What’s for dinner?
Breakfast.
Savvy home cooks know this and I am learning it, too, thanks to Week 6 of the eat-local Dark Days Challenge. Days before Christmas, I was struggling to come up with something mostly local that would still leave me time for doing holiday cards in the evening after work.
I had a prized purchase: While shopping at the Ballard farmers market, I found locally grown soft white wheat flour from Nash’s Organic Produce in Sequim, freshly ground at a local bakery on Dec. 17.
Now that’s fresh flour!
Upon hearing this, my editor said: “Just make pancakes, breakfast for dinner.”
I found the perfect recipe for simple homemade pancakes (below), yet another Food Network online find, and stumbled on an About.com recipe for oven-fried bacon, something I had always wanted to try.
Both dishes turned out great.
I used thick, fatty Skagit River Ranch bacon and it cooked up perfectly in about 20 minutes from a cold-oven start. Much to my joy, both my husband and my otherwise vegetarian 1½-year-old son loved the bacon.
It was chewy and sweet, and grainy, but in a good way, and so, so easy.
If you believe bacon should always be made and consumed in large quantities but you hate the fuss, this recipe (below) is for you. I drained the bacon fat off the baking sheets for a future Dark Days use.
When it came time to eat the pancakes, I was skeptical. I grew up eating nothing but Hungry Jack mix pancakes, the Midwestern equivalent of Krusteaz.
These, however, were a revelation, nutty and sweet, rich and rustic, fresh not rubbery. They were like buckwheat pancakes, but better and not that odd blue-gray buckwheat color I’ve so often encountered at breakfast restaurants.
I used Golden Glen Creamery butter from Bow, an egg from Wilcox Farms in Roy, and, instead of buttermilk, whole milk from Fresh Breeze Organic Dairy of Lynden. I used non-local fake maple syrup, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
What’s up next week? I’m considering parsnip soup, potato-leek soup and braised short ribs.
Are you getting inspired? Look for ideas from challenge participants from the Northwest and around the country at urbanhennery.com.
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Dash of salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
3 tablespoons melted butter
In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using a whisk or large fork, mix in the buttermilk and egg until well combined and smooth. Stir in the melted butter.
Heat non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat, about 350 degrees. Using a ¼-cup measure, pour pancake batter onto hot griddle. When pancake is golden brown, flip to cook other side. Keep warm in oven heated to 275 degrees.
Variations: Blueberry and banana pancakes: Stir in 1 cup fresh berries into batter.
Food Network / Courtesy of Cathy Lowe
1 pound bacon
Line a shallow baking sheet or two with aluminum foil.
Arrange bacon slices on the foil and place on the center rack of a cold oven. Turn oven on to 400 degrees.
Walk away.
Come back 17 to 20 minutes later. As soon as the bacon is golden brown, but not excessively crisp, it’s done. The exact time will depend on the thickness of the bacon slices, and also on how quickly your oven reaches the target temperature.
Remove the pan from the oven. Transfer the bacon to another sheet pan lined with paper towels to absorb the fat. You can pour the liquid fat into a heat-resistant container to save for other uses.
Tips: Don’t pre-heat the oven. Make sure the oven is cold when you put the bacon in.
Keep your eye on the bacon during the final few minutes of cooking to make sure that it doesn’t burn. Also, remove the cooked bacon from the hot pan right away. The heat from the pan and the hot bacon fat will continue cooking the bacon.
Variation: Dredge bacon in flour or corn meal before baking.
Variation: Sprinkle bacon with brown sugar or freshly ground black pepper before baking.
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