Food « (y)our food choices™

Ah, Sunday! Sleep in, wake up to a steaming cup of coffee and J’s unbelievable muesli pancakes. We’ve developed our own muesli blend and we think it puts all others to shame. This wonder mix acts as the base of the pancake batter. The resultant pancakes are rich, moist, fluffy yet substantial, full of flavor and extraordinarily nutritious. Think whole grains, dried berries, a variety of raw nuts and a couple of nut meals, flax seed and flax meal … you get the picture (below). We’ve been eating this muesli for a couple of years now. Our typical consumption is fairly straight forward: a half cup of the muesli mix and enough kefir to make it soupy goes into the fridge the night before. By morning, the mix has thickened and the rolled grains have softened. With a little chopped fresh fruit of whatever variety, this breakfast is complete.

J adapted a great America’s Test Kitchen whole grain pancake recipe to include our homemade muesli. The adapted recipe calls for some of the muesli mix to be ground fine in a food processor. The batter includes the ground muesli as well as a bit of whole muesli mix, some whole wheat flour, butter and eggs, milk and yogurt. After the batter rests a while, the pancakes are cooked on our griddle and topped with fruit compote, a little maple syrup or yogurt.

This well-tested pancake recipe never disappoints. The time from prep to table is shorter than you might guess and reminds us that packaged pancake mixes are for the very confused. If you have a box of pancake mix in your pantry, throw it out. Now, clear that space in the cupboard and fill it with a nice hand-mixed batch of muesli. You’ll use it for more than just pancakes, but this breakfast treat is a perfect place to start!

– Steve

Muesli Pancakes

[Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated, by Matthew Card. The official recipe is only available to premium subscribers.]

I usually hate pancakes. And don’t even get me started on Bisquick® pancake mix or the kind that you find at Denny’s or any of the chain diners. They’re usually gummy and bland and soaked in artificial “maple” syrup leaving you needing to brush your teeth and feeling a bit queasy after you eat them.

I found this recipe when I was subscribed to Cook’s Illustrated and I had just discovered my muesli recipe. I now can recite the recipe by heart, that’s how many times I’ve made it. And even though I’ve never made the original Cook’s Illustrated version I think my version is just as good if not better.

1 ½ cups kefir
½ cup whole milk
2 eggs
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups (8 ounces) original muesli mix
¾ cup (3 ¾ ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup (2 ¾ ounces) whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Mix the kefir and milk together with the eggs, butter, and vanilla. Set aside. Finely grind the muesli in a food processor, add to a large bowl with the flours, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix dry ingredients together then add the wet ingredients. Mix until fully incorporated. Let the batter sit while you heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add a little vegetable oil to the skillet and a small amount of the batter to test the pan. If it’s too hot reduce the heat, not hot enough, raise the heat. After the heat is sufficient and consistent, add a ladle full of batter 2-3 ounces into the oiled pan. Cook for a few minutes on the first side before flipping them over.

If you have made pancakes before you know the routine. If you’re new to making them it might take a few tries before you get the hang of it. Trust me, its not that hard. The worst thing that can happen is that the pancakes get smooched together or fall on the floor. If they fall on the floor, pick them up and brush them off, if your floor is clean, or throw them away if you have a dirty floor. These pancakes freeze wonderfully and make a great weekday breakfast that’s just as quick as a bowl of cereal and milk. Give them a try and let us know what you think of them.

– Jason

Fresh from the Sunday Farmer's Market!

It all started about sixteen years ago when we were living in SLC over the first summer of our relationship. We were having breakfast at our favorite bagel joint, Brachman Bagels, which had the best bagels you’ve ever tasted this side of the Mississippi. (Unfortunately, their competitors bought them out and the company is no longer in business.) It was the summer J started eating peanut butter again, and loving it. His favorite bagel was a sunflower seed bagel with peanut butter and honey. He could eat three in a sitting if he wanted to, they tasted that good. S was a bit more adventurous in his choices, and the one choice that remained the butt of all jokes for many years to come was so strange and unusual that even the guy behind the counter was perplexed by the concoction. S’s choice was a blueberry bagel with carrot hummus. The sight of the two items together – purple hued bagel and earthy golden hummus with bright orange flecks – reminded J of the day-glow shirts from the 1980’s when Wham! was the biggest thing in pop music. S thought the flavor combinations were perfect, but for J all he could do was chuckle and let S have his bagel, his way.

Fast forward to last Tuesday when J was perusing the New York Times website in search of the food section. The most popular article of the day, and rightly so, is Mark Bittman’s article on 101 salads. It’s the perfect article for summer. For many of us, salad is lettuce, maybe cucumbers and tomatoes with a favorite bottled dressing. Bittman goes beyond the standard, way beyond the ranch dressing and iceberg lettuce. His salads are wonderful and use many common and, some might think exotic, food items found in many crispers and pantries. So it was J’s surprise to see a picture of shredded carrots, tossed with sunflower seeds and a light vinaigrette, dotted with bright blueberries. If Bittman’s salad was the judge of our bagel debate, J now found himself on the losing side and S was the winner. Oh, sweet victory!

Most people wouldn’t have said a word to the other party in this sort of years-long debate. They would have played dumb and hoped that the other person would never come across the article, and most likely S would never have seen the article and J really didn’t need to show it to him. However, being of good Mormon stock, we both feel obligated to confess our sins to one another and to tell the truth even when unsolicited. So when S came home that afternoon one of the first things that J did was apologize and accept the fact that maybe he had gone too fair in his teasing of S for his unusual taste in food combos after all these years.

So this Sunday our plan is to go to the farmers’ market and pick up some carrots and blueberries and to try out this simple salad. The flavor combination that S has been craving all these years, yet has never tried again for fear of being ridiculed, will get a fresh interpretation. We ask all you out there who read our blog to try the recipe and let us know what you think. Are S and Bittman correct in their flavor combinations or is J the one who has the better sense when it comes to blending the sweet and savory?