Recipe: Almond Pancakes

The past few days have been a blur of work, visits from family, and FAME! My eating habits on Thursday and Friday were terrible - missing breakfast and lunch each day, then munching without appetite on roast chicken, almond porridge and cauliflower. Calorie counts were in the 350 - 700 zone. Bad girl.

Made up for the lack of variety this weekend though, heading out to the Slow Food Market in Abbotsford at lunchtime on Saturday. We sadly missed the bulk of the grass-fed beef :( Next time! We nabbed some AMAZING strawberries from Sunny Ridge Farms, and one lamb roast. Most of the slow food goodies were fruit or sugar-based, very disappointing. The veggies on offer weren't terribly impressive either, although we did find some excellent kale and rhubarb above the usual quality found in Macro. We headed out to Macro anyway, to show Mum the explosive range of organic products commercially available these days. Picked up a bunch of meat and pastured eggs (finally found some!!!).

Had a late night after the show on Saturday, where we noshed on strawberries, pesto on veggie sticks, macadamia nuts, and brie. The others insisted on using crackers, pfft.

I served up almond pancakes this morning, to rave review:


For the uninitiated, almond pancakes are super simple to make, and are so much tastier than the usual white flour rubbish.

Almond Pancakes

Ingredients:

100g almond flour
4 pastured eggs
3T melted coconut oil (plus extra for frying pan lubrication)
1/2 cup (or so) water

Method:

1. Combine flour and eggs in a large bowl.

2. Add oil and stir well.

3. Gradually add water to the mixture whilst stirring, until the consistency is just shy of runny. (You could try going for a runnier mixture, but this will make your pancakes even more fragile)

4. Add a generous blob of oil to your frying pan and heat until oil is about to sizzle.

5. Spoon desired amounts of mixture into the pan and press/stretch into flat shapes.

6. Leave to fry until base is firm and edges begin to brown.

7. Flip pancakes carefully, watching for splashing oil. Allow to cook until other side has browned and centre is firm.

8. Remove from heat and serve immediately, or keep warm and covered (trap steam to maximise moisture level of pancakes).

I served these with whipped cream (no coconut cream), the leftover strawberries, and some defrosted raspberries and subsequent juice. For Valentine's Day I also melted a bit of dark chocolate and drizzled it over the fruit. Sweet.


For lunch - organic free range chicken drumsticks (the ethical sensations that followed were even sweeter than the meat):


'Twas a matinee performance today, so I was home in time to cook up a scrumptious dinner of free range pork, cabbage, mushrooms, ham and haloumi:


Seriously good eats today, I feel like going dancing!! As compensation, I'm blasting the RENT Broadway cast album and bouncing in my chair while I type :) Also, I'm singing my lungs out (and those of you that know me know how loud that is...) - hello neighbours!