Real Buttermilk Pancakes

Glorious breakfast layer cake, with blackberry preserves. 

Recently I've begun my official foray into the world of sprouting and soaking.  I discovered a great natural foods grocery in Glenwood Springs, about an hour from my house (which, for the Colorado Rockies, is a mere stone's throw).   I found bags of organic wheat berries, spelt, popcorn, amaranth... and all for like two bucks a pound! I bought bags full of every kind imaginable.  Except buckwheat.  Dammit! I knew I forgot something. Next time.

So far the only thing I've used soaked grain in is pancakes. But they are so yummy I might never be able to bring myself to make anything else!  They are SO much better than regular white flour pancakes, and can hardly be compared to Bisquick. It's like a whole different food.  They have a richness that fills you up better than regular pancakes, because they give your body what it needs right away, so it doesn't need to keep asking you for more food to get its nutrients (goodbye overeating, hello fiber).  

wheatberries, or what wheat looks like before it becomes flour

From Nourishing Traditions: "Housewives of old knew that the most delicious pancakes, muffins, and cakes could be made by soaking flour insure or cultured milk, buttermilk, or cream... Because they are acidic, buttermilk, cultured milk, yoghurt and whey (as well as lemon juice and vinegar) activate the enzyme phytase, which works to break down physic acid in the bran of grains.  Sour milk products also provide lactic acid and lactobacilli [good, probiotic bacteria] that help break down complex starches and... difficult to digest proteins. Soaking increases vitamin content and all the nutrients in grains more available."

Basically, all you have to do is soak the flour overnight.  It takes some planning ahead, but no more work than regular pancakes.  If you love pancakes but always put them them in the "bad for you" category... then rejoice in making these!  These are packed with tons of fiber, whole grain goodness, easy to digest proteins, healthy fats and enymzes.  These are FAR more balanced and healthy than any processed bowl of cereal, much cheaper, and way more delicious.  You can't go wrong.

I am in the habit now of adding frozen blueberries to the batter, and instead of just maple syrup, topping the pancakes with a thick smear of plain greek yogurt, a drizzle of local honey, and a sprinkling of homemade coco-nutty granola.  You cannot imagine how delicious this is! It has the added benefit of also looking like a layer cake with buttercream icing :)

oh. my. goddess. these are so freaking good. 

Make extras to get you through the week, and store them in the fridge or freezer.  They come beautifully back to life in a toaster oven, simplifying your morning routine and making it a whole lot more delicious and nutritious.  In a hurry? Squish almond butter and banana slices between two pancakes and wrap it up to go. Now THAT is a breakfast sandwich!

Sprouted Grain Pancakes
recipe adapted from Nourishing Traditions

To make these as nourishing as possible, always try to find grass-fed dairy products (raw if possible), pastured eggs, and fresh whole grains.

Makes 8-10

Ingredients:
1 cup freshly ground* whole wheat, spelt, or kamut flour, or a mixture.  (*If you don't have fresh grains to grind, just use fresh whole wheat flour.  I grind mine in my beloved Vitamix.)
1 cup  buttermilk or plain yogurt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp melted butter

*Possible additions: Fresh or frozen blueberries, ground flax seed, dark chocolate chips, pecans or walnuts, bananas... or anything else you can think of!

To Cook:
Soak flour in buttermilk or yogurt in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours.  Then, stir in other ingredients and thin to desired consistency with water (the batter may be pretty thick).  Cook on a hot oiled griddle or cast-iron skillet.  These pancakes cook more slowly than regular pancakes (white or whole wheat).

Winter Tortilla Soup

When the desire for both comfort and virtue strikes (this is sometimes a rare occasion for me), only a bowl of soup can calm my needy soul. And because when this feeling strikes I'm in no mood to cook for anyone other than me (me! me!), it must to be able to happen in a flash and in a single heaping portion.

In summer I might be tempted to make something lovely with tomatoes and sweet corn, but being the dead of winter as it is, a girl must be resourceful.  Tortilla soup fits the bill for me, and its so easy it can be thrown together hastily and without much thought.

There are dozens of ways to make a delicious tortilla soup - indeed at least three for every season - but for me on this snowy day in January, this one was just about perfect.  Not least because everything it contains are staples found in my kitchen already.  Minimum effort for maximum pleasure, as Nigella would say.

Winter Tortilla Soup
3/4 cup shredded chicken (mine was from a leftover rotisserie chicken)
Half a yellow onion, diced (save a tbsp or so as a topping)
Half a red bell pepper, diced (yes I realize this is such a winter cheat, forgive me)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or grated
1 1/2 cups chicken stock (preferably homemade from the bones of the rotisserie chicken)
1 Tbsp tomato paste
Half a lime
1 tsp cumin (more if you like)
1 tsp tsp mexican chili powder (more or less if you like)
Salt and pepper


Suggested Toppings (really the most important part):
Half an avocado, sliced or roughly cut into chunks
Tabasco
Raw yellow onion
Grated sharp cheddar cheese
Sour cream
Cilantro
*Tortillas- corn tortillas cut into strips and dropped in are traditional. Tortilla chips crushed on top would be delicious. I only had wheat flour tortillas around, and I assure you it was still very worth eating.

To Cook:
Heat a little olive oil in a sauce pan.  Add onion, cook about 3 minutes until translucent.  Add red pepper, cook another 3 minutes.  Add chicken, then cumin, chili powder, garlic and a little salt.  Stir to combine and let flavors meld together a couple minutes. Pour in chicken stock.  Squeeze the lime juice in, then drop the lime into the pot.  Add tomato paste and stir to let it melt into the stock.  Season with salt and pepper and let simmer for about 10 minutes.

Pour all into a big bowl and top with everything and anything you would like.  Devour and be comforted.

Texts From Bennett

This site begs to be shared. I just about died laughing.  Please have a sense of humor.

http://textsfrombennett.tumblr.com/

http://textsfrombennett.tumblr.com/http://textsfrombennett.tumblr.com/

Eat the Butter

In 2009, I documented my self-given challenge to eat only local food for 1 year.  What began as a fun experiment turned into a complete lifestyle change and a very eye opening experience. 

I never felt or looked healthier than I did that first month of January when I was eating only what was in season around Washington DC- pastured pork chops with a thick layer of pure white fat, kale and winter greens sauteed in bacon fat, dozens of pastured eggs with bright orange yolks, slabs of raw milk cheese and apples, winter squash with generous pats of butter, glasses of creamline milk from Maryland grass-fed cows, and the occasional bowl of handmade sprouted-grain pasta with veal meatballs and late summer tomato sauce.  I ate bacon every day and saved the fat for cooking.  I was happy, really happy. And always satisfied.  I lost 10 pounds that first month without ever stepping inside a gym.

Unfortunately, since then I have slipped away from my conscious and traditional eating ways and have fallen for the traps for Western diets.  Low fat, lots of brown rice, less meat and animal products, more tofu.  Or worse, unconsciously eating the Standard American Diet of pasta, bread, processed foods, lean meats and sugar.  

You know that post-Thanksgiving gut that pushes uncomfortably over the button of your jeans?  Yeah I've had that for about a year now.  I've always been fond of my belly, with our shared love of good food and all, but now it's gotten out of hand.  It's starting to want to take center stage in my life and, well, I'm too much of a spotlight diva to let that happen.  

So this is the start of a new "experiment".  I want to know if I really can get to a healthy weight and stay there on a high-fat traditional foods diet.  Even knowing all that I know about how great this way of eating is, I still have fears about really eating THAT much fat.  I am an American girl, after all, and I was raised in the low-fat, high-carb craze of the early 90s.  But I know that isn't the right way

Since I started my local food experiment and found others eating a similar way, I've believed very strongly in the benefits of this traditional, native diet, such as is promoted by the Westin A. Price Foundation and it's president Sally Fallon in her "politically incorrect" cookbook Nourishing Traditions.  I won't even try to hide my overwhelming bias towards Native people knowing best, but Price and Fallon had none and still came up with some remarkable research findings. 

Consider this:

- Raw milk is a whole, perfect, nourishing food.  And it's illegal to buy in most states. 

- Food borne illness breakouts have occurred rampantly in the industrial food system in recent years- spinach, peanuts, eggs, ground beef.  There have been no incidents of these fatal breakouts linked to raw milk. 

- Butter is one of the most health promoting foods in the world, and it's demonized by the US government. 

- Protein overload is a serious strain on the body, possibly leading to certain cancers.  Protein is very important for body development, but should be eaten with a significant amount of fat.

- Infertility and fetus underdevelopment are side effects of a low-fat, low-nutrient diet during reproductive years and pregnancy.  

- Refined sugar and grains (white flour, rice, etc) are detrimental to our bodies. They contain almost no nutrients and cause myriad problems to our digestive system and teeth.  The USDA recommends 10-12 servings of (refined) grains per day. 

- Whole grains are very difficult for human bodies to digest, and should always be "pre-digested" by soaking overnight to sprout.  

- Fermentation is a near lost preservation method in this country, and provides essential enzymes for digestive and whole body health.  Sauerkraut, kimchi, and sourdough are all fermented foods. 

There is so much more to their research and the traditional diet, and I strongly recommend picking up a copy of Nourishing Traditions, checking out RealMilk.com, and some great traditional food blogs (in additional to this one!) like CheeseSlave and Nourished Kitchen.  

So break out the butter and oysters, friends.  It's time to get real. 

Occupy Your Self

*Cooking Up a Story video on farmers supporting OWS movement, featuring my compatriots Heather and Vule*

About two weeks ago, on the morning I was supposed to begin a 6 month culinary program at the Natural Gourmet Institute, I called up the school to let them know I wouldn't be showing up for class.  Not that morning, nor any other morning in the foreseeable future.  I hung up the phone beaming with excitement at the world of possibilities and uncertainties that lie before me.

That same afternoon I went down to Zuccotti Park, the home and headquarters of Occupy Wall Street.  As I loitered around the Kitchen tent, a harried young woman (who I now know as my friend Heather, the woman in the video above) thrust a box of purple cauliflower into my arms, directed me towards a van, and changed the course of my life.  Within a half an hour, I was in a kitchen somewhere in east Brooklyn chopping fresh vegetables for a curry dinner headed to 1200 hungry occupiers.

Its been 15 days now and I am starting to take the lead on the OWS food sourcing efforts, coordinating farmers, cooks, and co-op donations to make sure our meals are as delicious, healthy, and sustainable as possible.  Sound familiar?  Yes, inexplicably I've managed to become the OWS Sourceress.

However, in the spirit of democracy and non-hierarchal leadership, I am helping to build a system that can be run by anyone and isn't dependent on the proprietary knowledge of one person.  I may be taking the lead today, but by next month it could be someone else, and I could move on to another area.  I believe fluidity, flexibility, and transparency are essential to the success of this movement and is the leadership model for the future.  Its an exceptionally feminine model of leadership.  Circular rather than a ladder, cooperative rather than hierarchal, knowledge is shared instead of hoarded.  Leadership roles are not given, but rather are self-empowered.   Its beautiful to watch and experience.

This is a model you can create and follow in your own daily life.   Many of us struggle with an internalized misogyny, and are waiting for a masculine force to come along and give us direction, to tell us what we are doing is of worth.  Stop waiting for someone else to give you the power to make decisions, take control, or create something! Sometimes this masculine force is a very real person- your father, husband, boss, a future partner.  But who wants to be controlled by someone else's vision of success?

Occupy your own life.  Source what is nourishing and reject cheap imitations.  Love your feminine energy.  Allow it to shine and celebrate the feminine values of creativity, fluidity, curiosity, faith, hope, and love.   The world needs your compassion, justice, and empathy right about now.

Testing out Templates

This post is here exclusively to see how a posting looks. The aestectics of this are very important, you know. However, someone should stop me at hour 6 and espresso shot 4.