Pancakes, Scones, and Risotto

I have been seeing pancakes all over the vegan blogosphere, and I found myself constantly drooling over the delicious variety that is the pancake, so I finally made my contribution to the International Vegan Pancake Lovers Movement. I made Veganomicon's Blueberry Corn Pancakes and since neither Brett nor I are huge fans of plain maple syrup (we can definitely do it in things), I made a simple Blueberry Sauce to go on it. The sauce turned out much better than I had anticipated, Brett and I both thought it would be good on vanilla non-dairy ice cream, on a pound cake (there is a V-Con recipe for pound cake I have been eyeing), and probably lots of other things.

Simple Blueberry Sauce

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

1/2 cup water

1/4 organic sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

cornstarch or arrowroot mixed with water

In a saucepan, heat all ingredients until warm and beginning to bubble. When nearing time to serve, add the cornstarch or arrowroot mixture and bring to a boil, stirring frequently, until to desired consistency. Serve warm over everything!

I have been interested in making scones for a little while, so I decided to look around see how difficult it would be to make and veganize a scone recipe. There were some recipes for scones in V-Con, but no flavor combinations that really sent me, and I didn't have any of the needed ingredients on hand. I found a very non-vegan blueberry scone recipe, which I modified the hell out of.

The scones didn't end up with the nice sheen that non-vegan scones do as I couldn't figure out how to veganize the egg wash. I read online that Ener-G doesn't really work for this, so I just tossed a bit of confectioner's sugar on top. But even without the sheen they turned out pretty good. I might add a bit more sugar next time, but they go great with a cup of coffee or tea. I also stuffed a couple with some extra blueberry sauce I had, 'cause as I said earlier, the stuff is good, use it on whatever you can think of!

I adapted the blueberry scone recipe from here.

Vegan Blueberry (and Blueberry Sauce filled) Scones

2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup organic sugar

1 tbs baking powder

6 tbs vegan margarine

1/4 cup soy buttermilk (1/4 cup soy milk with either 1 tsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice) 1/4 cup soy milk

egg replacer for one egg

1/2 cup blueberries

Blueberry Sauce (optional)

confectioner's sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together flour, sugar and baking powder. Cut vegan margarine into dry ingredients until the mixture is very course. Add blueberries and mix.

In another bowl, combine soy buttermilk, soy milk and egg replacer mixed with water. Stir into dry ingredients until moistened. Knead briefly on a floured surface. Do not overwork the dough. Shape dough into a round, 1/2 inch thick. Cut round into 6 wedges.

If filling scones with Blueberry sauce, take a wedge and stretch it out a bit more. Using a spoon, create a nice indentation in the center of the dough and spoon in a bit of the Blueberry Sauce. Pull up the surrounding edges (as best as possible) and try to seal the scone, if you can't get it completely sealed, no worries.

Bake on a lightly greased baking sheet for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Since the recipe for the Blueberry Scones only made 6 scones, I decided to make a small batch of Oatmeal Cinnamon Scones, which I found here. I halved the recipe so it would only make 4, and topped it with a simple Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Topping, which I topped the scones with when there was only about 5 minutes of baking time left.

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Topping

3-4 tbs brown sugar

3-4 tbs whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 tap ground cinnamon

1-2 tbs vegan margarine

In a small bowl, mix together all ingredients except vegan margarine. Using a fork, slowly add margarine until the mixture resembles a course crumble.

This must look like a lot of work, having made two different types of scones. But truth be told, I was only in the kitchen for a total of an hour making these. I spent the good portion of my day relaxing, playing basketball on the Playstation with Brett, reading, and listening to interesting social commentary podcasts. I like simple recipes that are not too involved (I will do the involved things sometimes, but mostly I like it simple), and really don't ever spend more than a few hours in the kitchen over the weekend and no more than an hour on weekday nights. I am living proof that you can eat homemade foods made from high quality whole foods and not slave for hours a day in the kitchen, except those rare times when you want to.

On another side note, am I the only one who enjoys cooking and serving of good food to others more than actually eating it myself?

Anyways, for dinner, I made a Butternut Squash and Sage Risotto from an old issue of the Vegetarian Times (I cut the recipe in half as there are only two of us). You can find this recipe online here. This is the first time I have worked with squash at home and its fairly easy. I was happy to find an organic butternut squash at the grocery store, but wasn't too happy to see that it came all the way from Mexico, I like my food to come from as close as possible to reduce the environmental impact and increase the freshness and therefore taste of my food, but if you want to eat sometimes you don't have much choice.

What I can say though, in regards to preparing larger squash, is that I really need to get a good chefs knife as squash can be hard to cut, due to their size, with a sub par knife. But once you get it into manageable sized pieces, it's a breeze.

This recipe was very good, and I will definitely make it again. It was savory and filling. I liked the chard cooked in the broth with the rice (Brett really dug Arborio rice). I couldn't find plum tomatoes at the store, so I got organic fire roasted diced tomatoes instead and it added a nice smoky element to the dish. The only thing I will do differently next time is use a bit less sage. Both Brett and I agreed that, as is, it was a bit "sagey" for our tastes.

I will leave the blogosphere with a picture of my lovely organic (though well traveled) squash, as well as the risotto and I'm off to enjoy a beautiful sunny 60 degree day here in Mid-Missouri.

'Til next time!