healthy Archives - The Swirl World

Have you tried gluten-free pancakes???

My co-worker Barbara has been raving about gluten-free pancakes. Since I’m embracing a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle (I’m not all in yet; more on that near the end of the month), I decided to try them for myself.

I went out and purchased the ingredients. She always mentioned the gluten-free Bisquick mix and an egg, so that’s all I purchased the first go round.

It wasn’t till I got home and looked at the recipe on the box that I noticed I was missing some very key ingredients:

Milk
Cooking oil

NOTE: Check the recipe before you leave the store to make sure you have all the ingredients!

SIDENOTE: Can you tell it’s been a minute since I’ve cooked pancakes or waffles? How did I not remember I needed to add milk and oil?

Making this very bad mistake led to an even worse mistake: Going to Wal-Mart at 10:30 p.m. to pick up the two items, only to realize to my sad dismay that the world of Wal-Mart turns into an even stranger world after dark.

It was comforting, however, to learn that some things never change: Even after dark people still get in the “Speedy-Checkout-20-Items-Line” with 500 items.

I’m just saying.

Any who, after procrastinating all week I decided to take the plunge into gluten-free cooking and make these pancakes.

Let me add that Barb puts white chocolate chips in hers; I opted this time to put semi-sweet miniature dark chips in mine.

I also decided to be really brave and do unsweetened Silk Almond Milk (for the vegan in me) and some Eggland’s Best organic eggs (you know; for the vegetarian in me).

Another SIDE NOTE: I also purchased some vegan peanut butter for my peanut-butter-and-jelly-morning-breakfast-sandwich. Let’s just say that the “top note” of the peanut butter was some kind of oil that I later found out was flaxseed.

I’ve been going down Memory Lane this week – that “top note” brought me ALL THE WAY BACK to mornings in Germany when my Mother forced a big heaping tablespoonful of cod liver oil down our throats. When we got older and threatened to run away from home if we had to take one more spoonful of that stuff, she exchanged the cod liver oil for Scott’s Emulsion – same difference, except instead of a clear oil, we were treated to a thick, white chalky liquid).

(Gagging)

(Throwing up in my mouth just thinking about it).

Ugh.

On a happier note, here are my ingredients, all together in one happy family:

The ingredients were easy to mix, and after heating my oil (I suppose I should have used some Pam cooking spraybut hey! #dontjudgeme)

My first pancake came out looking like this:

The second one was a little darker because my oil and pan were hotter (it was also a bit bigger). I tend to favor light pancakes; this is about as dark as I’ll go with them:

They were actually quite good: Crispy edges; a light, fluffy texture and a little cakey. I didn’t miss the gluten (?) and I couldn’t tell I’d used Almond Milk instead of cow’s milk.

The semi-sweet chips added just the right touch of sweetness without being overpowering. I prefer butter or jelly on pancakes (I only resort to syrup if pancakes get cold). A little pat of organic butter finished them off:

All in all, this gluten-free-organic-vegan-vegetarian dish wasn’t too bad. I’m thinking next time I may add some Cajun seasoning, chopped spinach and broccoli for a savory version.

I’m going to visit The Parents tomorrow, so I plan to try these out on my ~~partner in crime~~ Dad.

Gotta get my skills sharpened back up for my Great Social Experiment, yanno?

Join in the Fray: Have you tried any gluten-free recipes yet?

I’m blogging every day in the month of July in Blogher’s NaBloPoMo Challenge. Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment!