Buckwheat Pancakes

My mom calls these the "best buckwheat pancake recipe" that she has ever found.  I really enjoy the taste and the texture of the buckwheat flour from our Open Oak CSA.  It's not as coarse as buckwheat flour that I have bought in the store so the pancakes feel more like a buttermilk pancake.

I was having a very difficult time getting my cast iron skillet on the right temperature for these pancakes.  On medium they were burning on the outside and were still gooey on the inside.  When I turned the temperature down just one "notch" the pancakes were cooking very slowly, not browning up on the outside and still gooey on the inside.  Unfortunately, I burned more pancakes than were cooked to a perfect golden brown color.  (In retrospect, I think I should have used small amounts of butter in between batches rather than cooking spray.)

The non-burned pancakes were delicious.  Even the burned one with blueberries were good to eat!

This recipe makes a huge amount of pancakes.  For my family, next time I think I'll halve the recipe.  I think I now have more in my freezer than we ate for our meal!

Buckwheat Pancakes 

1 c buckwheat flour (from Open Oak Farm CSA)

1/2 c wheat flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 c buttermilk (or sour milk)
3/4 c milk
1 T honey
2 eggs
2 T oil
1 banana mashed
1 c blueberries (optional) 

Mix dry ingredients together.  Mix wet ingredients together separately (including mashed banana), and then add to the dry.  Mix thoroughly before cooking. 

Buckwheat pancakes

Sunday Yumm! Bowls

My friend Jessi introduced me to the best "fast food" in our community.  We are lucky that Cafe Yumm! serves the most tasty Yumm! Bowls which are both healthy and delicious.  The bowls have rice with a variety of bean and vegetable toppings--and are always topped with Yumm! sauce. Fortunately, the restaurant also sells their Yumm! sauce in large take-home containers.

My son and I had created our own Yumm! bowl (for me) and plate (for him) for a sunny afternoon picnic.  We used beans (they weren't labeled so I don't know the variety) and purple barley from our last Lonesome Whistle Farm CSA grain share of the spring.  I am trying to get into the habit of cooking up large batches of these so we can use them throughout the week.

My four year old son says about his lunch, "I loved it!  I liked everything.  I had apples, barley, beans, cheese, and broccoli."   He was able to eat all of the ingredients separately just how he likes them.

I took those same ingredients and added Yumm! sauce, salsa (from local Salsa de Casa), cilantro, and garlic stems.  The garlic stems came from our Open Oak Farmers, and we purchased them at the Springfield Farmers Market last week.  I have been missing our CSA vegetable pick-ups so I was very glad to see them at the market.   I mixed everything together so each bite had all of the wonderful flavors.

Our picnic was even complete with a crawling ear whig, which we moved far away from the picnic.