My pancake standards are exceptionally high. Matt makes the best pancakes ever, tweaking the recipe in How to Cook Everything. It was going to take a lot for these healthy pancakes to impress me.
The recipe sounded weird. The bulk of the flour is no-sugar-added muesli that's been buzzed for two minutes in the food processor. A bit of all purpose flour, a bit of whole wheat flour, and a bit of unprocessed muesli round it out. Because of all the grains, I expected these pancakes to be heavy and dense, but they weren't! They tasted nutty and slightly sweet (a little brown sugar in the batter), and they feel hearty and wholesome to eat. Two pancakes filled me up just enough, and they tasted so good on their own that I didn't even add syrup. WHAT??? That's never happened before. Charlie fought off my pancake-wielding hand until I actually got some in his mouth, and then his whole face lit up and he ate the entire pancake (and two eggs and four strawberries. Growth spurt??). I love watching him eat things that are so obviously good for him.
Pan-Roasted Broccoli (pg 127) accompanied the ribs. Again, I expected this to suck, and again, I was wrong. You brown broccoli florets in a teeny bit of oil, then add a few teaspoons of water, cover, and steam for two minutes. Off the heat, add more olive oil, lemon juice, chopped basil, salt and pepper. Sounds lame, but the singed brown bits were surprisingly tasty. Plus, this method is faster than boiling broccoli, which is my standard, so I'll probably do this often.
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| You are deceptively ordinary-looking, broccoli. |
Hmm, my first attempt at leaving a comment seems not to have worked, here goes again...
ReplyDeleteThose pancakes look delish, I am even inspired to consider a healthier recipe for our occasional pancake breakfast.
Also, I am a big fan of pan roasting or even oven roasting broccoli. Just a bit of olive oil adds so much flavor and the caramely brown bits are always the best.