buckwheat & mickey mouse

Maya’s newest favourite food is pancakes. She’s especially fond of the Mickey Mouse variety that I have resurrected from my own childhood memories of Sunday morning breakfasts with my family. Because my husband and I have to avoid wheat and dairy (due to food intolerances & allergies) I’ve devised a fabulous wheat and dairy free recipe that also happens to be sugar free!

Buckwheat-Sorghum Blueberry Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 c. buckwheat flour

3/4 c. sorghum flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. xanthum gum

2 lg. eggs

1 and 3/4 c. soy or other milk

Fresh or frozen blueberries

Directions:

1. Mix dry ingredients

2. In a separate bowl, beat egg & add milk

3. combine wet & dry ingredients

4. cook on med-low heat (adding blueberries to wet side of pancake after batter is in frying pan)

5. serve with REAL maple syrup (or use unsweetened apple sauce if you want to keep the sugar to a minumum)

For the Mickey Mouse variety, see picture:

It’s all in the wrist. Just dribble two extra little droplets of batter on the top of the larger main pancake to create the “mouse ears”.

Simply delicious!

Recipe in Demand

So, everyone has been asking me about my latest salad. It’s a yam-quinoa salad with chick peas and it’s delicious! For those of you who want something new to add to your repertoire, the recipe is below:

Yam-Quinoa Salad

Combine:

2 Yams (baked, cooled, peeled and cubed)

1 cup quinoa cooked in 2 cups of chicken stock/broth

4 green onions (finely chopped)

19 oz. can chick peas

1/4 cup fresh basil (chopped)

2/3 cup flax oil

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

(optional: soft goat cheese, red/yellow peppers, cucumber)

Salt and pepper to taste

Maybe it’s the fresh basil or perhaps the flax oil with the yummy vinegar… whatever the case, both my husband and I are addicted! Enjoy!

Flower Power

As an addition to my vegetable garden this summer, I am also learning a bit about flowers. Since my favourite part of growing anything is in the eating, I have been particularly focussed on growing edible flowers. Pictured here is tonight’s salad with a few fresh garden greens along with flowers from my chives (lavender colored flowers) and calendula (orange and yellow flowers) plants. I have yet to taste the calendula but I hear it’s a lot like cucumber. I am also growing borage and nasturtiums whose flowers I also plan to add to my salads. But they’re still little seedlings so the flowers won’t be ready for a while yet.

Mmmm Pork!

During my post-adolescent, idealistic phase (i.e., my university years), I was a hard-core vegetarian, and it’s days like today that I can’t believe I managed to forgo the consumption of meat for five whole years. I’m marinating pork chops for dinner tonight, something that would surely cause my Orthodox Jewish great grandfather to roll over in his grave. Ever since I became pregnant, I have been craving pork on a regular basis.

It’s also kind of astounding that I have become such a domestic diva. I used to have trouble even thinking of dinner til about 7pm when I’d start scrounging through my fridge or make a last minute run to the grocery store to figure out something to eat. Now, with Maya in my life, I’m becoming surprisingly stereotypical… and even more shocking is the fact that I’m liking it so much! I now manage to take meat out of the freezer early in the day, then cook up a carb. and vegetable of some kind, and coordinate it so that all the food is usually cooked and ready to eat at the same time (I used to just eat in stages because I couldn’t be bothered to plan)–and usually that’s when my husband gets home from work. What’s come over me?

So, while my slab of raw pig is tenderizing I thought I’d take the opportunity to share my new favorite marinade with all of you:

Pork Loin/Chops Marinade
1/4 cup Ketchup
1/3 cup soy sauce/tamari
1/4 cup cooking sherry
2 tsp white wine vinegar
2 green onions (finely chopped)
1 clove garlic (minced)
1 tbsp ginger root (chopped)
salt & pepper

Instructions: Whisk together ingredients in marinating dish. Marinate pork for 1-4 hours (depends how much time you have). Remove pork from marinade and cook on BBQ. While pork is on the BBQ, heat marinade on the stove top. Bring to boil, then simmer for at least 10 minutes (gotta kill the raw meat bacteria). Serve up marinade as sauce on top of chops. Yum yum!