West Virginia Buckwheat Pancakes with Apple Bourbon Compote

Hi friends,

I've been hibernating this fall, but just starting to break out of my chrysalis.  While I was back in West Virginia visiting my family for Thanksgiving, I discovered that a local WV specialty was buckwheat pancakes.  Since buckwheat is not actually wheat and therefore gluten-free, I picked a a 5 lb bag of locally buhr-ground buckwheat flour.  This means there's a lot of pancakes to be eaten.  I'll be making up pancakes on Sunday, starting around 11 am.  Please stop by for some pancakes.  If you want to bring something, bring along your favorite pancake topping or brunch side dish.

Please RSVP if you can make it so I know how many people to expect.

~Kimbo

For the past two years, my family planned a big family gathering in West Virginia over the Thanksgiving weekend.  When my dad was growing up, his family would travel to Upstate NY to meet up with all his aunts, uncles, & cousins for Thanksgiving.  This past year, much of my extended family on my father's side descended upon West Virginia to celebrate Thanksgiving, many of then driving through a snow storm.  

Family traveled in from St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, Cape Cod, Brooklyn, and Washington, D.C.  Flying from Alaska, I think I got the "Farthest Distance" award.

While in WV, I kept hearing about buckwheat pancakes.  At the local grocery store, I came across some locally buhr-ground buckwheat flour .

From their website: Buhr Grinding is an age old technique where we grind the buckwheat between two large stone wheels (buhrs).  Each buhr weighs about a ton and were imported from France around 1855.  (http://buckwheat-flour.com/history.html)

So even though this morning it was a bitter cold -40˚ F in town (but a balmy -20˚ F at my place), my friends bundled up and came over for pancakes. 

And they brought amazing gluten-free things to go with the pancakes: homemade jams (blueberry and raspberry), banana bourbon sauce with smoked sea salt, Bristol Bay King salmon smoked strips, peppered bacon, quinoa spinach quiche, black bean & egg casserole, sweet potato hash, fresh fruit, and juice. 

Our ongoing love affair with bacon
  

It was a fantastic feast, and it felt a bit like Stone Soup.

Say what you want about Gwyneth Paltrow, but she had a fantastic buckwheat pancake recipe:

http://ahealthykitchen.com/healthy-recipes/healthy-breakfast/breakfast-brunch/vegan-buckwheat-banana-pancakes-gwyneth-paltrow/

The flour I bought had a pancake recipe right on the bag.  The recipe on the bag was simpler, so I went with that, and it turned out great. 

 
I had never heard of yeast cakes before, but found them quite easily at the grocery store — they were in the refrigerator section, near the eggs. 

West Virginia Buckwheat Pancakes

*note* one change I made to this recipe is that I added an extra cup of warm water (a total of 2 ¼ cups of water) so that it had a pancake batter consistency.

Ingredients

1/3 Cake Fleischmann’s Yeast

2 1/4 cup warm water

1/2 tsp molasses

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 cups buckwheat flour

Directions

Dissolve 1/3 of the cake of yeast in warm water (warm enough to active the yeast but not scalding hot that would kill the yeast).

Stir in the molasses and salt to the water.

Stir in the buckwheat flour.

So, this is what the pancake batter looked like with the original amount of water:

So I added another cup (a total of 2 1/4 cups of warm water) and it looked a lot more like pancake batter.  Then let the batter sit for ~10-15 minutes.

Cook over a griddle (I oiled it with olive oil) and serve with delicious toppings.

Apple Bourbon Compote

Ingredients

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter

2 apples

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

1/2 cup raisins

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup bourbon

Directions

Peel, core, and chop the apples.

 
Melt the butter in a skillet.

Add the chopped apples, cinnamon, and cloves.

 

Cook down a bit until the apples are soft.  Add the raisins and sugar.

Shortly before serving, add in the bourbon and let it simmer a few minutes.

Colcannon

It’s January in Alaska.  It was quite a lovely out today and delightfully warm: 20˚ F — a blue wax ski day.

This time of year I crave hearty food.  We're now two weeks past winter solstice, which means that we're slowly gaining back daylight-- today was 4 minutes and 15 seconds longer than yesterday and tomorrow will be another 4 minutes and 27 seconds longer.

In the winter, I tend to find myself in my kitchen cooking on Sunday evenings.  I listen to the radio program “This American Life” that comes on the local NPR station Sunday evenings from 5-6 pm.  It’s funny because in the middle of the summer when we’ve got 20+ hours of daylight, Sunday at 5 pm still feels like the middle of the afternoon.  In January, it’s already pitch black by 5 pm and it’s definitely nighttime already. 

I picked up a roast at the store and decide to have a meat & potato kind of night.  Instead of plain mash potatoes, I decided to make colcannon—an Irish dish of mashed potatoes decadently dressed up with cabbage and bacon.  I can also be made with kale instead of cabbage, but I’ve been hunkering for cabbage lately.

Colcannon

Ingredients

~2 lbs of potatoes

6 slices of bacon

3 cloves of garlic, minced

½ head of cabbage

½ stick of butter (4 Tbsp)

~ ½ c milk

6 scallions

salt & pepper, to taste

Directions

I find that potatoes cook faster when you slice them, rather than cube them, since it increases their surface area.  I also use potatoes with thin skins that I don't bother to remove; and it contains some of the nutrition and virtually all of the fiber.

 

Boil the potatoes until tender.

In a large skillet, cook the bacon over medium high heat until it's extra crispy.

Add in the garlic and continue until it is browned.

Shred the cabbage.

When the potatoes are cooked, drain them and transfer them to a large bowl.  Mash them with the butter and milk.

 

Mix in the bacon and garlic.

    

 

In the skillet used to cook the bacon, add the cabbage and cover with a lid.

Cook down until the cabbage becomes a brighter green and is not as rigid.

Chop the scallions.

Mix in the cabbage and scallions.  Salt and pepper, to taste.

 

Deliciously decadent colcannon.  A meal in itself, really.

 

 

Cheesy Hominy & Green Chile Casserole

 Christmas dinner with friends...

Kevin cooked up a ham!

I knew the perfect side dish to go with ham-- a creamy, cheesy green chile and hominy dish.

While pulling out the ingredients, I realized that I had run out of cumin powder.  Luckily I had plenty of cumin seeds.  Freshly ground spices taste better anyway...

Cheesy Hominy & Green Chile Casserole

Ingredients

1 medium white onion, chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

olive oil (for sautéing the onions & garlic)

1 can (4 oz) chopped green chiles

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup (8 oz) sour cream

3/4-1 (8-12 oz)cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided in half

1/4 cup milk

1 28 oz can hominy, drained

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

In a cast iron pan, sauté the chopped onion and garlic in oil until tender.

Add the cumin and green chiles.

 Mix in the sour cream and half of the cheese.

Stir in the milk.

Add the hominy and mix well. 

Sprinkle remaining cheese.

Bake, uncovered, at 350° F for 30 minutes.

Serve warm to enjoy the gooey goodness.

If thisn't wasn't being served with ham, it would be  super delicious with chunks of ham mixed into it.

Rio Grande Mud Pie

Growing up, my family Christmas eve tradition was going out for fajitas.  My mom reasoned that we would spend Christmas day cooking up a big meal, so she didn't want to spend Christmas eve in the kitchen as well.  To keep with the family tradition, I invited some friends over for a fajita dinner on Christmas eve and made this pie for dessert.  It's a fantastically decadent pie that combines chocolate, chiles, nuts, and dulce de leche.

Christmas Eve Rio Grande Mud Pie

Ingredients

pie crust

2 cups pecans

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1 Tbs. New Mexico Chile powder
2 teaspoons melted butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon water

pie filling

1 cup butter

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoon Ancho chile purée

1 teaspoon cinnamon

pie topping

caramel/dulce de leche/cajeta (delicious when homemade, but a big time saver and also quite good out of a can)

For the flour in the pie filling, I used sweet rice flour to keep the pie gluten free.

Directions

Preheat the over to 325° F.

Place pecans, brown sugar, and chile powder in a bowl or food processor.

Add melted butter, vanilla and water. With the food processor or a hand blender, grind the nuts until the mixture becomes a fine texture (though I left some bigger pieces of nuts for added texture).

Press into a pie pan.

Bake at 325° F for 20 minutes.

Make the Ancho chile purée  by removing the seeds and stem from one ancho chile pepper. Tear it up into small pieces and place is a small bowl or mug.

Just barely cover the Ancho chile pieces with boiling hot water, and then let it soak the until the chile becomes tender.  Purée in a food processor or with hand blender.

Melt the butter and chocolate chips.  You can do this in a double boiler, but I took the short cut of melting it in my microwave for about 2 minutes.

Beat in the eggs.

Add sugars and flour.

Stir the Ancho chile purée and cinnamon.

Pour filling into pie crust.  After adding the cinnamon, some of the butter because to separate a bit, but I just poured it all in the pie crust.

Bake at 325° for 60 minutes.  I placed a cookie sheet underneath to catch the bit of dripping butter that separated…

Once the pie cools, spread caramel/dulce de leche/cajeta on top.

The pie was a big hit! And the pie went well with a bit of eggnog ice cream.