Here we are in Week 4 of the fourth-annual Dark Days eat-local challenge.
Pressed for time, I fell back on perhaps my easiest eat-local recipe of all time — pancakes and bacon … for dinner.
I made these cakes for the first time during Week 6 of last year’s Dark Days challenge and have been in love with them ever since.
What makes them really special and practically inimitable is a local flour.
While there are a variety of vaguely local or mostly local flours (see the list below), my sacred, special-occasion Dark Days flour comes from none-other than Western Washington, specifically Sequim by way of Nash’s Organic Produce selling at the Ballard farmers market.
It’s a soft white wheat flour that includes lots of little flecks of bran, so it’s a whole grain flour, but it’s also light, white and fluffy.
Though Nash’s didn’t have such a great year for wheat in 2010, the PCC land trust-affiliated farm is still putting out small quantities of grain and having it ground weekly at a local bakery.
I have tried other flours with this pancake recipe and they do not compare.
Perhaps the best part of this recipe is that my toddler will always eat these pancakes and I feel good giving them to him because they are so tasty, grainy and local.
I made star and heart-shaped pancakes for my kid with help from three silicone cooking shapes, which I bought at the exquisite Pacific Wine & Kitchen shop in Everett.
To take the recipe to a new place for this year’s challenge, I added some local vanilla yogurt that I stumbled upon at Everett’s Sno-Isle Food Co-op. It’s from Grace Harbor Farms’ golden Guernsey cows in Whatcom County and it’s sold in cute little jars, not plastic tubs, which is pretty cool. It is thick and rich and, based on nothing at all, I got the idea that it might add an interesting flavor to the pancakes.
It did. Though the pancakes were a bit floppy, I liked the addition and so did The Kid, who ate them with a side of Hempler’s bacon, which comes out of Ferndale in Whatcom County, though I don’t know where the hogs are raised and the company did not return my calls last year.
1 cup flour (Nash’s Organic Produce’s soft, white wheat. See note below.)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Dash of salt
1 cup buttermilk (I used fat free milk from Fresh Breeze Organic Dairy out of Whatcom County.)
1 egg (Sky Valley Family Farm, Startup: I found these at the Resident Cheesemonger in Edmonds. Yay.)
3 tablespoons melted butter (Golden Glen Creamery, Bow, Wash.) (NOTE: Golden Glen is stopping milk sales, but will continue with butter and cream.)
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 a non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat to 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.
Adapted from Food Network / Courtesy of Cathy Lowe
Local flour
Stone-Buhr: Enter the lot code from your bag of Stone-Buhr all-purpose flour and you’ll be able find pictures of the farm families in Washington, Oregon or Idaho that grew and harvested your wheat. Stone-Buhr’s Web site says all the farmers use sustainable no-till methods and proper crop rotation. It is available at most grocery stores in the Northwest. See www.stonebuhr.com.
Nash’s Organic Produce: This thriving Olympic Peninsula farm sells a wide range of produce and small amounts of wheat flour that work beautifully in bread and pancakes. Find Nash’s goods at the farm store in Sequim and Seattle-area farmers markets. See www.nashsorganicproduce.com.
Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill of Bellingham mills grain from the West. Look for it at Haggen and Top Food & Drug stores and at the Sno-Isle Food Co-op in Everett. See www.fairhavenflour.com.
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