Notes from Windward: #68

 

Acorn Pancakes

pushing the envelope a bit further


     Today it was my turn to cook lunch. Usually, cooking is one of my favorite activities, but as we get further into the cold season and the garden winds down, it becomes harder to get creative with the limited amount of ingredients on hand. We've been eating a lot of beans lately. So I made it my mission to design a menu for today that was different, using as many Windward grown ingredients as possible. The experiment turned out great, and I was able to use only a few store bought items.

     Most of my work with acorns has been small scale, usually ending up in cookies. I personally could probably live off cookies, but I know its important to have something more substantial in your diet. I decided to make acorn pancakes, which were filling, and produced lots of leftovers for snacks later.

Acorn pancakes with garden-fresh hash brown potatoes
  


     The recipe I referenced is below, but I tweaked it a little bit to better reflect our region. For instance, instead of white flour I used corn flour, first, because it is one of the flours that Opalyn can eat, but also becuase we grow corn here, so we could concievably make flour from it. I also substituted maple syrup for the honey out of solidarity for the acorns. The recipe also calls for milk and eggs, both of which we get from our animals here.

     I was inspired to top the pancakes with a syrup made from some apples we recieved from a neighbor. I cooked about 6 of these down with some sugar cinnamon, and water, which turned out sweet, but yummy.

ACORN PANCAKES

  • 1 cup acorn flour
  • 1 cup white flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 2 cups milk
  1. Mix dry ingredients first

  2. Add wet ingredients and mix together thoroughly

  3. Adjust consistency by adding a little more milk or a little more flour if it's too thick or thin. Pancake batter should be thin enough to pour, but not runny.

  4. Cook on oiled grill.

         I accompanied the pancakes with hash browns made from potates, carrots, leeks and sage that were all harvested from the garden this morning. I was able to make a huge amount of food using only very basic staples like sugar, baking powder and oil, and was able to find another use for acorns that can feed us in a pinch.


    Notes From Windward - Index - Vol. 68