Carrot Cake for Breakfast - In Pancake Form!

Pancakes are a big favourite of mine at the weekends. During the week we don't really have the time to eat them before my Husband goes off to work, but we enjoy standing together in the kitchen on a Sunday morning, chatting away and eating the pancakes hot out of the pan, while the others cook.

I'm a big fan of Chocolate Covered Katie, and when she posted a Pancake Challenge, it was about all I could do to stop at the two pancakes in three days mark, so, without further ado, I present you, Carrot Cake Pancakes with Creamy Soya Cheese Topping.

Carrot Cake Pancakes - Serves 2 or more


1/2 scant cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp cinnomon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
large pinch salt

1 cup non-dairy milk
1 carrot medium grated
2-4 tbs currants or raisins

Mix together dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients and fruit, and mix lightly.
Heat a non-stick pan or skillet over a medium heat, oil very lightly
Use a 1/3 cup measure for each pancake, You may find the batter does not spread out without encouragement from the back of a spoon.
Cook until firm in the middle, and flip and cook until golden brown under. This normally takes me two minutes each side.

Serve with syrup or cream cheese topping

Easy Creamy Cheese Pancake Topping

2 tbs vegan cream cheese - I used Pure Dairy Free Soya Soft & Creamy Spread
1/2 tsp maple syrup
1/8 tsp lemon extract
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp cinnamon

Place in a small bowl and mix together. To get a more runny consistancy, surround the small bowl with just boiled water. This is much nicer made the night before. I mainly made this to use up the left over Pure Dairy Free Soya Soft & Creamy Spread , which was hideously sweet and not at all nice as an actual cheese replacement.

Fondue Fun

Not much to say here, other than look at the pretty Le Creuset Fondue pot I bought a few weeks back for £5 from a charity shop.

It looks like they have updated the model they are selling online now. I like mine more.

It's full of yummy fondue from The Vegan Lunchbox. I honestly wasn't expecting to like this the first time I made it... it was really justifying the purchase of the pot, but it's gooooorgeous and so healthy! The main ingredients being tofu, carrots, nutritional yeast and miso, it's pretty much like a gooey, yummy vitamin pill which you dunk things into. It was blurry lovely :)

Cherry Bakewell Pancakes

Ever since I noticed a few weeks back that the wild cherries at the edge of my estate were, indeed, edible, I've been looking for a way of eating them up. At the same time, ever since becomeing a vegan, I've been Jonesing for Bakewell Tarts. Well, can you see a thought forming?

Along came Chocolate Covered Katie with her Pancake-Making Bonanza and all my problems are solved. Okay, not all of them, but the cherry related ones are :)

Behold, if you will, the Bakewell Pancake.




Recipe - Makes two big portions, about 6 -7 smallish pancakes

1 Cup White Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tbs sugar

1 1/4 cup non dairy milk (I used unsweetened soya)
1 tbs sunflower oil
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup cherries - quartered
1/4 cup almond flakes

In a large bowl mix together the first set of dry ingredients, then add the wet and briefly mix, before finally adding in the chopped fruit and almond flakes and stirring until combined. As always with vegan baking, don't over mix.

I cooked this over a medium high heat, portioning out in 1/4 cup measures, which were a bit too small if truth be told. The pancakes need flipping once they are fairly solid in the middle, which was about after two minutes.

This was perfect served with my adapted Cherry Compot, topped with toasted flaked almonds. My husband pronounced them 'Very Bakewelly' He was quite happy to go cherry picking the next day, which I think is an indication of the success here ;)

Simple Cherry Compot

I made this partly to preserve my epic haul of wild picked cherries, and partly as a pancake sauce to go on my Bakewell Pancakes, inspired by Chocolate Covered Katie's Pancake-Making Bonanza.

This was adapted from Sweet and Sassy Cherry Sauce over on dlife, a diabetes support website, who in turn took it from The Cherry Marketing Institute . Like cherries need marketing?!?

Adapted Cherry Compot - Makes two cups

2 cup Cherries
2 tbs sugar
6 tbs water (Divided)
2 tbs cornflour
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp vodka
Juice and rind of 1/2 a small unwaxed lemon

• Place cherries sugar and 4tbs of the water into a small pan and bring to a slow boil, simmer covered for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally
• Once the cherries have released a lot of the juice, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and put to one side
• Mix the salt and cornflower together. Add this to your 2tbs of water, and mix into the pan
• Add the vodka along with the lemon juice and zest.
• Continue to simmer over a low heat for 7-8 mins
• Put the cherries back in, and cook for another 3-5 mins, until cherries are softened and the compot is of the desired thickness.

Kept in a sterilised jar in the fridge, this will last for up two two weeks.

To make into a pancake syrup, take 2 parts compot to one part maple syrup and warm.

Soup 'Erb

I won't apologise for this. I love soup. I love how easy it is to cook, how great it tastes, how many different sorts there are, and how frugally you can use up veggies that have, frankly, seen better days by this point in their existence.

So, this rambling warning delivered, I have two soupy days to tell you about. First, Black Bean Soup adapted from La Dolce Vegan. This used up the left over black beans from the 1lb sack I cooked over the weekend. It should have had an avocado salsa with it, but this didn't happen... because I didn't have an avocado. Instead it enjoyed a hastily knocked together salsa of fresh tomato, spring onion and parsley.


I also made some rather tasty foccachia, using the same recipe as the Pizza Dough. I let this go through the dough cycle, then took away 1/4 of the dough, and added a handful of chopped home dried tomatoes, some chopped green olives, and a little bit of mixed herbs.


I used the left over 1/4 of the dough to make two cinnamon rolls, but this was an epic fail :( I don't think the dough was sweet or oily enough.

Anyway, baked for about 20 mins in a very hot oven, the rolls were okay, but not worth making again.


As I was in a pottering about the kitchen mood I also made some caramelised onions, based on the method as detailed over on Tea and Cookies. I'm always shocked how much they condense down

From Ready, Veggie, Cook

Today I also made a recipe from LDV, this time ginger butternut squash soup. This was because I was feeling a littel guilt that I've had a squash sat up the in spare room for longer than I care to admit. These suckers don't die do they?

I thought some nice toasted butternut squash seeds would be a nice addition so the soup. They were ever so simple to make, just cleaning the seeds, and toasting in a dry pan for 2-3 minutes. Entertainly, they popped out of the pan just like popcorn! To these I added a little homemade
Gomashio, which added a lovely taste.

Cooked Seeds


Soup



I'm thinking about entering Chocolate-Covered Katie's interesting sounding Dessert Pancake-Making Bonanza. I don't know though, as I am still wondering about, finding my feet in both cooking and the blogosphere. Still, I guess the first step towards failing is not trying, huh? Lets see what happens!

In not-directly-related-to-cooking news, the garlic clove I planted months ago in the broken whistling kettle is now yawning above ground. I don't expect he'll be any good, but at least I feel that something happened from my planting him.

Pizza my mind?

Due to the rampant heatwave here in the UK, I've not really fancied having the oven on for the past few weeks, but today my pizza lust got too much for me.

My normal pizza dough creates enough for two

125ml (1/2 cup) water
200g (1 1/2 cup) plain flour
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil

I dump all this in the breadmaker, in this order. Indent the top of the flour and add the yeast, and put the salt and oil in the corners of the bread pan. Stick this on dough, and you are good to go.

Since it's well documented that I'm unable to leave things be, I decided to throw in some flavour to the base.

1 small handful dried mushrooms
1 small handful dried tomatoes

I just threw these in a food processor, then whizzed them to crumbs, and plopped these onto of the flour. It dawned on me after, I should probably have soaked them. Meh.

Added to this
1/2 tsp dried herbs
1 pinch chilli flakes

Waiting to be processed in the breadmaker


After 90 mins in the breadmaker


I rolled the dough out, and then let it prove for about 30 mins, untill puffy and yum :)



Now, to top the pizza I had left over chilli, mushrooms, yellow peppers and button mushrooms.



I tend to blind bake pizzas as I don't like a soggy crust. For me, I just fork the base slightly, cook for 2-3 mins on one side, flip, cook for 2-3 min the other side, and then add your toppings. With thicker based, this seems to prevent it getting unpleasantly moist. I bake at 230C for 10-15 mins, and then add 'cheese' and stick under the grill again.

I also added a little toffuti cheese slices, as my husband really loves these.

Doesn't it look nice all baked up?


Also, I normally make up a little sauce to dip the pizza crusts into. Today's was a little garlic and chili sauce dipping sauce, which I added some ketchup, a little brown sauce, and then some liquid smoke. Basically, anything liquid that's in my kitchen and not nailed down ;)

I also picked some cherries from the tree by the edge of the estate, with the intention of putting them through the dehydrator, as I love dried cherries, but I'm not prepared to shell out for them. Lovely husband pitted them by hand for me :)

Modified Kale Pasta Eats

Firstly, Hello to anyone coming over from the link on For those of you who don't know what Operation Beautiful is, please visit the site. The primary aim is to tackle 'Fat Talk' by sharing positive notes in public spaces. It goes further than this though, and in my opinion, empowers all through the acceptance that appearance is subjective, and we are all beautiful.

Now, onto the eats!

Since first trying 'Matthew's Spicy Tomato Peanut and Kale Pasta' recipe from The Dolce Vegan, I've eaten it regularly, possibly around once a week. This is for three reasons

1) Its a very good way of eating my greens that even my Husband likes
2) I'm overwhelmed with Kale, grown in a container in my front garden
3) It's very, very tasty!

However, the original recipe calls for tomato juice, which we don't often have in the house. The recipe calls for a can of tomato juice, of a size I've never seen in the UK. This meant buying a carton and freezing the left overs, which never works.

Necessity being the mother of invention, I've tweaked the recipe a lot to make it more of a 'store cupboard + Kale' type of thing.

Adapted Kale & Tomato Pasta - Serve 2


Pasta for Two (150g)
Bunch of Kale, Chopped (About 2 big handfuls)
Can of Chopped Tomatoes
1 Tbs Tomato Purée

2 Tbs Peanut Butter
1/2 Tsp Garlic Purée
1/2 Tsp Hot Pepper Sauce (Tabasco is fine)

1) Cook the pasta
2) While the pasta is cooking, put the chopped kale, tomatoes and purée in a small pan. Bring almost to a boil, reduce heat and simmer gently for 8 minutes
3) After 8 mins, add the peanut butter, garlic and hot pepper sauce, stir
4) Leave another 2 mins, drain the pasta and mix it into the tomato mixture

Finn!

Don't be tempted to skip the tomato purée, this really thickens up the sauce and gives it a tomato tang which is otherwise missing.