Yup. Beer. We’ve had a pretty crazy week complete with work, new freelance projects and trying to prepare our house (and the cats) for another puppy visitor this weekend. Once we dig out I’d like to actually post a few of the things we’ve been working on. But for now, here is our art from the past two days, gorgeous Blueberry Flax Pancakes.
As we head into our busiest month to date, I’ve been looking for ways to sneak more nutrients into our food to give us a much-needed boost. Flax is definitely something we need more of in our diet. There are too many benefits to even list! One of the easiest places to infuse more flax is breakfast food. It’s easy to add to breakfast breads, cereals, and oatmeal. We couldn’t think of a better way to test the waters than breakfast for dinner. Remember last time? We dared ourselves to make poached eggs (and we didn’t fail!) And yes, we washed the pancakes down with beer. What’s life if you can’t indulge?
Neil cooking our pancakies. Please ignore the cluttered stove…
Ingredients:
- 1 cup flour
- 2/3 cup coarsely ground flaxseed
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- dash of nutmeg
- 2 eggs (separated)
- 1 1/4 cups nonfat milk
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup applesauce
Directions:
1. In large bowl combine flour, flaxseed, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. In a medium bowl, lightly beat together egg yolks, milk, oil and applesauce.
2. Add egg yolk mixture to dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
3. Coat a pan with butter or oil. Pour 1/3 cup batter for each pancake and cook until bubbles appear, about 1 minute. Flip and brown. Lightly re-coat pan between each pancake to prevent sticking. Serve with syrup, honey or topping of your choice!
Using the applesauce gave them a light, soft, bouncy consistency and an added sweet taste. I probably could have been more minimalist and found a way to eliminate eggs, but these are pancakes, you don’t shortchange them. We were however able to come by sugar-free syrup that was amazing. My dad always used Log Cabin when we were little and when I told Neil that he said, “does that mean it’s good or bad?” I said “well of course that means it good!” He then reminded me that my dad still uses dehydrated coffee crystals for his morning coffee. Touché.
The pancakes look great! It amazes me how many people still make their pancakes using a mix when it’s so easy to make them from scratch. My dad used to put apple sauce in his cakes as well. Good stuff.
However, I have two issues. First, what is that Miller Chill doing on your counter? Granted, one cannot beat $1 per beer, but it’s not very local…or good. Why not buy a bomber for $4-5 of something really good like a Lagunitas Hop Stoopid or one of the Coney Island/Schmaltz brews? Or you could go ultra-local and buy a growler from Flat Branch or Broadway. It’s very ecological and $10 for a 1/2 gallon of beer isn’t terrible.
Second, you don’t use real maple syrup? Again, it’s expensive, but it actually has a lot of great health benefits and a little goes a long way. Sugar-free syrup just sounds wrong.
Sorry, I don’t mean to come down so hard on your post. I do like the blog and applaud your DIY ethic. Keep it up and I’ll keep reading.
Hey now! I appreciate my cheap beer. While I agree with you that certainly a local brew or any other micro-brew would be better than a Miller, however this was just a quick cheap pickup at the store. My beer pallet is quite diverse, I like a lot, and don’t dislike many, and still have a soft spot in my heart for the cheap millers, buds, and PBRs.
Hahaha, The miller-lime’s aren’t normally in the fridge, but they have sentimental reasoning, so when we were at the store and saw them, we just HAD to get them. On our first trip together ever, we went to Florida to see my sister and her fam at the Air Base in Pensacola. Beer-with-lime had just gone main-stream and it was ALL OVER. We joked about it but one night at this phenomenal restaurant called Flamingo Joes (best salsa ever, but terrible website: http://www.flamingojoes.com/) we caved and had the most amazing fish coupled with terrible beer. It was one of the best weeks of our lives, so sometimes you have to go kitsch.
As for real syrup, we eat so little of it it’s hard to invest. When it’s just the two of us, it’s hard to eat food and use ingredients before they taste funky. Like the gallon jar of baking peanut butter it’s taken me five years to get through. We often joke that having kids may be more economical for that one reason alone.
I love Flat Branch growlers though, so hard to get in that place though but we need to make a better effort.
Can I just copy and paste Zac’s post? Sorry Neil and Jessica, there’s no excuse for cheap beer. Just squeeze a lime in something good. 😉 And yes, maple syrup for the win. The real stuff is so good and lasts forever. I think we only buy a jar or two a year.
That bread outlet I blogged about a couple of weeks ago has awesome deals on flax meal. I picked some up and have had it languishing. inspiration to use it, thanks!
Sorry. I couldn’t resist the beer issue. However, as far as the syrup, real maple syrup lasts a long time in the fridge.
FYI, other semi-local beers to get would/could include Charleville, O’Fallon, Boulevard (esp. the Smokestack Series), and Schlafly. I once paired a Founders Breakfast Stout with breakfast for dinner. http://bottlescan.blogspot.com/2009/10/get-it-together-breakfast-stout-and.html
Different strokes for different folks I guess. In the summer I really enjoy my cheap beers for the most part. I appreciate the flavor/variety/quality of smaller breweries certainly, but more times than not I am drinking a cheap beer. Its just my personal preference.
As far as the syrup goes, I wanted to try this due to the caloric cut. We could have just made buttermilk pancakes that I am sure would have been guilt ridden fantastic, but the idea here was cutting some of those corners.
I typically don’t try to tell people what they should or should not like, because when it comes to food preferences it is definitely in the taste bud of the beholder!
I think my favorite small brew would have to be Schells, but I’m biased since I’m related to the owners lol.
Schlafly has a Kolsch in cans as well as New Belgium (super green) and Caldera (super good). Cans feel cheap at least and can be kept ice cold. 😉 Also, Boulevard makes a Pilsner that contains as much “drinkability” as any macro-brew.
[steps off beer snob soap box to allow you the pleasure of your cheap, rice-based, artificially-flavored macro-brew]
Again, skipping calories isn’t allows the healthiest move. One has to wonder what they’re substituting the sugar with in that so-called syrup. Good maple syrup contains nutrients not found in other syrups.
[also steps down from real maple syrup soap box and leaves you alone]
And we know that for most things, and don’t uphold that it works for every meal. We simply didn’t have syrup and wanted to try it. You have to pick and choose your battles, and for now we figure not eating boxed or frozen meals and mostly vegetarian are the battles we can win.
i love pancakes. these look so good! i like adding flax to food too, as well as toasted wheat germ.
Another good use for syrup is for grilling fish. it makes a great glaze on salmon. You don’t to use much. But go on with your bad selves, I am not a syrup hater like Zac. The beer on the other hand….
I’ll work on the beer, especially before we move West to Denver…
NICE! Looks like a tasty combination to me <3 Have a great holiday weekend!
I agree with Neil and Jess on this one-cheap beer in the summer is nice and light. If someone can actually say they never have or never will drink cheap beer again they are kidding themselves. I will say though, the new Summer season Woodchuck is quite tasty. Jess and I drank that this weekend 🙂
These pancakes are great. I have been making them for the past week. Thanks for the great recipe!
Okay I made some beercakes tonight replacing the water to evaporated milk ratio (50/50) with beer instead of water (they came out delicious). Upon further reading just more straight beer would do the job and it is dairy free if that is what your going for (the alcohol is essentially gone with cooking). I prefer a very malty beer and not to add the sugar that is in most recipes. I also read you can replace the egg with flaxseed. To replace the egg(s) use milled flax at a 1:3 ratio with water per egg. One tablespoon milled flax: three tablespoons water whisked and set for a few minutes. So that’s my next experiment. Mix or flour-non aluminum baking powder-salt, prepared flax seed egg replacement mix, beer and tablespoon of oil (hemp maybe); maybe some spices.