A few days ago, I came home to a lovely surprise of a box full of flapjack/waffle, cookie, and brownie mix from Kodiak Cakes. Anyone who’s lived with me in the past year will know that I get to reap the perks of keeping a food blog. I get a bunch of random free products from seasoning to loaves of bread, to even pomegranate juice. I’ll never discriminate against anything free, but I’m also very picky in posting reviews of products. In fact, this is the first product review that I’m going to post because the flapjacks that I made with their mix were just so darn good!!

Flapjacks are simply thick pancakes. But in the UK, they’re these wonderful, melt in your mouth, sweet bars of oat, chocolate, and golden syrup. Waitrose had the best flapjacks ever.

Back to Kodiak Cakes though. They’re a family operated Utah-based company that works to make healthier mixes. People have actually written about losing up to 50 pounds by eating their pancakes (sans syrup) each morning in place of their usual Egg McMuffins and what not. It’s actually really impressive how Kodiak Cakes has been able to produce a 100% whole grains pancake mix and all you have to do is add water (?!). Yep, they didn’t lie either. No eggs, no sugar, no milk. Nada.

Their website has a few recipes that incorporate the use of their mixes. I used the Holiday Flapjack Recipe (actually, all I did was add in the orange juice) but needless to say, I really loved the way the pancakes turn out. The one immediate noticeable thing I noticed was how fast the pancakes rose on the skillet. It’s so fluffy that I could imagine myself sleeping on a bed of of them, in a cloud of light and airiness. You also really don’t need to serve them with syrup. They end up naturally sweet from the honey in the mix. A bit of powdered sugar didn’t hurt though. I could literally eat these without any toppings in my car on the way to work.

Kodiak Cake Flapjacks
(with Strawberries)

Ingredients:

1 cup Kodiak Cakes Flapjack and Waffle Mix
½ cup orange juice (freshly squeezed is always better)
½ cup water
Sliced strawberries

Recipe:

Using two full oranges, take a spoon and dig the innards so that you get all the juice and pulp out. If you’re not a big fan of pulp, you can use a strainer to drain the liquid, but if you add the pulp, you can’t really taste it (plus it provides a nice source of fiber). You may need more than two oranges, depending on how big your oranges are.

Combine the mix, the orange juice, and water in a bowl using a rubber spatula. It should only take 6-7 folds. Don’t over fold/mix or else you’ll end up with deflated pancakes.

Cook pancakes like you normally would. Serve with sliced strawberries and powdered sugar.

–

And if you have nothing better to do with your strawberries, indulge yourself in some splashing?

Before I had the genius idea to stick peanut butter in between the stacks

If yesterday wasn’t a hurricane, then I can’t begin to fathom what it must be like to experience a hurricane. Winds were gusting at 70mph and we had a torrential downpour of rain (5 inches worth or so). Trees in some areas toppled, rail services were suspended, and highways flooded. It was quite the mess. Around 9:30pm, Glen gchat-ed me saying, “Ha, my sister is sleeping in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot because all the roads leading to our house have flooded and been closed.” Though in some ways that was a bit comical, we couldn’t have that so she ended up spending the night here.

With the time change and the never-ending gloomy weather, I woke up craving the pancakes that I intended to make yesterday. I wanted something simple and basic, if anything, just pure homey and comforting. Awhile ago, I did this insane thing called the master cleanse detox. I don’t know what I was thinking, but for five days, I lived off a concoction of water, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice. In other words, I consumed a whole bottle jug of maple syrup. Hence why I’ve never keep maple syrup in the fridge.

So the purple sauce isn’t made from syrup nor blueberries. It’s made from grape jam! I think it’s a satisfying and easy DIY alternative to the usual maple syrup. Oh, and halfway through, I had this idea to stick a sliver of peanut butter in between the stacks. Ridiculousness. It was like having a peanut butter jelly pancake!

—
Peanut Butter & Jelly Pancakes
Martha Stewart’s Basic Pancakes
(Makes 6 pancakes)
—

Pancake Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla
• PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY!

Jelly Sauce Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp jam
• 1/8 cup water

Pancake Recipe:

Have two bowls on the ready. In the first bowl, whisk together milk, oil, vanilla, and egg. In the second bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar, and. baking powder.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and continue whisking until just moistened. Make sure you do not over mix as you’ll destroy all that fluffiness. A few small lumps of flour are okay.

Heat a large skillet and griddle over medium with butter. For each pancake, spoon 2 to 3 tablespoons of batter onto the skillet, using the back of the spoon to spread batter into a round shape. You can also use a rubber spatula to shape out the perimeter of the pancakes. Cook until the surface bubbles, flip, and cook for 1-2 more minutes.

Jelly Sauce Recipe:

In a clean saucepan, heat the water and jam together. Keep stirring. This gets to be a bit of watch and wait sort of thing. You want to dissolve all the jam into the water, but the whole point is to decrease the jam’s viscosity. So when the mixture starts bubbling you and have a steady drip from the back of a spoon, it’s done. It may still seem watery, but since the mixture is very hot, it will continue to cook. If it ends up reducing too much and getting too sticky, dilute with hot water and keep mixing.

Serve the pancakes warm and in between stacks, spread some peanut butter. Then drizzle the stack with the jelly sauce. In the end, just adding that thin layer of peanut butter wasn’t enough. Heck, I scooped out a hefty portion and started dipping the pancake in it!

I went to sleep last night with a sweet tooth and woke up with a savory one. Does that ever happen to you? So scratch the blueberry pancakes I was going to make this morning. But savory breakfast options are somewhat limited at my house. There are no potatoes and even the bread I had to dig up from the freezer (yes, you can freeze bread and then defrost it in the microwave before you toast it. It tastes the same, I swear). But I really wanted something egg-y and since the shiitake mushrooms had been sitting in the fridge for so long, I decided to whip something up on the fly.

The first time I had wasabi was actually at home and it wasn’t with sushi. In fact, sushi was one of those smitten foods that I’d look at in disgust up until junior year of college. I remember when Stern took us out to Ruby Foo’s during my freshman year and a huge platter (like 50 pieces of sushi) arrived. Seven pairs of eyes around me started bulging out in anticipation while one pair essentially said, “Ugh, disgusting.” Most people use wasabi sparingly, taking a tiny grain sized portion and mixing it into soy sauce/ponzu, as if the specks of green are there to give the soy sauce some green freckles. But at home, I first had it with sashimi. My mother likes to take a whopping chunk, to the point where the ratio between wasabi and soy sauce is greater than 1. I experienced that insane tug up against my nose when I inhaled the wasabi, unsure what to expect. It was as if someone was having a wrestling match up in my nose and the round would only end with time. Man, I love that feeling.

Awhile ago, I got this jar of wasabi mayo at Trader Joe’s. I could spread it on slices of bread and be perfectly happy for breakfast and lunch. When I ran out of it a few weeks ago, I quickly made some of my own with regular mayo and some wasabi powder. Maybe it doesn’t have the same finesse as the Trader Joe’s jar, but it still works really well. Spread it on some toast, sautee some mushrooms, and fry an egg. You’ve got yourself a hearty breakfast. That insane feeling you get up your nose is a bit mitigated with the wasabi mayo, but still lingers in your nose.

—
Wasabi Mayo (the quick way)
—

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons any good mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon wasabi powder
• Juice of 1/2 lemon (optional)
• Pinch of salt and black pepper

Note: For some people, 1 tablespoon of wasabi powder may be too much. In fact, many recipes call for only 1/4 tablespoon of wasabi powder for every 3 tablespoons of mayo. I’d experiment in increments of 1/4 tablespoons and adjust until you’re satisfied.

Recipe:

In a bowl, mix in the mayo and lemon juice with a whisk. I use the lemon because supposedly the acidity will keep its shelf life longer (although using already made/processed mayo, I’m not sure how much validity there is to that belief). Then add the wasabi powder and beat lightly with a fork. Season with salt and pepper.

—

Interestingly, did you know that the vinegar and lemon juice in mayo, which makes mayo acidic, prevents harmful bacteria from growing in it? So even though that potato salad of yours may seem to spoil under the sun and grow mold, you won’t get sick from it! Mayo unrefrigerated will develop a taste and smell that you definitely don’t want to ever encounter though…

]]> http://savory-bites.com/2010/03/wasabi-mayo-with-a-sunny-side-up/feed/ 1 http://savory-bites.com/2010/03/banana-sour-cream-pancakes/ http://savory-bites.com/2010/03/banana-sour-cream-pancakes/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:40:41 +0000 Jessie http://savory-bites.com/?p=3099

Look familiar? A pancake version of the crepes I made before

I should probably purchase Ina Garten’s cookbook or something by now since it seems as if all I cook are her recipes. But after her snubbing of Jennifer Garner (I was the hugest Alias fan ever!) I can’t seem to find the will to shell out  $20+ out of my pocket that’s only going to go into her already big fat piggybank (bolstered by her husband’s run on Wall St- betcha didn’t know that huh!!). I guess that’s what foodnetwork.com is for, eh? Free recipes at the convenience of a button.

So awhile back, I made these crepes and while they were awesome, I wanted something that was uh, not a crepe. I made pancakes. But what I really don’t like about pancakes is how full you get after eating that large stack (I still like the idea of stacking, just not the thickness of the stack) so I made my pancakes extra thin. Of course, the recipe still works for regular pancakes. Just pour more batter!

Ina Garten’s Banana Sour Cream Pancakes
Adapted from here (makes 6 pancakes)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 extra-large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• Unsalted butter
• 1 ripe bananas, diced, plus extra for serving
• MELTED CHOCOLATE, PEANUT BUTTER & HONEY

Recipe:

Sift together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream, milk, eggs, vanilla, and lemon zest (I had none, so you can omit). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, mixing only until combined.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat until it bubbles. Ladle the pancake batter into the pan to make 3 or 4 pancakes. Distribute a rounded tablespoon of bananas on each pancake. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until bubbles appear on top and the underside is nicely browned. Flip the pancakes and then cook for another minute until browned. Wipe out the pan with a paper towel, add more butter to the pan, and continue cooking pancakes until all the batter is used.

Serve with sliced bananas, drizzled melted chocolate, peanut butter, and honey. O h  m y  g o d.  SO GOOD.

Let me make a confession. I never had poached eggs until… oh, two months ago at Park Avenue Winter? And then I had it again a couple of weeks back at Hundred Acres where upon finishing brunch, I walked out thinking to myself that I just had to learn how to poach an egg.

So, I came back home and Googled “how to poach an egg.” Of course, Smitten Kitchen came up with this awesome post. Since I’m pretty darn sure that I can’t do a better job than Deb and Alex at those step-by-step photographs, you’re just going to have to visit their site. They’re so helpful that I was successful in one shot.

Why the vinegar you ask? That’s one thing that I can contribute to your poach egg knowledge that the step by step guide didn’t cover. Adding vinegar causes the egg white to immediately turn white and begin cooking. It actually speeds up the cooking process so that the egg doesn’t overcook. I was literally 10 seconds away from killing the runny egg yolks so bear the timing in mind if you want that overflowing gooeyness.

So once you’ve poached your egg, toast a bagel, cook some onions and mushrooms in a skillet and viola! You have a quick but filling breakfast.