Buckwheat Flapjacks

Our daughter, Dawn, came to visit for several days and these delicious flapjacks are one of her favorite breakfasts.
Buckwheat has a distinctive earthy flavor and dark robust color as you may see by the pictures.

BUCKWHEAT FLAPJACKS

1C. Buckwheat Flour
1C. Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1t. Baking Powder
1t. Baking Soda
1/4t. Salt

2 Eggs
2C. Coconut Milk or milk of choice
2T. Coconut Oil melted
3T. Pure Maple Syrup or Honey or Agave
1t. Vanilla
1t. Cinnamon

Mix ingredients together and cook as you would any pancake. Remember that they are ready to turn when a number of the bubbles that appear on the top no longer close up.
Serve with the topping of your choice (we still prefer pure maple syrup!).
In this picture you can see how dark these pancakes are! Our little Garret loves "em!

Fresh Strawberry Cobbler!

Until recently I'd not seen a recipe for making cobbler with strawberries, but now, for me cobbler will never be the same. I wanted to make ice cream to top it off with in a picture but I couldn't wait for the ice cream!
Here is the recipe:

Strawberry Cobbler

In a cold saucepan place -
1/2 C. Agave Nectar or sweetener of choice
(if using a dry sweetener increase water to 1C.)
3/4C. Cold Water
1 Tbs. Cornstarch
Stir to blend in cornstarch and simmer til thickened.
Remove from heat and add -
3C. quartered fresh Strawberries
Pour into greased 8" pyrex.

In separate bowl mix -
1 C. Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1 1/2 teas. Baking Powder
Dash of Salt
3 Tbs. Coconut Oil
1 Tbs. Agave
1/2 C. Coconut Milk or milk of choice
Mix together well till soft dough forms.
Spoon onto berries. Bake at 400 deg. for 25 min. Cool and serve. Delish!!

Kitchen Chemistry

Over the years I have spent many hours, not always enough thought, and a fair amount of money into experimenting with recipes trying to make them healthier. Some with success and others? Well, not so much. I have yet to find the all-encompassing food chemistry manual of my dreams. You know, the one that includes things like what will result by using coconut oil in the recipe instead of shortening. (Don't do it by-the-way, without some study. I once tried to make popcorn balls using coconut oil instead of butter and they never held together because one of coconut oil's virtues is that it resists hardening when heated to high temperatures. And I knew that?)

Well, we all start from somewhere. For me, my journey began with switching from refined grains and sweeteners to natural. That was a huge beginning. In addition to learning the reasons why it would be worth it I also had to learn how to do it. Things like:
~ When baking with whole wheat flour, you can use just a little less than refined white because of its bulk, otherwise your results may be too dry.
~ Again, when using honey you can use a bit less because it's sweeter than sugar.
~ And, when substituting any liquid for a dry ingredient, you must compensate for the change somewhere else in the recipe. For example, 1C. of honey also adds 1/4th C. of liquid so you use 1/4th C. less other liquid. If the recipe is for cookies and doesn't have a wet ingredient like water or milk, search for someone else's recipe for best results!
Back then there were no computers in our homes for relative ease in research. Now, thanks to Google and other search engines, so much info is at our fingertips. Still, we have to know enough about our subject to know what to ask!
From time to time, I'll be adding to this little page of mine, facts and figures to hopefully make the use of "new" food more practical and still tasty.

My Grandma Knew

With mixes out there for decades and fewer people baking for themselves, some of what used to be common knowledge has been lost. We put together a family cookbook several years ago and a muffin recipe of my Grandma Shipp's from the 1950's was included. Here is her recipe:

4T. Shortening
1/2t. Salt
1C. Milk
1 Egg, well beaten
1/4C. Karo
1 3/4C. Flour
1/4C. Cornstarch
4t. Baking Powder

Beat all ing. til just blended. Pour into muffin tins. Bake in a hot oven. That's it! No temperature or amount of baking time. And did you notice cornstarch? When I first saw that I thought surely it must be a typo. It caused me to research it out though, and this is what I learned. Soft White Wheat is called Pastry Flour because it has less gluten than Hard Red Wheat Flour. So in order to get a lighter, fluffier result when using whole wheat flour for cakes, muffins and other products calling for baking powder, less gluten is advised. When you can't get Pastry Flour you may substitute cornstarch for a small part of the flour. Subtract 2T. flour in each cup of flour called for and replace it with cornstarch to make up the difference. But if you're making yeast bread you'll want the higher gluten content to help it rise. In baking, once ovens were made with a temperature control, a slow oven became 250-300 degrees, a moderate oven, 350-400 degrees, a hot oven, 400-450. And baking time for muffins is usually about 20-30 minutes.
I rewrote this recipe for how I'd use it. Here's what I did:

4T. Applesauce (no shortening or added fat)
1/8-1/4 t. Salt
1C. Soymilk or other milk of choice
1 Egg well beaten
1/4C. Honey
1 3/4C. Whole Wheat Flour
1/4C. Cornstarch
4t. Baking Powder

Mix all ing. til just blended. Pour into pan-sprayed muffin tin. Bake 25 minutes at 400. Makes 1 dozen. This is a nice moist, not too sweet basic muffin you can serve with dinner or to which you can add seasonings like onion, thyme or dill. You could make them a little sweeter by doubling the honey, adding a sweet streusel-top, or cinnamon, raisins, blueberries, or nuts etc.. Also, muffins with no fat should not be baked in papers as they will stick. * Clip art in the cookbook came from Colossal Clip Art by Dianne J. Hook. The monkey belongs to the Going Bananas At Mealtime Busy Family Cookbook by Bright Impressions and was not intended for other use.

Fun Fabulous Fruit!

What person out there doesn't enjoy picking up a cold piece of their favorite fruit on a hot summer's day and biting into it's cool mouthwatering sweetness? Or drizzling a bit of milk over a warm fruit cobbler or crisp? Fruit is wonderful all by itself, just as God created it, or YOU (or better yet, the kids) can get creative. There are so many things that can be done with fruit. It's breakfast time here at my house, so off to the kitchen to do just that ~ create...! ...OK Here they are:

Poking two holes in the apple will make it easier to get the pretzels in for the ladybug's antenae, and the raisins are stuck on with peanut butter.

It doesn't take much fruit to make these little critters so use your leftover canned fruit to make this yummy Mixed Fruit Cobbler:
In a sprayed 8" square pyrex put remaining fruit from -
1 15 oz Can each of Fruit Cocktail, Pears and Peaches drain juice (about 2C.) into a saucepan, cutting the fruit halves into slices
Sprinkle with Raisins
Add to the juice in the pan -
2 T. Corn Starch
4 Packets Truvia, or sweeten to taste with other sweetener
1/4 t. Cinnamon, if you like
Bring the juice mixture to a simmer stirring constantly until it bubbles and thickens. Pour it over the Fruit. Now you're ready for the topping:
1 C. Flour (I use whole wheat)
3 Packets Truvia or Sweetener to taste
1 1/2 t. Baking Powder
3 T. room temp. cube margarine
1/2 C. Milk
Stir together and drop by tablespoonfulls onto the top of fruit. Bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. If desired, pour a bit of sweetened milk over warm cobbler to serve. Options: If you don't want to take the time to make a cobbler, the fruit can be spooned over waffles or pancakes. You can also add the leftover pineapple to the cobbler which is yummy, but this time I'm saving it for a smoothie!