 3-4

Wet ingredients: 
4 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2.5 T coconut oil
1 tablespoon maple syrup (or 1 packet stevia)
1 t vanilla
1/3 cup fig juice (something sweet)
1/2 cup hemp or almond milk (more as needed)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Dry ingredients:
1/2 cup arrowroot flour (or potato starch)
1 cup almond meal (or quinoa flour)
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon clove
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 t salt

Fruit:
1/2 cup of fresh cranberries
Sliced apple for serving
maple syrup for serving


Enjoy! ;)

Almond Flax Crackers

I make a lot of homemade nut milk in this house. Which means lots of leftover ground up almonds and hazelnuts. Sometimes I bake it into cakes and muffins or put it on cereal. I read a few blog posts about crackers made with almond meal and eggs, they seem pretty hard to mess up, and are very versatile so this is my take.





2 Cups almond meal
1 cup ground flax seed
2 eggs
2 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp basil

- Pre-heat oven to 350°
- Mix everything together in a bowl with a fork. It will look crumbly but will stick to itself if pressed.
- Dump it all onto parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
- Place another parchment paper on top. Roll with a pin or smash with your hands until it is about a 1/4 of an inch thick or less.
- Lightly score the dough into your cracker shapes, I used a pizza wheel, very easy!
- Bake in 350° oven for 15 to 20 min.



They turned out very savory, satisfying chewy and crunchy!

Banana Paleo Pancakes

I tried out these great pancakes the other day and they were so good, I remade them for breakfast for just myself this morning! I found the recipe here at The Little Foodie.

enough for one hungry or two people.


1 ripe banana
2 eggs
1/4 cup almond flour
2 Tbs almond milk
1/2 tsp baking powder
vanilla



I found a blender super at mixing all these things first thing in the morning. My fingers take a while to wake up in the morning and mashing bananas is no fun then. (you can do it all with a fork if you wish to)

Step one: Heat a cast iron pan (medium heat) add coconut oil for pancake frying, its the most tasty.
Step two: Dump everything in blender, turn on and puree until well combined and smooth.
Step three: spoon batter into the hot pan for pancake cooking! Keep the guys little, they cook better. They cook quickly, as bubbles show up, flip over....you know the drill.


***
Serve with fruit like blueberries and you don't even need maple syrup. Heat up some frozen blueberries in a pan with a little water till warm and spoon on top. (or microwave those frozen berries, super fast!)

M voted these are even better than the pumpkin paleo pancakes!

***

Paleo Vegan hot cocoa

After a serious session of snow shoveling, fingers and ears tingling from the cold wind that permeates all clothing, the obvious craving is hot cocoa.

When I was small and still building igloos and snow-women, my mother used to make hot chocolate in a big aluminum pot on the stove. She served it up with a ladle, enough for all of us and extra friends. I think she used half milk and half water with squares of baking chocolate, probably sugar too. It was warm and rich. 

My first encounter of French hot chocolate...chocolat chaud, I was an impressionable 13 years old. At a corner café, sitting outside pressed up against the window, I was ordered a chocolat chaud. Paris zooming by, trucks and petit cars, chic ladies skipping along the streets, a dressed up waiter set in front of me, a tea cup with a little black pool of chocolate, a pitcher of steaming hot milk, a little spoon and sugar cubes. He poured the milk into the night black of the cup, it frothed and made couds, dinner theatre for a young American girl. 

Perhaps the theatre made it taste better, but it is ingrained in my memory as the cup which all cups or hot cocoa are measured against. It changed my tastes and expectations for good. I have had the chance to travel to France many times since, and now it seems, modernization has affected the service of chocolat chaud, I couldn't find a place that serves it in such a way. Most come out pre-mixed, however, they do serve chocolate nice and bitter, with sugar on the side, unlike in the states. 

With the holy grail of Parisian chocolat in mind, how do I go about making it at home? (Without milk, because it makes my tummy hurt so badly.) A key to recent success is using fresh homemade hazelnut milk. It is richer tasting and more frothy. Refer to my recipe here. (if you are using store bought milk, thicker and richer is better like: Hemp milk, hazelnut, soy or almond.) This is a recipe for hot chocolate for two. Two intense cups. Scale up as needed.

straining fresh nut milk

1.5 cups fresh hazelnut milk
2 HEAPING Tablespoons of pure cocoa powder
Taza chocolate, 86% dark.
 Stevia "in the raw", 1 packet.

1 Tablespoon organic unrefined coconut palm sugar
**A drizzle of agave syrup, if you like.

(Optional but wonderful add ins are: vanilla bean, coffee/espresso powder, "mexican chocolate" spices, or mint! Have fun!)

place on a low heat to melt everything without boiling, or it will burn! A whisk is a good tool. Make sure it is nice a hot before serving in your most cozy mugs.
** The sugar is "to taste", and I find if I use a little bit of several types of alternative sweeteners (instead of all one type) the undesirable qualities of them are washed out. Stevia can have a strange aftertaste, but with the coconut sugar, it is virtually none.

*For a party pick-me-up, add a dash of whiskey to your cup ;)

DIY Hazelnut Milk (or almond!)

Q: Why would you make your own hazlenut milk when you can buy it from the store in a box?

A: 1) It is less expensive. 2) It is easy! 3) Why pay for water, and for that matter, lug it home in the car and up the stairs! 4) You know EXACTLY what is in it! No perservatives or sugars or whathaveyous! 5) It is delicious and tastes fresher than from the box! 6) You get ground nuts out of the process as well! 7) To have your mom roll her eyes at you. 8) A great way to impress your vegan and lactose intolerant friends!

1 cup nuts
Soak overnight (or 8 hours) in a 1 quart jar of water.

-Drain the hazelnuts or almonds and put in a blender. (repeat: blender- the food processer is not better here.)
Add 4 cups of water to the blender.

-Blast away for several minutes depending on how effective your machine is! You are done when all chopped up small, and the liquid is milky looking.

-Set your nut milk bag , or cheesecloth set in a strainer over a bowl or pitcher. Pour it all into the bag, let the milk strain out and use your hands to squeeze the rest from the cloth.
 

-Keep the nut milk in a covered container for several days.
-Shake before using, It will keep for several days but does not keep as long as the store bought kind.

Keep the ground up nuts in the fridge to use for baking or cereal or a homemade face scrub!

*** if you usually buy the sweetened varieties: add a dried DATE or two to the soaking nuts. If you like vanilla: add vanilla! 

AND - in case you dont drink a TON of milk and dont want it to go bad, you can make a half batch: 1/2 cup of nuts to 2 cups water.

Enjoy!