Almond Pancakes

This recipe uses no processed flours.  Just almond flour (you can make your own in a food processor or buy it at a health food store).  It's really delicious.

Ingredients:
1 cup almond flour
2 eggs
1/4 cup soda water or sparkling water
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tbsp sucanat (or sugar)
(a bit of oil for the griddle as well)
Directions:

1. Mix your dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk your eggs until soft peaks begin to appear.
3. Preheat your non stick griddle on medium with about a teaspoon vegetable oil.
4. Add your oil and water to the eggs and stir to blend just a couple of stirs.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry flour mix and stir with a wooden spoon until just blended.  Don't over mix.
6. Spoon your pancake batter onto the griddle.  These pancakes won't bubble like "regular" pancakes, so you simply flip them when they are browned on the bottom.  If you keep them smallish it is easier to determine if the pancakes are done.  We made about nine- 3" diameter pancakes.
7. Serve with fresh fruit, maple syrup, butter, jam, whichever you prefer.

Hominy & Egg Scram

I happened across this South American style cooking blog and saw this recipe for Mote Pillo.  I was intrigued, so off I went to a local Latino Market to purchase the required ingredients to make my breakfast.  Apparently Mote Pillo is a typical dish from the highlands or Sierra region in Ecuador.  To Laylita it is comfort food.
 For me it was an entirely new experience.  The texture of the Hominy (treated maize kernels) is somewhat similar to a dense pasta.  The flavor is brand new to me.  I liked the dish but of course felt it needed a kick or something.   I tried a bit of cayenne (nope) some hot sauce (better) and finally some maple syrup (always best!) haha -I never tried ketchup though that might have been nice. I enjoyed the dish and ate my entire meal but like most regional comfort food.  It might take me a while to actually crave it.  :)
Here is the recipe as she wrote it with my substitutions in parenthesis (I made a 1/2 batch) -

Ingredients:

1 lb cooked mote or hominy (canned is fine)
2 tbs butter (or organic red palm oil for color)
4 eggs
1 cup chopped leeks (white part only) or white onion
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 tsp ground achiote
1/4 cup milk (rice milk)
2 tbs chopped chives
1 tbs finely chopped cilantro
salt to taste

serve with cheese slices and black coffee  (or herbal chai tea if you are like me and don't do dairy or caffeine )

Directions:

1. Heat the butter over med. heat in a large sauté pan, add the leeks, crushed garlic, achiote and salt.  Cook until leeks are soft (about 5 min)
2. Add the hominy, stir in well and cook for another 2 minutes.
3. Add the milk (rice milk) and cook until it is almost absorbed by the hominy.
4. Whisk the eggs and add them to the pan, stir well and cook for 3 minutes or so.
5. Stir in the chives and cilantro, season to taste.

note- the achiote powder is what gives the dish it's color.  You can mix together some oregano, cumin, clove, cinnamon, black pepper, allspice, garlic powder, salt and annatto in a mortar and pestle and make your own.  It is the annatto seeds that dye the mixture red.

The Breakfast Project

 I have started a fun new project on flickr called- The Breakfast Project   Inspired by my Norwegian friend Astrid and her Dinner Project    It's only for a couple of weeks, but I figured it would be rather fun and turns out it is!  It is forcing me to consider the aesthetics of my morning meal a bit more.  Trust me, I often eat stuff that looks like a dog's breakfast because it's just a mash of leftovers from the night before.  If I do have one of those mornings, I promise to photograph it anyhow.  :)

Quinoa chocolate cake

My MIL made me this delicious cake for my birthday.  I loved it.  I intend to make it myself sometime.  When I make it, I will replace the milk with rice milk and the processed cane sugar with sucanat. It is super moist and really delicious! Buckarooken loved it as well.  That's the thing with gluten free chocolate cakes, they are just as good as regular cakes.  Only this one is made with whole quinoa which is fabulously good for you. 

Ingredients-
2/3 cup white or golden quinoa
1 1/3 cups water
1/3 cup milk
4 large eggs
1tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Directions-
1. Combine the water and the quinoa in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, covered for 10 minutes.  Fluff with a fork and cool.

2.  Preheat oven to 350°F.  Lightly grease two- 8" round cake pans.  Line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper.

3.  Combine milk, eggs and vanilla in a blender, add the 2 cups of cooked quinoa and the butter.  Blend until smooth.

4.  Whisk together sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda in a medium bowl.  Add the contents of the blender and mix well.  Divide the batter between the two pans and bake on center rack of oven for 40-45 minutes (until a knife inserted comes out clean).  Remove cakes from oven and cool completely in the pans before serving.  You could make a two layer cake and frost it at this point.  Or just serve each cake as is (my preference).

5. Eat for dinner, lunch or breakfast until the cake is gone.  :)

Mexican Chicken, Chili and Grilled Corn soup

This soup has kick and is very satisfying on a rainy day (like today)   It makes a full pot so you will have plenty left over.  The heat of the peppers combined with the sweetness of the corn is fabulous.  A little bit of sour from the lime and it has everything.
note: we ate this for three days for both lunch and dinner and at the end of those three days my husband turned to me and asked- "Can we make this again within the week?".  it's that good. 

First you have to make your chicken broth
The Broth
Chicken Broth Ingredients:

3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves garlic, smashed
2 large red onions, rough chopped
2 cups carrots, rough chopped
2 cups celery, rough chopped
Course salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 whole organic chicken
1 sprig thyme
1/3 cup Italian parsley
1 bay leaf
1 sprig tarragon
1/3 cup celery leaves
8 whole black peppercorns

Directions:
1. Heat the oil in a large pot over med. heat.  Add the crushed garlic cloves and sauté for 2 minutes until the garlic is golden. Add the onions, carrots & celery to the pot. Season with salt and pepper and sauté for 8 minutes. 

2. Cut up your chicken into pieces with a heavy cleaver- making sure to cut the bones to expose some marrow.  Add to pot and fill the pot with water until it covers the chicken, bring to a boil.

3.  Tie the thyme, parsley, bay leaf, tarragon and celery leaves into a bouquet using butchers twine.  Add to the pot.  Add the black peppercorns to pot, bring broth to a boil, turn down to med-low, partially cover and simmer for 3 hours.  (add more water if required 1/2 way through cooking)

4. Skim off any fat, strain the chicken broth through a mesh sieve, then strain again through cheese cloth a couple of times until your broth is nice and clear.  Leave to sit and separate a while so that you can skim off the fat.  (I have a special fat skimming container that I use)

5. Hand pick the the good chicken meat and set it aside for soup recipe.

The Soup!
Mexican Chicken, Chili and Grilled Corn Soup
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 chipotle peppers (in adobo sauce) minced
1 hot Anaheim New Mexico chili, reconstituted and chopped
1 red onion, diced
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. cayenne
1/4 tsp. paprika
course salt & fresh ground black pepper to taste
5 cups chicken broth  (if you don't have enough, top it up with water)
1 cup fresh tomatoes, chopped coarse and smushed with the side of a knife
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1 1/2 cups cooked chicken (hand picked from your broth earlier)
1 handful cilantro , chopped
1/2 cup wild rice
2 cobs of corn, grilled
canola oil for grilling
1 cup canned, strained black beans
1 tsp. sucanat (or brown sugar)
handful of cilantro, minced (and some  for garnish)
Fried corn tortillas for topping
Fresh lime to taste
Creme fraiche or sour cream for the dairy lovers

Directions:
1. In a large pot, heat the olive oil over med. heat.  Add garlic and sauté for 2 minutes.  Add chipotles, chilies, red onion, cumin, cayenne, paprika, salt and fresh ground pepper.  Sauté for 8 minutes.  

2. Add the chicken broth, the tomatoes, oregano, hand picked chicken meat and a handful of cilantro.  Partially cover and simmer for 40 minutes.

3. In a separate pot, boil some water, add wild rice and cook according to package, strain.

4. Heat some canola oil, brush some oil on the corn  and grill your corn either in a cast iron pan or on a grill.  You want each side to be grill marked (slightly brown).  Slice off the corn niblets.

5.  In a cast iron pan, heat some oil on medium and add corn tortillas slices, fry until golden, set aside on paper towels.

6.  Add the corn niblets, wild rice and black beans to the soup and stir to combine.  Season with salt, pepper, sucanat and cilantro.

7. Serve soup with crispy tortillas, a squirt of fresh lime, and some creme fraiche or sour cream if you eat dairy.