Whole wheat pancakes

On this drizzly Saturday morning we really needed a boost to get us started!  

Pancakes it is!  

I went looking through one of my most trusted cook books; "The Calvary Temple Church Cookbook".  This cookbook is the most diverse and reliable cookbooks I have; even though it doesn't have pictures it is still very close to my heart!

I used this recipe as a "guideline"...this is what we came up with.

1cup whole wheat flour

1/3cup psyllium husk*

2tbsp brown sugar

1tbsp baking powder

Whisk/ set aside

Mix:

1egg

1cup milk 

3tbsp salted butter melted

Mix into the dry

*for more information on the benefits of psyllium husk see the link below

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyllium_seed_husks

Jeff said as he cooked the pancakes he had to add more milk to the batter.

As usual we topped the pancakes with our favourites; Greek yogurt, real maple syrup and mixed berries. 

Between the whole wheat flour and the psyllium husk; these had a great nutty flavour.

This was a great start to our day; now bring on the sun!!!!

Left over pumpkin...West African peanut soup

The first time I tasted this soup was at Prairie Ink Cafe in McNally book store in Winnipeg; it's their feature soup and I know why! Delish!!!! I've also had Stella's version; the recipe I've found and loved is from the Moosewood cookbook. 

I had leftover pumpkin and leftover tomato juice; and immediately started to crave West African peanut soup!

First I sautéed 1 large onion and three small carrots with some olive oil, salt and lots of fresh ginger.

I sautéed this for a few minutes and then added stock (4cups) and the leftover pumpkin; I had about two cups.  I really prefer pumpkin instead of sweet potato.

I let this lightly boiled until the carrots were fork tender. Then I blitzed this mixture.

I added the peanut butter and the tomato juice.

I tasted and seasoned it with lots of black pepper and sea salt.

I topped this with chopped green onions, peanuts and a dollop of Greek yogurt and served with toasted pita.

Very comforting and oh so satisfying... Quite the hit at our house!

Gluten free pumpkin muffins

My mom asked me to make a GF pumpkin muffin as a GF option at our Girlfriends cafe; a night they put on at church for women to get to know eachother.  As I left for work this morning my husband offered to make them....of course I said yes!!!

So no pictures were taken in the process but after I tasted one I knew I had to share them on my blog.  Muffins are one of those items that I haven't quite tasted a good GF version. These were great...and could be easily be made dairy free.  I think it's the pumpkin;  the texture works perfectly with the GF flours. 

This recipe made 12 muffins.  I used my GF flour since its basically the variety the recipe called for.  I used 2 cups of my GF flour mix.

Now for the glaze:

Melted 1/4 cup butter and added in icing sugar(i only used 1cup) ....mix thoroughly!

Slowly added milk until it was the consistency desired.

Taste test!

I've saved the extra glaze in an airtight container in my fridge for another muffin experiment! I do have leftover pumpkin!!!!

The glaze hardened and stayed glossy; these look and smell great! Hopefully the GF women will love them!!!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip

Yesterday in the midst of the cornbread & chilli making we put a half batch of cookies in!  When I say half batch; you may be thinking "what's the point?".  Well my favourite cookie recipe is quite large!  

It's the middle one:

Half batch:

1cup butter

1cup white sugar

1cup brown sugar

2eggs

1tsp vanilla

2&1/2cup

2cup flour

1tsp baking soda

1tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt(if I use salted butter I omit the salt)

2cups chocolate chip

Cream butter with sugar; add eggs in.  

I only had white sugar so the batter is quite light in colour.

Add vanilla

Dump all the dry ingredients in and mix.

These are my favourite chocolate chips; they are from Costco.  They are a great buy!!

Add in chocolate chips until combined.

Aubrey loves the batter!

Thumbs up!!!! (Not quite; but we're getting closer!)

We rolled all the dough balls to have them ready to put in the oven. 

350F -14 minutes

Made over 3 dozen cookies

My BFF Laura trying the cookies...she approves.  

She enjoyed the delightful chocolate flavour of the chocolate chips; she couldn't get over how real they tasted!