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Eat

Organic Brown Rice Waffles with Mixed Berries

One of my Brown Rice Flour waffles. My fruit sort of clumped up in one area, but they ended up being really good and a different twist on traditional waffles

One of my favorite post run meals is pancakes. There’s just nothing like coming in from a long run after getting up at an insanely early hour (on a weekend of all days!) and whipping up a big stack of pancakes with blueberries, raspberries or whatever fresh berries we happen to have on hand.

So in my continual quest to improve my nutrition, I thought it might be a good idea to make my pancakes out of something other than Bisquick. So after perusing Whole Foods for different flour options, I decided to give it a go with organic brown rice flour with interesting results!

First lesson in this project is that brown rice flour is not all purpose flour. I tried to make pancake mix similar to what I’d do with wheat flour:

  • 2 Cups flour
  • 1 Tablespoons of Baking Powder
  • 1 Teaspoons of Salt
  • 1/3 Cup Butter (unsalted)
  • 1 Cup Milk
  • 2 Eggs
  • about a cup of Frozen Mixed Berries
The less than desireable results of my brown rice flour pancakes.

The results were less than spectacular. The brown rice flour had a grainier texture and totally stuck to the (well greased) pan. The consistency was notably more runny than my regular flour recipe and that’s probably because of the lack of gluten, but I need to figure that one out.

So I opted for plan B, waffles. Again working from the recipe that I know (off the back of the Bisquick box), I added some Canola Oil (2 Tbs) and an extra egg, thinking that might help the consistency a little more when cooking.

The mixture was still pretty soupy, but did cook up pretty well in the waffle iron. After topping my waffles with some Greek Yogurt and local honey, I have to say that they were really good. I’ll probably try and refine this recipe a bit, but it’s one that I’m definitely going to try again!

 

 

Categories
Eat

Fried Eggs Over Easy, Kicked up a Notch

Eggs Over Easy

I’ve started complimenting my morning smoothie with a couple of eggs, particularly as my marathon training has intensified and I’ve been trying to intake more protein.

But eggs by themselves can be rather bland in both taste and appearance, and so I like to kick my eggs up a notch with some sea salt, crushed red pepper, cracked black pepper, parsley flakes and (if I have any on hand, some percorino romano cheese) so that I can feel like I’m in a quaint bed & breakfast somewhere cool rather than in a hurry to get out the door to work.

 

Categories
Eat

An Amazing Mango Black Bean Salsa

Mango Black Bean Salsa

I’m not exactly sure where this recipe originated otherwise I’d give credit to the genius that concocted it!  We had this salsa last weekend and it is totally awesome.  This recipe is the most recent addition to my list of healthy snacks to keep on hand along with hummus and good old regular salsa.

  • 16oz canned black beans, drained & washed (1 can)
  • 2 Mangoes, peeled & coarsely chopped
  • 1/2 Cup finely chopped Red Onion
  • 1 Jalapeno, stemmed, seeded and finely diced
  • 1/2 Cup coarsely chopped Cilantro
  • 1/2 Cup fresh Lime Juice
  • 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
  • Salt & freshly ground White Pepper

Combine the first 7 ingredients in a bowl.  Season to taste with salt & white pepper.

This salsa gets better the longer it sits as the flavors blend together.  The hardest part of this recipe is cutting up the mango.  If you’ve never cut one up before, the seed is shaped more or less like a disc and runs up and down, so the best strategy is to peel it first and then slice it lengthwise down the side trying to get as much of the flesh as possible.  It’s kind of like filleting a fish, so get the two sides off then try as best you can to slice the rest of the flesh around the seed.

The other thing that really makes this salsa visually appealing (that’s every bit as important as the taste of the dish itself!) is to wash the black beans after draining them.  Otherwise you’ll end up with a kind of gray residue that takes a little of the vibrancy out of the dish.

The recipe calls for white pepper, but you can use whatever you have on hand.  But the white pepper does have a different taste and compliments this dish perfectly, so if you’ve got it, I recommend using it over black or telicherry.

Enjoy and let me know what you think if you try it!