Saturday

Today is Saturday. A special day where Chris and I are home together with nothing to do. I love days like today. I thought long and hard about something tasty that I could make for breakfast this morning. I  don't know if anyone else does this. But I happen to think about food quite frequently. Also, more often than not,  I waste much time looking around the world wide web for ideas and inspiration. I guess you could say I like good food and good food sometimes takes some brain percolation. I knew I wanted to somehow incorporate butternut squash and of course make it dairy, gluten, and sugar free. 

I wanted to experiment a little and decided I would make pancakes with grated butternut squash, chai infused coconut milk, and brown rice and millet flour. I peeled and grated the squash, I gently warmed coconut milk on the stove and then set the chai tea bags in the to steep, I ground the flours fresh, I whipped up 2 egg whites separately to give the batter more fluff, and added a bit of cinnamon just for good measure. 

I used coconut oil to grease the pan and carefully spooned out the batter. I waited. It looked good and started the bubble. I gently flipped each one. I waited some more. 

Then came the moment of truth. I took a bite and my heart sank a little. It had good texture, it was almost fluffy and I loved the flecks of orange from the grated butternut squash. However, it didn't have enough spices and it needed a little something to sweeten. It definitely fell flat in terms of flavor. Of course I ate a couple and it was definitely better with a little bit of coconut butter spread on top. 

I think next time that I will soak some dates overnight to make a paste to add to the batter. I would also like to try some fresh grated ginger and see what that does. 

So, consider this a recipe in progress. I never understood the process for how to perfect a recipe. I read about it all the time on other blogs. How they tried a recipe 6 times before it was perfect. I don't really have a lot of patience with making something multiple times. Normally, I just move onto the next thing that catches my fancy. But this time I want to try again. I want to be more intentional about creating and tweaking my own recipes. Of course that doesn't happen without trial and error. Hopefully next time, with a little bit of love and a few more ingredients I will be able to give this pancake the shining spotlight it deserves.

Now I guess I should go wash the dishes and work on some college algebra. 

Happy Saturday!