Blackberry Surprise Muffins

February may have turned into April overnight (44F? Weather gods, what is going on??), but there’s still enough of a chill in the air to warrant baking muffins. Especially whole-grain muffins with a jammy surprise inside. I opted for locally made, naturally sweetened blackberry jam for this batch; next time I might go for raspberry or cherry. That’s the great thing about making “surprise” muffins: as long as you can come up with different treats to tuck inside the batter, you can keep reinventing your recipes! Other fun surprises include dollops of nut butter and chunks of dark chocolate.

If you are going for a jammy surprise, though, make sure to pick an all-fruit jam, not one that has a bunch of added sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup. Always, always read the ingredients label! You can save yourself a lot of headache and heartache by skipping all of the misleading claims and marketing flimflam on the front of any given package and going right to the ingredients label. If you don’t like what you see there, put it back and go on to the next brand…and possibly the next one…until you find an appealing list of ingredients.

Blackberry Surprise Muffins

3/4 cup brown rice flour*
3/4 cup sorghum OR millet flour*
1/2 cup almond flour (I run sliced almonds through a coffee grinder until I have flour; this is a far more affordable — and tastier! — way to enjoy almond flour)
1 T. baking powder
Dash of sea salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1 cup whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows, OR coconut, grain, or nut milk
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp. vanilla
Blackberry jam

Preheat oven to 375F and line a muffin tin with paper cups. This recipe tends to make at least a baker’s dozen, so you may need to line a few openings in a second tin. Get out a small spoon to use for scooping the jam into the muffins right before you pop them into the oven.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, maple syrup, oil, and vanilla. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ones.

Promptly fill each cup in the full 12-cup tin halfway with batter. (If you are using aluminum-free baking powder — which I always do — time is of the essence since the powder will immediately start to react when mixed with liquid. Now is not the time to tarry!) Use your tiny spoon to scoop a dollop of jam into each muffin. Add a little more batter to each cup, enough to cover the jam and fill the cup 3/4 full. If you still have some batter, make another 3 or 4 muffins in the second tin.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are turning golden on top and a toothpick inserted along the side comes out clean. (If you poke the center of the muffin, you’ll hit the jam and the toothpick will come out sticky.) Let cool for at least 10 minutes before biting into your surprise.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d rather make wheat-based muffins, use a total of 1 1/2 cups spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flours. You could replace the almond flour with wheat, too, but the nuttiness of the almonds is a nice compliment to the tart-sweetness of the blackberry jam.

Sunny Side Up Eggs with Smoked Salmon & Dill

Smoked salmon isn’t just for bagels and cream cheese any more — it’s too delicious and convenient to not serve it in a wider variety of ways. And as long as you opt for wild salmon, you’ll be enjoying an anti-inflammatory omega-3-rich boost to your meal. Here’s why: that gorgeous salmon hue is due to the salmon’s diet of red-pigmented krill. The krill are red because of the algae they eat, which in turn contains astaxanthin (the name of the phytochemical that causes the red color) and omega-3 fatty acids. Farmed salmon don’t eat krill, they eat dye chips. If they didn’t eat dye, their flesh would be gray rather than “salmon”-colored.

So what else aren’t the farmed salmon eating because they aren’t eating krill? You got it: the omega-3s. Hence, farmed salmon is nowhere near as anti-inflammatory as wild salmon. Sustainably managed wild Alaskan salmon is also is much better bet for the environment. Point is, it’s worth choosing wild salmon. If you also go with eggs from pastured hens to make this quick breakfast, your day will be off to one heck of an energy-rich, anti-aching day!

Note that smoked salmon, lox, and gravlax are all terms used to described salmon that has been cured and/or smoked in various ways. “Kippered” refers to herring that has been smoked.

Sunny Side Up Eggs with Smoked Salmon & Dill

Ghee or butter, preferably from grass-fed cows
Eggs, preferably from pastured hens
Smoked wild salmon, minced
Dried dill for garnish

Melt a pat of ghee or butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Crack in eggs — figure on two per person — and let cook undisturbed for about 3 minutes or until egg whites are opaque and lightly brown on the bottom. Using a large spatula, gently flip/slide over eggs and cook for an additional minute. Serve topped with minced salmon and a sprinkling of dill. Talk about five minutes deliciously well spent!

Enjoy!

Savory Artichoke Custard

If you’re in the mood for an unadorned artichoke, nothing beats a freshly steamed one, but if you want to make a dish featuring artichokes as the main ingredient, the canned route suddenly gets a whole lot more appealing. To make this savory baked custard — which is fantastic for either breakfast or lunch — all you need to do is blend some drained canned artichoke hearts in a food processor with the other four ingredients, pop it in the oven, and wait 25 minutes.

If you’d rather make a soft artichoke dip to accompany crackers or raw sliced veggies, omit the eggs and the baking and simply serve the blended artichokes, cheese, Greek yogurt, and garlic. Talk about an easy appetizer!

Savory Artichoke Custard (or Dip)

5 cloves garlic, chopped
14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained
1/2 cup plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens*
3 oz. aged hard cheese such as Parmesan, preferably from grass-fed cows, grated (I used Sartori’s basil & olive oil asiago cheese; Sartori is a fantastic American cheesemaker with an impressive array of traditional-Italian-relocated-to-modern-day-Wisconsin selections)

Preheat oven to 400F. Sautée the garlic in a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium-low heat for 3 minutes or until garlic is just beginning to turn golden brown. Immediately transfer to food processor and add remaining ingredients. Process in spurts until well-blended, using a spatula to occasionally scrape down the sides of the bowl.

* Note: if you’d rather make a dip than a custard, omit the eggs, skip the oven preheating, and stop here. Serve dip in a pretty bowl.

Scoop the mixture into a 9″ glass pie pan and bake for 25 minutes or until custard is set and the edges are turning brown. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before serving. Leftover custard can be refrigerated for 5 days…and makes a very satisfying instant breakfast!

Enjoy!

Baked Potato "Cake"

If you have a bit of spare time and a sacrificial kitchen towel*, making a baked potato cake — which can be turned into the world’s tastiest hash browns if you have leftovers! — is a fun way to prepare potatoes. All you need is butter, salt and pepper, and baking/starchy potatoes. (As opposed to waxy potatoes, which aren’t quite starchy enough to do the job here, especially since we’re leaving the skins on.) It’s also quite helpful to have a oven-safe wire rack and a plate that will fit over the top of a 9″ skillet. You can bake the cake directly on a covered baking sheet rather than on a wire rack, but going the rack route will make for a crispier cake.

The flipping part is a little bit tricky, but just remember this: you can’t go wrong with potatoes and butter. Even if you wind up with a smashed cake rather than a flipped one, it’ll still taste delicious.

* I say “sacrificial” because the pigments/antioxidants in the potato will turn the towel black. It’s a fascinating process to watch, actually — when you first squeeze the grated potato in the towel, the towel acquires a brownish hue, but as the pigments oxidize, the brown becomes dark brown and finally almost black. Washing out the towel in running water will turn it grey. Potato-scented grey. So be sure to use a towel you don’t care about…or use one you’ve been wanting to make a potato-scented grey. I’ve designated my sacrificial towel as a potato-twisting towel and plan to re-use it accordingly.

Baked Potato “Cake”

Butter, preferably from grass-fed cows
1 baking potato (the Idaho variety generally works out to be 3/4 to 1 lb. per potato), scrubbed but not peeled
1 sacrificial kitchen towel
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425F. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and top with a wire rack. If you’re going to put the cake directly on the sheet, cover it with parchment paper. Melt about 1 T. butter in a 9″ nonstick skillet over low heat.

Grate the potato with a cheese grater, piling the potato onto the sacrificial towel as you go. Wrap the grated potato securely into the center of the towel, then hold it above the sink and twist it as hard as you can. You should see plenty of juice trickle out. Scrape the grated potato into a large mixing bowl. Stir in melted butter and a generous helping of salt and pepper.

Melt another tablespoon of butter in the 9″ skillet. Add the potato, pressing down gently but firmly with a heat-proof spatula to smooth out your cake. Increase heat to medium-high and cook for 3 minutes or until the underside looks brown when you use the spatula to gently pull up a side so that you can peek underneath.

Take the skillet over to the counter and put a large plate on top of it. Invert the skillet quickly — but securely! — so that the cake drops onto the plate. Slide the cake back into the skillet, return to heat, and cook for another 3 minutes.

Slide the cake onto the wire rack/sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool for at least 5 minutes before shifting/cutting the cake. (The cake will harden into place as it cools.) If you used a rack, place a clean large plate over the cake and flip it over. If the cake sticks to the rack, use your fingers to gently press the cake down and away from the rack, poking your fingers into the space between the bars and gradually working the cake free from the rack. (Starch sticks; that’s why the cake sticks together to begin with.)

Serve immediately, either plain or topped. Yummy pairings include smoked salmon and whole-milk Greek yogurt with a dill garnish (a Russian approach) as well as black beans, corn, and Cheddar cheese (a Mexican approach). Leftover “slices” can be kept for up to 4 days in the fridge. Just sauté them in butter for a few minutes over medium heat, and you’ll have the most amazing hash browns you’ve ever tasted. Even die-hard fast food lovers would have to admit that your potatoes beat the heck outta those McDonald’s fries that people say they like so much.

Incidentally, ever looked at the ingredient list on those fries? Here it is, direct from the McD’s website: “Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*, citric acid [preservative]), dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (maintain color), salt. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.” Note the hydrogenated oil (a.k.a. trans fat) and wheat and milk derivatives.

All your potatoes have is potatoes (with skins!), butter, salt, and pepper.

Enjoy!

Breakfast Lemon Squares

Lemons are lovely, especially when you pair them with oats and almonds and eggs and call them breakfast. Baked goods (or leftover pancakes) are my favorite things to have for weekday breakfasts since they require zero work first thing in the morning. Fifteen minutes of effort once or twice a week can provide you with hearty, healthy breakfasts that will make you want to get out of bed so you can enjoy them!

Muffins are my go-to standard — they’re endlessly versatile, and you can make a batch of 12 in less time than it would take to go to the store to buy “enriched” stripped-out bagels that will give you an ill-advised sugar rush and then leave you hungry an hour after you’ve eaten them — but this time I decided to revamp an old sugary favorite to come up with a new lightly sweetened and highly nutritious breakfast: the beloved lemon square. Here, almonds, oats, and sorghum have replaced refined flour, and the tartness of the lemon is offset by a touch of honey. You might just want to double the recipe and make a 9″x13″ rather than an 8″x8″!

Breakfast Lemon Squares
Makes an 8″x8″ pan, or double the recipe for a 9″x13″ pan.

1/2 stick butter, preferably from grass-fed cows, melted (Kerrygold is a great choice)
1/2 cup oat flour (be sure to use gluten-free oats if you want a gluten-free breakfast; I run my g-f rolled oats through my coffee grinder to make my own flour)
1/2 cup almond flour (that same coffee grinder sure comes in handy for turning sliced almonds into fresh almond flour)
2 T. powdered sucanat (the coffee grinder strikes again!)
1/2 cup sorghum OR millet OR brown rice flour*, divided
3 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/2 cup honey
Zest of 1 lemon, preferably organic since you’re using the zest
1/4 c. lemon juice (1 organic lemon tends to give you 1/4 cup juice)
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 325F and get out an 8″x8″ glass pan. Melt the butter in a small pot over low heat, then pour into a medium mixing bowl and mix well with the oat and almond flours and the powdered sucanat. Add 1/4 cup sorghum flour and stir until well-blended, using your hands to to mix if you like. (Butter is a great skin moisturizer!) Press into the bottom of the glass pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

While the crust is baking, whisk together the eggs, honey, lemon zest and juice, and the remaining 1/4 cup sorghum flour. When the 20 minutes is up and you pull out the crust, whisk the baking soda into the egg mixture and quickly pour it onto the crust. (The baking soda will start to react with the lemon juice immediately, so you want to wait until the last possible second to complete your topping.)

Put the squares back into the oven and bake for another 25 minutes or until the top is turning a light golden brown and you can see dimples forming on the surface. These lightly sweetened squares make a great breakfast, or serve them with fresh fruit and/or ice cream and a drizzle of honey for dessert.

Enjoy!

* This is a gluten-free flour. If you’d rather make a wheat-based version, use kamut, spelt, or whole-wheat flour in place of the sorghum.

Sautéed Kiwi & Manzano Bananas

Yes, when I get on a kick, I get on a kick. My current one is tiny plantains. They’re so cute! And so handily single-portion-sized. (Note: I mean “tiny plantains” as a descriptive term — you’ll find them under guises such as “manzano bananas” and “burro bananas” and any other official label attached to short, squat bananas with hard, ridged skins.) Like full-sized plantains, the tiny versions aren’t sweet until they’re nearly all black on the outside. You can enjoy them non-sweet, too — in that case, think of them more like a potato-y vegetable that you’d treat like a starch — but I prefer them at the very-ripe stage, when they’ve hit their sweet peak and their insides almost melt when you slice and sautée them.

Since I had a kiwi lying in the fruit bowl next to the manzano bananas/tiny plantains, I thought I might as well cook that, too, and make a tropical warm winter fruit sautée. What better way to take a gustatory break from 30F weather? Besides, kiwis are stunningly elegant with their neat rows of black seeds and inner flesh that hovers somewhere between peridot and emerald. (And as a health bonus, kiwi seeds are also a great source of omega-3s.)

Sautéed Kiwi & Manzano Bananas

Manzano OR burro OR any “tiny plantain,” as I call them (see the first paragraph for a description) OR a standard plantain, cut into slices about 1/4″ thick
Kiwis, skins removed, hard inner white core removed, each kiwi cut into about 8 cubes
Coconut oil OR extra-virgin olive oil (the coconut will taste more tropical and will have a slight sweetness that will complement the fruit)

Melt a dab of coconut oil in a medium-small skillet (it should be just large enough to hold the fruit) over medium heat. Add the plantains and cook undisturbed for 3 to 4 minutes. The oil should coat the bottom of the skillet, so if it doesn’t, add a bit more. (This is why it’s best to use the smallest skillet possible — no point in wasting nice coconut oil.) Lay out a sheet of paper towel on a large plate.

Examine the banana slices to see if the edges are browning. If they are, use heat-proof tongs to flip one over to see if the underside is golden brown. If it is, flip over all of the slices and continue to cook for another 2 minutes or until the second side is brown. Slide onto the paper towel and let drain.

Add the kiwis to the same skillet and cook, shaking the skillet occasionally, for 3 minutes or until kiwis are starting to lightly brown. Slip into a bowl and gently toss with the tiny plantain slices. Serve immediately. This would be a great breakfast or dessert as is, or you can top it with plain whole-milk Greek yogurt or coconut ice cream. Try making it again with other tropical fruit in place of the kiwi: mango, papaya, pineapple.

Enjoy!

(Mayo-Free) Deviled Eggs

As their name implies, this classic appetizer can be devilishly delicious or hellishly horrid. It all depends on the quality of the three main ingredients: the pickles, the mustard, and most importantly the eggs. I also prefer to make deviled eggs sans mayonnaise or with homemade mayonnaise — the jiggly white stuff you buy in the store has zero resemblance to actual fresh mayonnaise. (The latter ought to be egg yolk whisked with unrefined oil and a splash of lemon juice or vinegar. Simple, delicious, and versatile; add a knifetip of minced garlic, and you have aioli.) When I made these eggs, I opted for the easy route and drizzled in just enough extra-virgin olive oil to create a spoonable consistency.

Deviled eggs are ideal party appetizers since you can prepare them a day ahead and unveil them as soon as the first guest walks in. And leftover eggs make a fantastic breakfast!

(Mayo-Free) Deviled Eggs
This makes enough for 8 deviled egg halves. Feel free to double or triple the recipe as needed.

4 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
3-4 dill pickle spears (I adore McClure’s Garlic & Dill pickles, so I always use those), minced
1 T. capers
1/2 tsp. to 3/4 tsp. mustard, depending on how hot your mustard is and how much you like mustard (I prefer German-style mustard that’s smooth and medium-spicy)
Juice of 1/4 lemon
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sweet paprika for garnishing

Place the eggs in a medium pot and fill the pot halfway with water. Cover the pot, put it on the stove over high heat, and keep an ear perked for the sound of the lid starting to rattle as the water comes to a boil. As soon as you hear that, turn the heat down to medium, keep covered, and simmer the eggs for 10 minutes. You may wish to add a splash of vinegar to reduce the likelihood of the eggs getting foamy and boiling over. (I skip the vinegar and take my chances.)

When the 10 minutes are up, put the pot in the sink and run cold water into it until you can comfortably reach into the water. Hold the eggs against the pot while you pour out all of the water. Refill with ice-cold water and let the eggs sit in the water until they’re cool enough to touch. Cooling them promptly and thoroughly will prevent the yolks from discoloring. At this point, you can dry them off and keep them in a bowl in the fridge for a week if you like — hard-boiled eggs come in quite handy.

Lightly tap the eggs on a hard surface and then peel off the shells. (Note: if the shells are difficult to peel away, congratulations! You have very fresh eggs indeed.) Cut each egg in half the long way and pop the yolk into a mixing bowl. Mash the yolks with a fork until fluffy, then stir in pickles, capers, mustard, and lemon juice. Taste a bit to see if you’d like to add more mustard or lemon juice. Drizzle in just enough oil to make the mixture spoonable.

Arrange the egg white halves on a nice plate, fill each one with the yolk filling, and sprinkle paprika over the tops as garnish.

Enjoy!

Mandarin-Yogurt Bread

One of the few nice things about winter is that citrus is in season: grapefruit, tangerines, mandarin oranges, even kumquats. Any and all of those can perk up even the darkest, dreariest day. Usually, I like to just eat them out of hand — especially cute little kumquats with their very sweetly edible skins! — but this time I decided to see what would happen if I stirred fresh mandarin segments into a quick bread batter. Would they just turn to mush upon baking, leaving behind a wet, uncooked blob of batter?

As you can see, the answer is that the segments maintain their shape quite nicely when you bake them. You can’t overload the batter with too many of the juicy segments, but part of the fun of including them is the thrill of the chance of getting a slice with a big wedge of mandarin in it. If you want to be sure that every slice will, you could do some strategic push-and-poke segmenting right before popping the loaf into the oven. I decided to just stir as usual and take my chances.

Mandarin-Yogurt Bread

3/4 cup brown rice flour*
3/4 cup sorghum flour*
1/2 cup milllet or amaranth flour*
1/4 cup granulated honey OR sucanat (or 1/2 cup, if you’re aiming for a sweet bread)
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1 mandarin orange or tangerine, split into its natural segments
3/4 cup whole-milk plain yogurt, Greek or otherwise
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil OR unrefined almond oil (both go well with citrus)
3 eggs, preferably from pastured hens

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a glass loaf pan (about 9″x5″) and set aside. I like to drizzle a bit of the olive oil into the loaf pan, then use my fingertips to spread the oil on the bottom and all of the sides. Any oil left on my hands gets rubbed into them. Why waste a nice hand moisturizer?

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, granulated honey, baking soda and powder, and salt. Gently stir in the mandarin segments.

In another bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture and stir well — but gently, for the sake of the segments! — to combine. Pour the batter into the greased loaf pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until the top is lightly brown and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. If the top seems to be browning too fast, tent it with aluminum foil and continue baking until the loaf passes the toothpick test.

Let cool for at least 20 minutes before sliding the loaf out of the pan. I like to let both loaf and pan cool separately until both are completely cool, and then I put the loaf back into the pan for safekeeping. Note that you can only leave this loaf out at room temp for about 3 days — any longer, and the mandarin segments will start to ferment. Store the loaf in the fridge if you don’t finish it within a day or two.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d rather make a wheat-based version, use a total of 2 cups of whole-wheat, kamut, or spelt flours instead.

Peanut-Mesquite Muffins

Now that summer has given way to leaf-strewn fall, the idea of going outside to grill something for dinner has gotten a lot less appealing. So much for mesquite-laced, smoky veggies and meats. (And fruits, too. Ever tried grilled pineapple? Sublime!) Seems like that signature mesquite flavor is only available during the summer months.

…Or maybe it isn’t. It turns out that the same tree that yields mesquite wood for the grill also bears a fruit that can be dried out and ground into flour. Like the smoke given off by the burning mesquite wood, mesquite flour carries a hint of caramel smokiness. It hangs somewhere between sweet and earthy and will probably make you think of campfires. The assertive flavor of mesquite fits best with other assertive flavors: chocolate, peanut, coffee. It’s also one of North America’s indigenous edibles — long before European settlers arrived, Native American tribes were enjoying both the culinary and utilitarian aspects of mesquite trees.

The only downside about mesquite flour is that it’s tricky to find unless you live in Arizona or New Mexico. You can order it online, though, from places like http://www.nutsonline.com/ and http://www.mesquiteflour.com/. And if worst comes to worst and you simply don’t have any way to get your hands on mesquite but still want to make these Peanut Muffins, you can use teff or buckwheat flour instead — those are also nutty, dark, rich flours and pair well with peanut. That plus a little maple syrup drizzled onto the muffins before serving would mimic a little bit of mesquite’s caramel-esque tinge.

Peanut-Mesquite Muffins
Makes 12 muffins.

1 cup peanut flour OR 1 cup sorghum flour*
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup mesquite flour OR 1/2 cup buckwheat flour OR 1/2 cup teff flour*
1/2 cup rolled oats (be sure to get gluten-free oats if you’re baking gluten-free muffins)
1 T. baking powder
Dash of sea salt
1/2 cup date sugar
1/2 cup palm sugar OR sucanat
1 1/4 cups whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows (if you live in Metro Detroit, you’re lucky — we have Calder’s)
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup unrefined peanut oil OR extra-virgin olive oil

Two notes before we begin:

- If you don’t have date sugar and/or you want your muffins to be sweeter, use 1 cup sucanat instead of splitting it with date sugar. (Date sugar is less sweet than sucanat; both are granulated, not liquid.) -

- If you don’t have peanut flour, use the sorghum flour instead, and substitute 1/4 cup peanut butter for one of the eggs. Having 1 egg + 1/4 cup peanut butter will give you plenty of peanut flavor in addition to helping the muffins stick together. -

Preheat oven to 375F and line a muffin tin with paper cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, oats, baking powder, and salt. In another large bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Stir the liquid portion into the flour mixture until well-blended. (I like to use a whisk, although this technique is much more effective for gluten-free batters than wheat-based ones — the wheat is more difficult to stir because of its gluten-thickened texture.)

Quickly spoon the batter into the waiting cups and bake for 22 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you wish to make wheat-based muffins, substitute spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flour for the peanut/sorghum and brown rice flours.

Pancakes with Cocoa Nibs & Oats

Chocolate chips are great, but a few words of advice for my fellow chocolate purists out there: cocoa nibs are even better. The nibs are straight-up, unsweetened cocoa beans that have been chopped into rough…well…nibs. You know how steel-cut oats are whole oats chopped a few times across with steel blades? They wind up being chunky and irregular and still looking a lot like they did originally. Cocoa nibs are pretty much the same idea.

Nibs can be hard to find, though. I generally poke about specialty online groceries to see who has what. But don’t fret — if you can’t find any nibs, you can revert to chocolate chips. Better yet, you can break up your favorite chocolate bar into shards and make your own chips. (I pound the heck outta my Lindt 85% dark bars whenever I want chips.) Heck, even if you leave out the cocoa component entirely from these pancakes, they’ll still be tasty!

Pancakes with Cocoa Nibs & Oats (or Chocolate Shards)
Makes about 20 pancakes

1 1/4 cups teff OR sorghum flour*
3/4 cup millet flour*
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats, designated gluten-free if you’re making a gluten-free batch of pancakes
1/2 cup cocoa nibs or chocolate shards/chips
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 T. baking powder
Pinch of sea salt
1 1/2 cups whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows
2 T. maple syrup
3 eggs, preferably from free-range hens
1 tsp. vanilla

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flours, oats, nibs, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center and add remaining ingredients. Whisk the wet ingredients together in the well you’ve created until the ingredients are well-blended, then whisk outwards to pull in the dry ingredients. Keep whisking until blended.

Heat a pat of butter or ghee on a large nonstick griddle or skillet over medium heat until butter has melted. Add pancake batter in 1/4 cupfuls and cook for 3 minutes or until little bubbles appear and then burst on the top and the bottoms are golden brown. Flip the cakes and continue to cook for another minute or two until that side is golden brown, too. Let the cooked cakes rest on a wire rack while you continue making the rest of the batch.

You’ll probably have to add a pat of butter/ghee between each batch of cakes. My griddle pan can accommodate 4 cakes at a time, so I had 5 batches total. You might also have to reduce the heat a little as you cook along since the pan will keep getting hotter and hotter — by batch #3, I’m usually down to medium-low heat.

Serve cakes drizzled with additional maple syrup and some nut oil if you have any. I particularly like unrefined hazelnut and pecan oils with these chocolatey cakes. Leftover cakes can be kept in the fridge for 5 days.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d rather make a wheat-based version, use equivalent amounts of whole-wheat, kamut, and/or spelt flours.

Banana-Cinnamon Pancakes

I don’t know why — perhaps the recent chill in the air? — but lately I’ve had a hankering for pancakes. The hankering became downright want yesterday when I realized I still had baby bananas sitting in my fruit bowl. Hmmm…I could put those on top of pancakes, I thought. No, wait — better yet, I could make pancakes with the bananas! Seeing as bananas are squishable and sticky, they’re great candidates to include in fruity baked goods. And their natural sweetness comes in handy, too.

Although I used baby bananas for my ‘cakes, you can use the standard large Cavendish variety that you’ll find in every grocery store, food mart, and even gas station in America. Just be sure your ‘naners are ripe enough to mash easily with a fork. For Cavendish bananas, that means turning brown with a hint of spotting; for baby bananas, that means turned brown with spots are are big enough to be blotches.

Banana-Cinnamon Pancakes
This makes 10 pancakes or enough for two with a few to spare. Feel free to double the recipe for a larger yield.

6 baby bananas OR 2 large ones
2 eggs
1/4 cup whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows
1/2 cup ground almonds OR 1/2 cup millet flour*
1/2 cup brown rice OR sorghum flour*
2 tsp. baking powder
Dash sea salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. almond extract (optional)

In a large bowl, mash the bananas until fairly smooth. Add eggs and milk and whisk well, then whisk in remaining ingredients. If you’re sticking with gluten-free flours, you can whisk like mad until you have a beautifully smooth batter; if you’re using wheat-based flours, use a wooden spoon to stir ingredients until just blended. (Overwhisking gluten-free flours can’t overtoughen the gluten strands since there aren’t any.)

The best way to make pancakes is with a squared-off griddle pan — such pans comfortably hold 4 pancakes at a time — but if you don’t have that, melt a dab of butter in a large nonstick skillet instead. Add batter in 1/4 cupfuls, cooking over medium or medium-low heat for about 2-3 minutes or until the tops of the individual pancakes look like they’re starting to set. (The tiny bubbles will have popped.) Flip and cook the second side for another minute or two. Turn down your heat a notch if the ‘cakes are getting too brown. Add enough butter between batches to keep the pancakes from sticking to the pan.

Serve immediately. Leftover ‘cakes can be refrigerated and then gently rewarmed for up to 4 days.

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make a wheat-based version, use equivalent amounts of kamut, spelt, or whole-wheat flours.

Trail Mix Muffins

Dried fruit + nuts + seeds = an incredibly handy snack. Even dinner if need be. (Like when you land in an European city late at night on a Sunday and realize that NOTHING is open.) In this case, the trail mix is breakfast. If you don’t have any “official” trail mix on hand — i.e., a bag of mixed fruit and nuts and seeds sold as a mix — it’s easy enough to make your own out of any fruit, nuts, and seeds you have in your cupboards. One of my favorite simple mixes is cashews + raisins or dried currents. Another great one is macadamia nuts + raisins or currants or even cranberries. The combination of the rich, buttery macadamia with the sweet, chewy raisins reminds me of an oatmeal cookie.

Whether you’re using store-bought mix or making your own, be sure to get dried fruit that is simply dried fruit, not dried fruit coated with corn syrup/sugar. Dried fruit is quite sweet enough on its own, but for whatever reason, food manufacturers typically coat dried fruit — especially cranberries! — with cheap refined sunflower oil and cheap refined corn syrup/sugar. Raisins are about the only dried fruit that is not typically oiled and syruped. But if you read ingredient labels with a saber-toothed eye, you can find the occasional mix that’s just dried fruit + nuts + seeds. And if you like the idea of putting trail mix in your muffins, you might also like this idea/recipe that involves putting trail mix in your cookies!

Trail Mix Muffins

1/2 cup sorghum flour*
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup millet flour*
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup trail mix
3 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
6 oz. whole-milk yogurt (Fage is a nice choice; I’ve even made this with sheep’s-milk yogurt)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375F and either thoroughly grease two muffin tins (one can be a six-muffin tin rather than the standard 12, or both can hold 12) or line the tins with paper cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, and trail mix. In another large bowl, whisk together the remaining (liquid) ingredients. Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour and whisk together until well-blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl a few times. If you’re using wheat-based flours, only whisk gently until just blended; if you’re using gluten-free flours, you can whisk like mad until you have a perfectly smooth batter.

Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full. This will probably mean you’ll wind up with 16 to 18 muffins, so you may have some empty places in your second tin. That’s fine.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until tops are just starting to turn golden-brown and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make wheat-based muffins, use a total of 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat, kamut, or spelt flours.

Stacked Crepe Torte

Today’s post is more of an ideas post than an actual recipe, but it’s an idea that you can take in uncountable directions, be that sweet or savory or as a main dish or a dessert. Another neat thing about this culinary concept is that you get to play the part of a pastry chef as you spread several layers of filling between stackable crepes. Unlike most pastries, however, a crepe torte is a lot more forgiving of less-than-professional techniques (which, when it comes to making pastries, mine certainly are) than just about any pastry you could name.

What I’m talking about is a stunningly simple — yet elegant! — idea: a layered torte made of stacked crepes with a savory or sweet filling in between them. As long as your chosen filling has a thick, spreadable, and non-runny consistency, you’re golden. (Salsa would obviously escape its crepe layers and spill back onto the plate, but guacamole would not.) From hummus to a thick and chunky tapenade, you can layer away to your heart’s content. If you wanted to go the sweet route, you could whip some fresh cream and alternately layer it into the crepes with some fresh fruit. Or you could make a rich chocolate ganache and layer that in, then top the torte with some crushed nuts and a drizzle of honey mixed with cinnamon.

No matter what kind of filling you choose, just be sure to use a sharp and thin knife to gently cut the torte into pieces — a big and/or dull knife would smash the layers down and make the filling squish out. Also, while you can certainly stack a batch of standard 6″ crepes, you might prefer to use a 9″ pan when you cook the crepes so that you’ll have a larger layer to work with later. This recipe for crepes will work for either size.

Stacked crepe tortes like this one I made with puréed smoked salmon and fromage blanc — the latter reminds me of smooth cottage cheese — will last for up to 4 days in the refrigerator. You can also make the crepes a day or two ahead of time if you like, then stack and serve just before company arrives. (Or just before you get hungry for lunch or dinner.)

Enjoy!

Goat Cheese, Walnut & Pear Scones

Sweet and savory have always been the ying and yang of the food world. Any self-respecting cheese plate, for example, is going to offer a few sweet tidbits of fruit alongside the salty cheeses. Nuts often go hand-in-hand with fruit, too — even though nuts aren’t as salty as your typical cheese, the rich, full flavor of nuts puts them squarely in the “savory” category. In fact, you just might find nuts on your cheese plate. Nestled right next to the crackers.

These scones offer the best of a well-rounded cheese plate: walnuts, almonds, pears, goat cheese, and a soft-textured cracker equivalent. The biggest difference between the cheese plate and the scones is that the scones include all of these elements in one neat package. That makes it easier to enjoy them for breakfast or take them along for lunch. And they’re already salted and peppered, too!

Goat Cheese, Walnut & Pear Scones

1/2 cup almond flour (I grind sliced almonds in my coffee grinder to create instant flour)
3/4 cup sorghum flour*
3/4 cup brown rice flour*
1 T. sucanant
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. sea salt
Generous grinding of peppercorns (I re-mix my own pepper blend so that I have a higher ratio of pink peppercorns to the green, white, and black, but use whatever peppercorns you have on hand)
About 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 stick butter, preferably from grass-fed cows (Kerrygold is my current favorite), kept refrigerated until the last minute**
2 medium pears, skins left on, chopped
2 oz. soft goat cheese (herbed if you like)
1/2 cup whole-milk yogurt
1 egg, preferably from pastured hens, lightly scrambled in a small bowl with a fork

Preheat oven to 375F. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flours, sucanat, baking powder, salt, pepper, and walnuts. Take the butter out of the fridge and use a regular knife to cut it into smallish pieces before adding it to the flour mixture. Finish blending the two by using a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour. If you don’t have a pastry cutter, get your hands nice and floury and hand-crumble the butter into small, flour-covered pieces.

Stir in the chopped pears and finger-crumble the soft goat cheese onto the dough. Stir in the yogurt and egg. Be gentle about it so that the goat cheese crumbles keep their shape and don’t smear into nothingness. (You’ll have more end flavor if you have little bursts of goat cheese crumbles in there.)

Plop large spoonfuls of dough onto the covered baking sheet. You’ll end up with 12 scones that’ll be about 3 1/2″ across when baked. Just start out with 12 spoonfuls and then add to each one so that you have evenly sized scones. Bake for 25 minutes or until the tops are a golden brown and the bottoms are a consistent light brown.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make a wheat-based version, use whole-wheat, spelt, or kamut flours in place of the sorghum and brown rice flours.

** The reason you want to keep the butter refrigerated as long as possible is that pastured butter is naturally softer than conventional butter due to the fact that grass-fed cows have less saturated fat in their milk than corn-and-soy-fed cows do. Saturated fat is what gets stiff when chilled. Less saturated fat = softer butter, which is great if you want to cream butter to make cookies or cakes … but is not as advantageous when you want to be able to cut through butter rather than smear it. But if you keep your pastured butter well-chilled until the last possible minute, it will be hard enough to cut through. (And amazingly delicious, too!)

Cantaloupe, Orange & Coconut Smoothie

‘Tis the season to seek out lush summer melons and enjoy them any which way you can. Right now, cantaloupes, watermelons, honeydews, crenshaws — even lesser-known melons like piel de sapo, or “toad skin” — are crowding the produce bins. You can trim away the hard rinds, then chop the flesh and add it to fruit salads, cereal, and salsas … or you can blend melons into smoothies or freeze them into homemade popsicles. You can even go the savory route and include melons in main dishes. Chicken sautéed with melons and grapes? Sounds pretty good to me. Or the classic cheese-plate-for-dinner idea: include a variety of cheeses, some sliced melons, whole-grain crackers or flatbreads, maybe some high-quality cured meats made from grass-fed [insert your animal of choice here]. Simple, elegant, and delicious!

Cut melon usually lasts a few days in the fridge if you tightly wrap the cut half to slow down the premature softening process. Chopped or cubed melon usually lasts overnight; you could use half of a large melon the night before in a salsa or fruit salad (or as dessert) and then blend the remaining cubed melon in the morning for a smoothie.

Cantaloupe, Orange & Coconut Smoothie

Blend a few slices of cantaloupe with the juice of 1 orange and about 1/4 cup of coconut milk. If you’re more into melon than coconut, use 2 oranges and just a dash of coconut. You could also pour this smoothie into popsicle molds and stick it in the freezer for a few hours to make homemade freezer pops. Or freeze the smoothie into ice cube trays for future smoothies — just add a little more orange juice and/or coconut milk, re-blend, and enjoy a slushie-smoothie!

Enjoy!