Hamburger goes into Grandma's room every Saturday (how does he know?!) and says, "Get up Baba, let's go make pancakes! Get up, let's go! Pancakes!"
And at his request she slinks out of bed and follows him to the kitchen where he is quickly gathering the ingredients; baking powder, baking soda, vanilla (one time my mom had already gotten the vanilla out and he had a mini freak out trying to find it, "Where'd it go?! Where'd it go?! I dunno!".
He then thoughtfully makes Grandma coffee and "tea, momma wants tea." It doesn't matter whether I actually want tea, but according to Hamburger momma always wants tea. I know he sounds like an angel here; helping to prepare food, making everyone's beverage of choice... But behind the scenes he is dripping pancake batter into the baking soda box, trying to pour buttermilk all over the table, and rubbing his pancake battered hands all over your pajamas. So there's that hurricane forever nestled over my house...
Anywho, this time I decided to get up with the little pancake monster and mix it up a bit... Because why not put bacon into pancakes?! It's fun to say, and to eat!
Ingredients:*
- 1 1/2 - 2 cups buttermilk
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 pastured egg
- 1 cup sprouted wheat flour (buckwheat and spelt are also good options)
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
- 1/2 - 1 pound uncured (aka salt cured/nitrate free) bacon (preferably from a local farmer). Amount depends on how much bacon you want to allow yourself to nibble on while cooking!
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 375 and place bacon on a baking sheet lined with foil. Place into oven while oven is still cold; bacon does better warming up gradually.
2. In a medium bowl combine buttermilk, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla and egg. Mix well.
3. Add 1 cup sprouted wheat and mix. If you don't have sprouted wheat, you can soak your flour of choice the night before in the buttermilk to reduce phytic acid. Or go the easy route and find this stuff!
Ah the crunchy life made easy! Just made it to my Whole Foods aisle (no I'm not promoting that place, it's a last resort, but they do have some good stuff sometimes). Or online. They even have spelt!
Pour, mix, repeat. The repeat part wasn't per my directions. Neither was the stain on his sweatshirt.
4. Now it's time for some eyeballing... Generally when we make pancakes we like the batter a bit on the thicker side (as in not runny), this makes thick fluffy pancakes. For adding bacon though, I suggest you thin the batter out a little otherwise the pancake over-powers the bacon.
So... If it looks like this:
Add a bit more buttermilk
Someone's favorite part!
5. Throw some chocolate chips into the batter if you like (chocolate and bacon totally go together!). Heat a pancake skillet on medium heat. Put one cooked bacon piece (I broke mine in half) into the batter, cover with batter with a spoon, and scoop onto skillet.
Ah, we caught a bacon bandit!
Looks guilty... He knows what he's done.
6. Cook on both sides until cooked through and enjoy!
Pour on a bit of local maple syrup and you're in heaven! Unless you're Buddhist... Or Jewish... Muslim... etc.
Oh yea, and why should you feel totally awesome making AND EATING these pancakes?! It's because they are not completely terrible for you... And maybe even a little good for you. Consider this: We are using sprouted flour (making nutrients more available and digestible), buttermilk has lots of good enzymes for ya, bacon from a good source will be high in vitamin D, conjugated linoleic acid, and have a proper omega 6-omega 3 ratio, PLUS covering your pancakes with pastured butter allows you to absorb more nutrients from the wheat. WOAH. Bacon pancakes are pretty much a health food! There ya go.
Eat away.
And if you're wondering why our pancakes are so tiny... It's so you can have seconds... And we're Russian. So yea.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday on FoodRenegade.com
This post is part of Fight Back Friday on FoodRenegade.com
