Fiber-rich Pancakes

We like pancakes and bacon on the weekend, but it's often a fatty and unhealthy breakfast. So, I've been trying to come up with a healthier version. It's still quite light, despite being full of grains and fiber. They're also very filling - two will usually be enough per person.

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2½ cups white flour
• ½ cup wheat bran
• ½ cup oats
• ½ cup flaxseed meal
• 2½ cups milk
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 3 Tbsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon (if desired)
  

Directions:

1. Beat eggs with hand beater in large bowl until fluffy. This takes 3-4 minutes.
   
2. Beat in remaining ingredients just until smooth
3. Let batter sit for about 5 minutes to let the grains absorb the liquid. If it's still too liquid, add water 1-2 Tbsp at a time until it's right.
4. Fry pancakes on hot griddle - about 4 minutes on each side.
5. Serve with butter, syrup and/or jam.
   

This recipe yields about 18 four-inch pancakes. This will feed 4-6 people. Leftovers can be frozen and reheated for quick weekday breakfasts.

To reheat frozen pancakes: Arrange on microwave-safe plate, and cover. Microwave on high about one minute per pancake, rotating at about 30 seconds. Times will vary based on your microwave oven.

Great Baking Ingredient: Flaxseed Meal

You may know flaxseed - the small brown seed that are full of fiber (and a good amount of oil as well). I was looking through some of the specialty flours at the store recently and came across something called flaxseed meal. It's basically ground up flasxseed. The neat thing about it is you can substitute it for oil or shortening in any baking recipe.

So far I've made some zucchini/carrot rolls that turned out great. But I'm really pleased with it in my weekly pizza. The crust turns out more crispy and tastes better than with olive oil. And each slice has about 1.5 grams extra fiber and 1 gram less fat, and 15 fewer calories. Not bad!

Eating Local Update

Whew - semester and school start really took some time away from more leisurely pursuits like writing blog posts!

So, welcome back to school and all the fall activities like harvesting, canning, etc. We have spent some time over labor day weekend preparing our jams (strawberry, strawberry-rhubarb, and blueberry). We now have quite a large number of jars and have even sold the first few jars to a friend - a nice way to extend the local eating to later in the year and to other people - anybody buying our jam around here would presumably save buying a jar of Smuckers from ... who knows where? All the berries for our jams are either grown in our yard or within 30 miles from our house (oh, except the blueberries - they're from Michigan). So we think it's pretty local. Of course, we have no idea where the sugar came from... Might have to investigate that for next time.

In terms of meals, we have really been doing great at eating locally. Of the five meals in September, we have had at least 75% local ingredients in four of them. Of course it helps having the start of the Eat Local Challenge coinciding with a garden where tomatoes are ripening in record numbers along with cucumbers and bell peppers. The potatoes also have been doing well and we've been eating those on a regular basis along with the carrots. And when you belong to a meat CSA, that takes care of a major portion of the meal as well.

Summary of meals made this month so far:

• Friday (Sep 1): Homemade pizza. Local veggie toppings, local cheese (we're in Wisconsin, duh!). Homemade beer.
  
• Saturday: Grilled ham steaks with veggie skewers. Local meat, and veggies from the garden (potatoes, onion, beets). Australian Wine.
  
• Sunday: Beer-can chicken with grilled and roasted vegetables (Roasted Beets and potato skewers). Chicken from CSA.
• Monday: Hamburgers and corn on the cob. Had to buy the meat from the grocery store because we forgot to get something out of the freezer, but the corn was local. More Australian Wine.
  
• Tuesday: Easy Shepherd's Pie (didn't take too long, but when the recipe calls for a roux and simultaneously having three pots going, it's a stretch calling it 'easy'). Almost entirely local. Served with homemade pickled beets and salad.

So far, things are going well (although we did drink a good amount of Australian wine - more on that later...)

Homebrewed Beer

I have been brewing beer since last October, and it's been a lot of fun. And the beer hasn't been half bad. In fact, of the five batches we've tasted so far, all have been praised by those who tasted them.

The work involved isn't too bad. There's work on each batch three times over the course of 3-4 weeks. I have so far been using pre-measured kits from Midwest Supplies in Minneapolis. First, on brewing day, you actually make the beer, which involves steeping grains for about an hour in a couple gallons of lukewarm water, then bringing the water to a boil, and adding malt extract and various hops. This process takes another 1-2 hours, after which the wort (beer without yeast) needs to cool down before the yeast can be added along with extra water to make about five gallons of beer. Then the beer sits for about a week in a food-grade pail after which it gets transferred to a glass carboy for conditioning. The transfer and cleanup can be done in about 45 minutes. Two weeks later the beer can be bottled. This takes 1-2 hours depending on the size of the bottles (less work with larger bottles - 5 gallons needs about 50 regular 355 ml (12 oz) bottles). Then the beer sits for 2-4 weeks before it can be enjoyed. So, it doesn't take that much effort, but you have to be patient.

The initial equipment purchase was around $100, and the ingredients for each batch will run around $30-$40 including shipping. The cost per beer is definitely higher than regular canned beer from the grocery store, but only about half the cost of specialty and imported beer, which is what it should be compared to. If all you want to do is drink Miller Light, then don't worry about making your own beer, but if you enjoy Bass, Newcastle Brown Ale, Guiness, and any other great tasting beer (especially ale), then you should give homebrewing a try.

Right now, I have two carboys in the basement. I'm hoping to be able to bottle the Fuggles brew today (we need it ready before we run out...). The other is a Holiday beer that was brewed back in June and will need another month or so before bottling. Then it will sit about 6 weeks in the bottle before it is ready in time for Halloween. It should be a Happy Holiday this year!

When you brew your own beer, there are two environmental benefits: First, you can reuse the bottles, which is far better than recycling (it takes quite a bit of energy to turn glass into glass...). Second, only the ingredients need to be transported (10-15 lbs), and in my case only from Minneapolis, as opposed to shipping both bottles (40 lbs), and water (42 lbs) from a brewery that's much farther way. Some of the styles of beer you can make with homebrew, could otherwise only be obtained from imported sources, so the transportation would add significantly to the equation.

Recipes in a Web 2.0 world

Flickr for Recipes?

I came across RecipeZaar the other day while trying to figure out what to do with some of the zucchini bounty we have in the refrigerator (looks like we'll make Zucchini Moussaka next week).

The site is pretty cool, it lets you collect recipes in personal cookbooks and upload your own recipes. It also has some pretty neat features when you're looking at individual recipes, such as a Nutrition Facts table for each recipe, scaling of the recipe to the number of servings you need, and conversion between US and metrics units. In addition there are features to create an entire menu and a shopping list based on the recipes you're looking at.

But what makes the site really cool when you're interested in social networks and web 2.0 sites, are the community features. Members can easily rate each recipe and describe their experience preparing and eating it. In addition, the site allows for sending messages to other members, so for each recipe, you can send a message to the person who created it. Some of the features require a premium membership ($25/year) , but the site is plenty useful with a free basic membership.