Sweet Potato Pancakes

Okay, so these sounded so good in theory...not so much in practice. My son loves pumpkin pancakes, but unfortunately, my pumpkin crop was a big fat fail this year. So I thought I'd make sweet potato pancakes instead. You can imagine my excitement when I found a recipe that even said, "If you like pumpkin pancakes, you'll love these." WRONG!

Don't let these fool you...these are the 'after' pics. See below for the horror story.

While I don't blame the sweet potatoes for the failure, I will definitely NOT be making this recipe ever again. When I put all the ingredients together, the batter turned into a blob of frothy, foaming gelatinous goo. Every pancake, no matter how long I cooked it, was raw in the middle. Even when I left it in the pan so long it was burnt on the outside. It was very reminiscent of the snickerdoodle pancake fiasco I had last year. Remembering that particular pancake disaster, I added a lot of milk to these...about half a cup. And stirred it for quite a while, to get all the foaming bubbles out. Then, the batter was the right consistency (a bit thicker than cream) and the last few turned out okay. The buttermilk made them super sour, though. If I add buttermilk again, I'd probably only use 1/2 c. and 1 c. regular milk, which might make them less foamy and more liquid.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 sweet potato, cooked, peeled and mashed

creepy foamy batter cooking

Creepy foamy pancakes rising way too high while remaining raw inside.

This was the best looking of a dozen, most of which were burned on the outside and raw inside.

Creepy over-risen pancakes with butter and syrup...still creepy.

Directions:

1. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg in a medium bowl.
2. Add egg, buttermilk, and mashed sweet potato. Stir in but do not over mix; the batter should have small lumps.
3. Heat a cast iron skillet and drop a dallop of butter into it. 
4. When butter begins to bubble, pour in a bit of batter to the size pancake you want. 
5. When pancakes have bubbles on top and are slightly dry around edges, about 2½ minutes, flip over. 
6. Cook until golden on bottom, about 1 minute.
7. Serve warm with a drizzle of pure maple syrup.

After beating some of the foam away and adding more liquid, they approached normal.

What I've Learned about Cooking (so far)

So, I've been doing this blog for three months now, and today I'm doing my first non-recipe post.

After three months of experimentations, trials and some errors, there's a few things I've learned. First of all, I cook seasonally. And there's not a cookbook out there that can give me enough recipes for all the vegetables I grew. I can make every cabbage recipe in any cookbook, and I'll still have more cabbage than can be cooked. So at times you have to go off the cookbook and go on Pinterest.

Second of all, cooking takes a lot of time....and even more dishes. I may have never noticed this if I had a dishwasher, but since we don't have a dishwasher in our new place, believe me, it's hard not to notice. Especially when the sink is piled so high with dishes I'm in fear of an avalanche. Cooking takes a lot of time, and then you have to do dishes, and that takes about twice as long as the cooking. I end up spending a lot more time in the kitchen than I ever thought I would, not being the Holly Housewife type.

And lastly, if cooking takes a lot of time, blogging takes a LOT of time. My husband doesn't have a problem with my cooking, but the time I spend blogging has been an issue of several occasions. But, the whole thing kind of went hand-in-hand. So it's new recipes and blogs, or it's tuna sandwiches. I can't really believe I've stuck with it this long, but here it is, 3 months later, and I haven't missed a single day. Of course, sometimes I make two or three recipes in one day, and that way I can skip a day here and there. But I've yet to skip a blog. So here's to nine more months.

Happy Cooking everyone!

Lentils with Pork or Sausage

This is another of those recipes that I found in Fannie and then ended up adapting so much that I'm not sure it's even based on her recipe anymore. Her recipe was for Lentils and Sausage, and I didn't have sausage, so I used some pork bones for flavor (and boy did they make the whole thing taste like I was eating pork instead of lentils!) and tried to follow the rest of the recipe. It didn't work out that well, as it was WAY dry and I had to double the water. By the time I was done, it had very few aspects of the Fannie Recipe. If I have sausage again, I might make this, but I found it a bit lacking of vegetables and overall a disappointment. It was way too bland for me. I love my lentil soup (I don't have a recipe, but I've made it many times and it always turns out full of flavor) and this was just eh. The next time I make a lentil dish, I will probably not repeat this one.

For this, I used:
1 1/4 c. dried lentils
2.5 c. water
2 small onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 potatoes, chopped
1 bay leaf
pork bones OR 1/2 lb. italian sausage, cut in 2 inch pieces

Directions:

1. In a large soup pot, combine lentils and water. 
2. Add onions, garlic and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer.
3. Add potatoes and sausage or soup bones.
4. Simmer 20-30 minutes until lentils are soft.
5. I had to add about 2 c. more water because not everything was covered by the water. It all boiled away, so this is not a soup, but a drier lentil dish.

I ended up putting soy sauce and sour cream and cilantro on this just to make it have some kind of flavor besides overwhelming pork-ness. Seriously, it was like I was eating a pork chop. Couldn't taste anything else!

Gluten Free, Grain Free Zucchini Lasagna

Confession: This was actually an impromptu meal that was salvaged from a failed attempt at zucchini ravioli. The person who made the ravioli is way more talented than I am at wielding a grater. After clutching my stand-up grater so tightly I managed to grate half the skin off my thumb on the opposite side while I attempted to wrangle a zucchini through the slotted side, I gave up. I lifted the grated to find a sad little pile of 2-inch long, paper-thin zucchini shreds and a few longer, thicker, choppy pieces.

Soooo not going to be able to make ravioli wrappings with THIS!

This is nothing like the perfectly uniform ravioli-wrapping strips in the pictures. I didn't know what to do at this point, since I'd already started my sauce and had this wonderful ravioli picture in my mind. So I winged it and made lasagna on the fly, without a recipe. I've made regular lasagna enough that I didn't feel too lost as I attempted a noodle-free version. Forging onwards, I set about slicing the zucchini lengthwise with a knife, making the thinnest slices I could, and laid them out for lasagna noodles.

I then discovered we only had about 1/2 c. of cottage cheese and no ricotta (the ravioli didn't have cheese--it was meat/spinach ravioli). Though tempted to give up, I persevered, using the cottage cheese in one layer and meat in the next, layering with sauce and zucchini and cheese as I went.
When it came out of the oven, it didn't look half bad, all layered and pretty, although my pasta-infused Italian blood did not find the zucchini an equal substitute for noodles. However, it really was quite good. If you're gluten-free and used to things like spaghetti squash and other noodles substitutes, I would absolutely recommend this. But I can't honestly say I didn't feel a *little* deprived, knowing what 'real' lasagna tastes like.

For this, I used:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp. chopped onion (fresh or dried would be fine, or leave this out altogether)
1 c. ground beef or lamb
1 large zucchini (2 small would be fine)
1 c. cottage cheese or ricotta (2 if you like more cheese)
1 egg
1 c. grated mozzerella
1/2 c. parmesan cheese
1 batch of marinara sauce (or 1 jar canned)

1. In a medium skillet, heat oil, then add onion, garlic and ground meat. 
2. Cook over medium heat until pink is gone from meat, then set aside. 
3. Meanwhile cut zucchini lengthwise in as thin strips as possible (or grate on the side that makes strips, if you are a talented grater-user).
4. In a small bowl, beat egg and then stir in cottage cheese or ricotta. You can add a dash of Italian seasoning or other herbs to this if you wish.
5. Put about 1/4 c. marinara sauce in the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish, spreading to cover the bottom of the dish. Then lay out zucchini slices as you would lasagna noodles.
6. Top with half your cottage cheese mixture.
7. 
8. Top that with third of your mozzerella and parmesan
9. Follow with another layer zucchini, then about half your remaining sauce, then the meat, the rest of the cottage cheese, third of mozzerella and parmesan.
10. Top that with your last layer of zucchini, the remaining sauce, the last third of your mozzerella and parmesan.
11. Bake in a 375 oven for about 45 minutes.

Baked Winter Squash (Butternut)

For years, I've looooved butternut squash. I mean, I could eat one every day all winter and never get tired of it. I know, because I've done it. So when my mom gave me some seeds, I was excited to plant them. Unfortunately, I didn't have much space in my garden, so I was only able to plant 4 hills (5 plants came up). I quickly decided that was enough, as the plants seemed intent on taking over the world. 

However, just when I thought I'd be overwhelmed by squash, the squash bugs descended and killed all my plants. Fortunately, they'd already set about 30 squash. Unfortunately, they weren't mature enough to pick yet. I wasn't sure what to do, since my mom said to pick them although they weren't quite ripe. I picked one to see how it was, and it was a bit watery (NOT the correct texture for this rich, creamy squash) and not at all sweet.

So I went to Fannie to see if I could use it up somehow (I left the rest of the squash in the garden to see if they could ripen up from whatever leaves were left on the vines).

Fannie's recipe for this is quite simple.

You will need:
1 butternut squash, cut in half lengthwise.
1 tbsp. maple syrup
1/2 tsp. salted butter

Bake the squash at 375 for about 40 minutes or until soft.
Mash it a bit while leaving it in the skin.
Add butter and maple syrup and enjoy.

While this was not nearly as good as a mature squash, which is sweet enough on it's own, it did give me an edible way to eat the immature squash I'd picked. I haven't tried another one yet, but I'm sure I'll post when I do.

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins (or Bread)

 When I was a kid, my mom made chocolate zucchini cake every summer. I still remember exactly how it tastes, unlike any other chocolate cake. I looked up some of the recipes for it on Pinterest, and they are almost all nearly identical. This one was a tiny bit different, as the chocolate chips were supposed to be mixed in and not spread on top of the bread. I didn't have chocolate chips, so I just made these a bit more chocolatey by adding extra cocoa powder, and I made them into muffins instead of bread. Unfortunately, I didn't add extra oil to make up for the dry cocoa powder, and they turned out a bit dry and not very good. Also, I was making these at the same time as I made pancakes for my son, and I got distracted and used all whole wheat, which didn't help any. They tasted really healthy, and not in the good way--kind of like a power bar.

The original recipe, this one from the list of zucchini bread recipes, calls for a brown sugar glaze, but I'm obsessed with cream cheese frosting, so I put it on everything, including these. It still couldn't save them, though.

I used:

• 1 C whole wheat flour (would recommend half white!)
• 1 t cinnamon
• ¾ t baking soda
• 5 T unsweetened cocoa powder
• ¼ C coconut oil
• ½ C organic raw sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 t vanilla
• ¼ C sour cream
• 1½ C grated zucchini
• 

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a large 9″ bread pan (or muffin tin with cupcake liners) and set aside.
2. Whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and cocoa powder in a small bowl until combined. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together sugar, oil, and eggs. Add vanilla and sour cream.
4. Fold in the grated zucchini. Add the remaining dry flour ingredients. Stir to combine.
5. Pour into prepared 9″ bread pan or cupcake liners. Bake for 50-60 minutes for bread, 25-30 minutes for muffins, or until a toothpick in the center comes clean.
6. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes and remove from pan. Top with cream cheese frosting if desired. 

It's hard for me to give directions for this, since it was NOT good. Just don't follow my directions, or look for an alternative recipe, or try following the original recipe exactly. All I know is, these hung around on the counter for DAYS, and that's saying a lot for a chocoholic like me. I finally managed to eat them all, just to use them up, because I felt too guilty to throw them out, seeing as they weren't burnt to a crisp or anything (dang, I should have thought of that earlier...)

Banana Oat Zucchini Bread

As I am just recently beginning to both garden and cook a lot, I've noticed that my cooking follows the trend of what's getting ripe in the garden. So if you've noticed a lot of zucchini recipes, that's because I have tons. I planted 4 hills of zucchini, and I think all 4 plants lived, maybe even 5. Now I am giving the stuff away I have so much. It's not even the quantity so much as it is that I just don't know what to do with it! I thought planting four hills was being moderate, but when I have 8 zucchini on the counter, I just get overwhelmed. And Fannie only has about 5 recipes for it.

So, it was off to Pinterest for some inspiration. I searched for zucchini bread and found this AMAZING blog post that lists 50 zucchini bread recipes. That's right, 50! I looked at some and decided I wanted to make all 50. Then I put it on my favorites toolbar so I can find it easily. So check out the link if you need to use up zucchini or just want to be amazed at the long list of breads that you can make with zucchini. Banana bread? Yep. Lemon poppyseed cake? Yep. Cheesy bread? Of course. Basically, you can name any kind of bread or cake, and just put a bird on it zucchini in it.

Since there were so many I wanted to make, it was hard to pick just one. But I had an overripe banana hanging out on the counter, so I chose the banana bread recipe .

Here's my adapted version:

• 3/4 cups white flour 
• 3/4 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 cup organic sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup coconut oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 ripe bananas mashed
• 3 cups shredded zucchini

Preheat oven to 350 and oil a loaf pan.
 
In large bowl stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and oats.

In a second bowl combine sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla and mashed banana.

Pour sugar mixture into flour mixture and mix to combine.

Add in zucchini and mix until well incorporated.

Bake for 35-45 minutes or until bread pulls away from sides of pan and an inserted toothpick is removed clean.

My batter seemed the right consistency, but for some reason, my bread really didn't cook that well. I cooked it for 40 minutes and a toothpick came out clean--almost floated out on the oil in it. I haven't baked with coconut oil, so maybe someone more familiar with it would be able to tell me. But it was super 'greasy' feeling. It looked a little soft still, but the toothpick was practically falling through the bread it was so oily. And even after 45 minutes, when I took it out, it was still kind of moist feeling. I slid a knife in to make sure, and it came out really oily as well.

Anyway, the bread smelled delicious and my son couldn't wait to eat it. I let it cool about 30 minutes before cutting it, releasing all the wonderful fragrances. Seriously, this one smelled like a coconut and banana wonderland. It tasted very good, but after my son asked me what the green things were, I finally told him and then he didn't want to eat it. Bummer.

Also, when I sliced it open, I found that it was still moist and a bit gummy inside. So I'm not sure how to tell if it's done since the knife & toothpick both failed me. 

The original blog pics look like the bread is much more well done (and you can't see many green flecks, which makes me suspicious)! I'd recommend an extra 5-10 minutes beyond the 45 if you are using coconut oil. I guess that was the problem? Not sure, as I followed the recipe almost exactly, only cutting the sugar some and adding whole wheat. It tasted excellent, but needed more time cooking. To fancy it up, I made cream cheese frosting for it, which distracted from the gumminess. And after it had cooled completely, it wasn't gummy but was still a bit too heavy/dense.

Overall, I would recommend this recipe, because it tasted quite delicious. But maybe add a couple tablespoons of extra flour or squeeze your zucchini to make it extra dry for baking.

Special Waffles: Not So Special After All

With peach topping.

So....as you may recall, my son loved the regular waffles I made. So of course he wanted them again the next day. Thinking I'd get in another recipe, I went to Fannie Farmer in search of an alternative waffle recipe. I found the so-called "Special Waffles" and decided to make them.

At first, all went well.

I used:
1/2 c. white flour
1/2 c. wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 eggs, separated
about 3/4 c. milk, plus 1/4 c. yogurt
1 tbsp. sugar

Combined the flour and baking soda as directed. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks well, then added milk and yogurt. I use yogurt to activate baking soda, although I've never had anything fail to rise when I use only milk. I just like the tenderness yogurt adds, plus it does make things a bit fluffier when using baking soda. I'm not sure if this was the problem.

Anyway, I then beat the egg whites until stiff, adding sugar and continuing to beat for another minute. Then added flour mixture to yolk/milk and stirred until smooth. Then, as directed, I mixed in about 1/3 of the beaten whites, then gently folded in the rest. It looked all light and fluffy as I assume it should.

Frothy from egg whites.

Fannie says to spread 1/2 c batter into hot waffle iron, but that really depends on your waffle iron. Ours overflows if it's too full, so I usually err on the side of under filling, because I'd rather have holey waffles than a huge mess to clean off the side of the waffle iron.

In the waffle iron and ready to bake to golden perfection.

Anyhoo, I did as told and followed the directions. The book doesn't say anything about oiling the waffle iron, and the traditional waffles specifically said NOT to oil it It's nonstick, after all. The traditional waffles turned out great.  So, I slathered on the frothy batter and closed it up, waiting for it to "bake until golden," as Fannie says. 

DOES THIS LOOK GOLDEN TO YOU?

THIS is what happened when I opened it. If you think this is funny, you should try cleaning a waffle iron of this glue! It was well cooked, and a little crumbled edge piece tasted okay. But it was completely destroyed. After about 20 minutes of picking off bits and pieces from between those little squares, I gave in and ran it under the water, even though I know it's bad. But I had no other choice. After wetting the cooked waffle bits, they came off pretty easily, only leaving a few remnants. I needed a toothbrush to scrub it off well enough to use again. This time, I practically doused the thing in butter between every square, top and bottom, before warily trying again.

I may have lost my mind if it had done the same thing again, but luckily, it only stuck in a few spots and I could pry them loose. I did have to butter it again between each waffle, and even then, a few places stuck each time. So my big advice is, butter up!

Definitely a delicate texture to these. They were a bit hard to handle, as they were very soft.

After this huge fiasco, I will never ever make these again. Especially since my son said they weren't as good as the traditional ones anyway! This is what I get for trying to make fancy food!

To be fair, they did taste good, but the waffle-iron trauma scarred me for life. If you are making these, spray, grease and butter well. It makes 6 "square toaster waffle"-sized waffles.

Guacamole

Okay, Fannie is usually the cooking bible when it comes to basic recipes. But sometimes, it's just not quite as good as expected.

This is one that, after making once, I will definitely revert to my old recipe. Here's Fannie's advice.

Mash avocado with silver fork.
Season with onion juice, lemon juice, salt and pepper
Mix in mayo and tomato pulp and beat until whipped-cream consistency
Optional add-in: chili powder

I'm used to my guac with a heavy dose of cilantro and garlic, which are notably absent here. After following her recipe, I tasted it and found it way too bland. So I blended in half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic, but it was still a bit bland for me. Plus, it was a really weird, not-green color.

Maybe it's because I've lived in NWA for too long, but I need my Mexican restaurant-style guac!

Coleslaw

This recipe is very simple and goes with the recipe for old-fashioned dressing I posted yesterday. Really the recipe is so easy it's barely a recipe at all, aside from the dressing.

This side.

I had some trouble grating the cabbage, so I ended up using that side of the grater that's never been used before, the one with three wide slots. The regular large grating side made the cabbage too fine. But the wide slots gave a perfect coleslaw shred.

The Fannie Farmer Cookbook says:

• Shred cabbage or chop fine. 
• Chill in refrigerator. 
• Just before serving, mix with cooked dressing, using 1/2 c. dressing for each 2 cups cabbage. *The dressing recipe makes about a cup, so I used 4 cups of shredded cabbage (1/2 head).

Optional: add 1/2 tsp. caraway seeds or celery seeds, 1 tbs. minced onion or 1/4 c. finely cut green pepper.

I thought those were weird add-ins, as I've never had coleslaw with peppers. But maybe that's because I'm used to a typical southern slaw. This was a bit different, as it didn't have a mayo based dressing. The vinegar was very tangy. At the bottom of the recipe, it says:

"For variety, add grated carrot or a few slices of stuffed olives...celery, apple, or crushed pineapple..."

Okay, I've never had slaw without carrot. That's not 'for variety' in the south, it's a requirement. Pineapple is optional, I agree. But then, I have an ingrained opinion of what Southern food is like. Southern Slaw does not include olives. So much ew.

Overall, I would not really recommend this recipe, as it was sort of weird flavored and not what I'm used to. But if you've never had coleslaw, it's an easy one and you might like it.