Oh geez, so excited. I think it’s from watching Pioneer Woman all through the holidays with my family. She has a super snazzy hand painted version that costs $1350 smackers (does that include tax and shipping?) but I can work the fabulous hot pink with a glass bowl! Does it match my kitchen? Nope. Any of my stuff? Nope Nope Nope. But it’s PIIIIIIIIINK and I love it. Excellent price from our friends at Amazon, too. I’ve been stalking it for a while and when the price dropped to an agreeable level, I pulled the trigger.
She’s so pretty. I’ll have to check to see if Anthropologie makes an owl cookie jar with some pink, just to tie it all together. Three owl cookies jars isn’t enough, right? Sigh. That glass bowl. The shine of the paint. Love! One of the guys I work with is a fierce baker in his free time, and he essentially said his Kitchenaid would have to be pried from his cold, dead hands. He advised that I get one of the beaters with built in spatulas, and after my experiments this weekend, I agree! Not having to scrape the sides during the mix will be very helpful.
First up – pancakes. PANCAKES! My mom was a gem and made up little individual baggies of the dry ingredients to make gluten free pancakes. And can I give you a pro tip here? If you happen to run out of regular coconut or almond milk, and all you have is the tasty, tasty chocolate? Oh, it’s delicious. You will have gorgeous chocolate pancakes. If you want to mix them with God’s Great Glory of Chocolate ‘Mega Chunk’ Chips (made by Enjoy Life Foods, available at my Target in the ‘hood as well as the regular grocery store in Springfield, MO) then you’ve got something SO GOOD. I might have added the part about God’s glory.
Not good for what it is, mind you. Just good. I’m pretty sure I didn’t add syrup. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of them. What’s wrong with me? I guess that’s how fast they went into my belly. I just fell into a rabbit hole, didn’t I? SQUIRREL! And now I’m thinking about the equally delicious gluten and dairy free chocolate chip cookies mom made. Again, just good. Not good for what they are, just good. It’s those damn chocolate chips. They’re out of this world.
Anyhoot, here’s what my first batch of pancakes looked like on Saturday morning, right next to my much improved second batch:
Julia Childs always reminded us to Not. Crowd. The. Mushrooms! What a mess, right? Clearly a disaster. Well, I learned the hard way to not crowd your pancakes. Also, use medium-high heat. You’ll all be relieved to know that they were delicious once I figured it out. I risked a gluten attack and used a tablespoon of my super amazing Woodinville Whiskey Company Maple Syrup. It’s pricey, like all maple syrup that happens to be put into casks formerly used for making bourbon and rye and bundled into beautiful bottles would be, but it’s a worthy purchase. Thanks Jason and Ben for introducing it to me!
Pancakes, check. What’s next? The three overripe bananas on my counter commanded me to find a recipe for Banana Nut Bread. I made muffins because I figured that would be easier to portion out, and less risk of a burnt crust and raw inside. They’re so good! Here’s the recipe, thanks to the Civilized Caveman.
I had to leave out the cinnamon, which was kind of a miss, but the coconut oil was a great sub for butter and some organic peanut butter I had lying around from my experiment with gluten free bread (disgusting) worked too. I might try to make my own gluten free bread, but it looks insanely complicated and I’m just not there yet. Maybe another six months of watching cooking shows will inspire me.
The crumbled up friend on the right is what you get when you try to dump out the muffin pan too early. I only have one and wanted to get the next batch going. I guess I didn’t sufficiently re-grease the pan and got a little aggressive when slapping the back of it. Oops. I ate it anyway, and it made for a funny pic.
These little guys have been paired up with eggs and Applegate chicken sausage links for breakfast the past few days and it’s as good as can be! Much more decent on the calorie content than I thought – 174 calories and 13 carbs. Don’t ask me about the fat content, but you can take a wild guess based on the coconut oil and peanut butter. At least they’re satisfying? Plus they’re made and served with egg whites, which helps. Kind of.
One more cooking discovery this week – Thai food! Well, I need to explore it in a broader scope, but Target has some Archer Farm dinner kits that didn’t have any of my allergens. The panang curry was seriously delicious, and God bless coconut milk. I have dinner plans with a girlfriend on Thursday, so I’m going to check into a few local restaurants and see if I can make that magic happen out and about too. I LOVE curry. Both Thai and Indian food use a lot of coconut milk, so maybe if I avoid the paneer I can make it work.
Cheers!