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Fall Breakfast: Spicy Ginger Pumpkin Pancakes

Spices and crystallized ginger mean no syrup needed for these fall pancakes.

I am no big fan of pumpkin. Mostly it tastes like the spices that flavor it, IMVHO — it doesn’t have a specific taste, really, especially if it comes out of the can (and is likely to be butternut squash anyway).

But these fall pancakes manage to balance the more subtle flavors of pumpkin with a fiery kick of ginger. I add a ton of chopped crystallized ginger, so I get a crunchy piece in every bite. It’s the perfect fall breakfast or late-night snack or mid-day snack or dinner or…you get the idea.

Spicy Ginger Pumpkin Pancakes

These pancakes could not have been more delicious if they tried. Faintly spicy, studded with crispy candied ginger and tasting of pumpkin. Light and fluffy. Delicious with or without maple syrup. Delicious with homemade apple butter. You will want to keep this recipe and make it often, especially my gluten-free friends. They freeze beautifully, and you can even freeze the batter (although the resulting pancakes are less fluffy. Still delicious.). Add more or less spice, use the ginger or don’t, fry bacon until it’s super crispy, and then crumble it into the batter before you fry them up: go crazy.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour

¼ cup sugar (use less if you like)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Minced crystallized ginger (as much as you like; I ended up with about 4 tablespoons).

1 1/4 cup pumpkin puree (freeze the leftover puree in ice cube trays and pop them in soup as a thickener)

1 1/2 to 2 cups of milk (dairy or non-dairy works — I usually use oat milk; use less if you prefer waffles, but aim for thick-ish cake batter)

4 tablespoons melted butter, cooled slightly

2 eggs

Method

In a large bowl, mix together flour sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, cloves, and ginger, adjusting the spices as you see fit.

In a separate bowl, stir together pumpkin puree, milk, melted butter, and eggs.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. You don’t have to be gentle here, but it’s also okay if there are still lumps in the pancakes. I gave the batter a good thrashing with a whisk because lumps drive me crazy, and the pancakes seemed to like it (and gluten-free flour doesn’t mind it, but maybe be a little more gentle for regular AP flour).

Heat a skillet, and add a little butter if it’s not non-stick. Use a little less than 1/4 cup of batter per pancake, and cook on one side until the edges are dry and little bubbles form and pop (about 2 minutes, depending on the heat). Figure that your first pancake is going to look awful, and resign yourself to eating that steamy mound of deliciousness right away. It’s a sacrifice I am sure you are willing to make. Flip, cook for another minute or two, then serve with syrup, apple butter, wrapped around a sausage, or plain.

This makes about two dozen pancakes. I can’t actually remember. I eat them plain hot off the griddle, and I lose count. But it makes a bunch.

If you have leftovers, cool them all the way then pack them in single serving sizes and freeze. YUM.

Recipe notes

  • You can also use ground ginger, but I like the texture of the crystallized ginger in the pancake. For ground ginger, try 1 teaspoon.
  • Freeze the leftover pumpkin puree in ice cube trays and pop them in soup as a thickener. You can also use fresh-roasted pumpkin, pureed, when it’s in season.
  • Add more clove or cinnamon (or less) as you prefer it.
  • Freeze in sealed baggies in appropriate portion sizes, reheating from frozen or thawing in the ‘fridge.

Ruby Chocolate Ice Cream With Coconut And Walnuts Sandwiched By Ruby Chocolate World Peace Cookies

Fall is one of the best times for an ice cream sammie.

Technically, I am not supposed to have a blog post title that long.

It should be short and sweet, intriguing.

But if you are not intrigued by the title above, you’re a dead person in a flesh suit.

Start here. Watch the video, make the cookies.

I swapped out my gluten-free flour blend and an equal amount of ruby chocolate for the chopped chocolate at the end.

And a word to the wise: weighing the ingredients for this recipe is important. I measured by volume the first time around and was totally unimpressed. Measuring by weight changed the whole experience. This recipe makes 36 cookies, and they can be frozen, baked, or frozen unbaked and sliced/baked when ready.

You could also skip the ruby chocolate if you like and make them as written, and you wouldn’t be sad, but this is a theme. 10/10 recommend finding some ruby chocolate for the cookies — you need it for the ice cream anyway, so why not?

Next, make the ice cream. This ruby chocolate ice cream is velvety smooth and rich, studded with unsweetened coconut and chopped walnuts. It’s not the same flamboyant pink of other recipes on the interwebs because I opted not to add food coloring or beet powder, but it you want that shock of pink in your mouth, add a 1/2 teaspoon of powder or as many drops of food color as you like.

New to ruby chocolate, which is a relative newcomer to food? Read more about ruby chocolate here from the company that discovered it.

Ruby Chocolate Ice Cream With Coconut And Walnuts

Ingredients

1 ½ cups heavy cream

½ cup coconut milk

⅓ cup sugar

3 egg yolks

6 ounces ruby chocolate

Optional: Beet powder or red food coloring

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Method

Heat cream, coconut milk, and sugar in a heavy saucepan over medium heat until bubbles appear at the edges.

While the milk heats, place the egg yolks in one bowl and the ruby chocolate in a slightly larger bowl and prepare an ice bath for the slightly larger bowl.

Once the bubbles appear, turn off the heat and very, very slowly drizzle the heated cream and coconut milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. If you go too fast or don’t whisk you’ll end up with sweet scrambled eggs. Go slow.

Return the mixture back to the heat, turn the flame to medium low, and get ready to stir until it thickens. This can take a minute (up to ten), but don’t get impatient and turn up the heat or you will end up with — you guessed it — sweet scrambled eggs.

When the milk mixture coats the back of the spatula and is thick (like a custardy sauce, not quite pudding), it’s done. Place a strainer over the bowl with the ruby chocolate and pour the milk into it. This catches any stray bits of egg (it happens).

Stir until the ruby chocolate is completely melted and incorporated. If adding beet powder or food coloring, do it at this step.

Place the bowl of what is now delicious, delicious ruby chocolate custard into the ice bath and stir until cooled. Wrap the bowl in plastic and chill until totally cold (at least four hours, but overnight is good, too).

When the custard is cool, process according to your ice cream maker’s directions. I add the coconut and walnuts in at the last five minutes, and it works like a charm.

Sandwich between two cookies, eat out of the ice cream maker, or freeze and serve later.

Note: 

This recipe doubles easily.

You can also substitute milks (non-dairy, no heavy cream, etc), but you will not get the same richness.

That Beef Stew Thing

A white ceramic bowl holds a stew of beef with white chunks of potato, bright orange carrots, and fresh chopped green chives. It's sitting on a wooden cutting board in front of a brick wall.
A steamy bowl of unconditional love.

So The Child is coming home for the holidays, and she has requested a few things for food. Salad (shocking), spice cake (not as shocking), and That Beef Stew Thing.

“That Beef Stew Thing” is what she has asked for since I casually tossed it together back in 2014, whenever she wants something hot and flavorful and slightly spicy but just generally warming.

It’s probably not the most traditional type of curry recipe, as it calls for a powdered mix, which seems like maybe sacrilegious, except I don’t know from curry, and when I made it was just trying to get my child to eat during a really tough year. I found the recipe on The Kitchn, linked above, and have made precious few adjustments or changes, mostly to the amount of beef, spice, or vegetables (sometimes I’ll only use sweet potatoes). Also, in my original post on this subject, I noted the conspicuous lack of salt. For God’s sake, salt your food.

Choose any curry you like. This also makes killer leftovers.

Finally, this is the posh version of That Beef Stew Thing because there was no stew beef or beef short ribs to be had in these COVID times. So I grabbed a pricey grass-fed steak and cut it into chunks, and ZOWIE. It’s good. If you’ve got the ducats for that, yay, you. Otherwise, this is equally delicious (if not more, honestly) with a lean cut of beef that needs a little time to get tender.

That Beef Stew Thing (originally called Korean Curry Rice)

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 pound boneless beef short ribs, cut into 1-inch cubes (or any kind of stew beef in cubes)
1 medium onion, diced
Curry powder (honestly, to taste, any kind you like)
2 medium carrots, peeled and cubed
2 small red or yellow potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/2 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
3 cups stock (veg or chicken)
Salt and pepper (season properly or it won’t taste great)
Steamed rice for serving
Optional: Kimchi for serving


Method
Heat the sesame oil over medium-high heat in a large pot. Add the boneless beef short rib and diced onions, season with salt and pepper, and brown on all sides. Add curry powder and cook, stirring, until the spices begin to open up.


Add the carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and stock and mix well. Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer, really a lazy slow one, until the beef is tender and the veg is cooked through (this is a good one for a tagine, perhaps, with enough stock, or a clay bean pot? Not sure but will definitely try the bean pot, as I have one.). If you like a thicker stew or want something more like a curry with sauce, make a slurry with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and 1 tablespoon of the stew liquid. Mix completely, then add into the stew and stir through. This will thicken up nicely without any off flavor.

Serve over steamed rice with some kimchi on the side.

Oh, WordPress

My sweet horsie, Lark. Here for interest only, and completely unrelated to the rest of this post.

All I want to do is get off of WordPress and onto some other easy-to-use site. And yet here I am, languishing on a platform I hate for the sake of occasionally posting here. It’s a placeholder.

This feels like where we are in the pandemic though, yes? Languishing. Waiting. We aren’t really holed up tight (but we will be again, I predict), but many of us (hello) are not ready to emerge fully.

It’s too people-y out there for me right now.

So here I sit, stuck on WordPress (although go visit me on Medium, where I hope to focus my other writing, poetry and non-food-related musings) if I ever start writing those things again. It’s also ok to click the “follow” button there, and I sure would appreciate it. Nothing will come to your inbox unless I publish, which, if I’m honest, is unlikely for the moment.

Happiest of Sundays to you. Take care of yourselves.

Play The Fool: On Creativity

Seeing through the ice, darkly – leaves under ice in Susquehanna State Park.

At the exact moment this blog is published, 4:26 pm on March 14th, I will turn 50. As you read this, if you come across it on that day, I will be on the sand in Assateague, listening to the waves and looking at wild horses. Arguably my happiest place, and the only place I would like to be on all of my momentous occasions (anywhere near the ocean).

As I write this, though, 11 days earlier, I have sprung up from my yoga mat to make notes. I was following yoga with Adriene’s hip and heart practice in an effort to become a more open person with better balance on a horse, and once the video ended and I lie there breathing quietly, the YouTube automatically forwarded to Ethan Hawke’s most recent TEDTalk.

I thought, well, I’ll just take a nice extended savasana and listen, but only a few minutes in I found myself reaching for my phone to take notes. I have been reflecting in the past several months about creativity, my own in specific, and curiously watching the well dry. I have felt disinclined to write poetry and have not completed a painting (or even put together a canvas) since mid-2020.

And as 50 approaches, I have begun to consider the next 50 years (my grandmother is 102, so that’s not outside the realm of possibility). Among other quotes, this one stands out for me:

“The time of our life is so short, and are we spending it doing something that’s important to us? Most of us not.”

Just this morning KWeeks and I were talking about doing what we love – getting up every day and going to work that is not just a way to fill the endless daytime hours before binge-watching TV and falling asleep on the couch but is instead a buoyant expression of what we love.

Because as Ethan Hawke says above, “If you get close to what you love, who you are is revealed to you.”

I am lucky enough in my life to have the time and space to move ever closer to what I love – to unravel the tangled past and dive into things that are troubling, joyful, and deep. But there is no formula or self-help book here – no treatise of any value that gives legitimate steps to finding out what you love and thus meeting yourself. Ethan Hawke continues, “There is no path until you walk it.”

I returned to the mat, listening to the last parts of his talk and reflecting on my own life and considering the conversation with KWeeks. I want the next 50 years of my life to be spent getting closer to what I love, peeling away the layers of my experience to become more fully revealed to myself. It is only this, as Ethan Hawke says, that allows us to connect with the world and the people around us more fully, this act of walking our own particular path, that we make, that is what marks our place in the infinite, swirling universe. I know as spring comes the groundwater of my creativity will begin to dampen the earth again. I will be filled up, as the well itself.

I imagine as I write this the feeling of sand between my toes, gritty but melting away beneath me as the sea swirls around my ankles. The salt wind brushing the hair from my face as seagulls whirl and cry above. The hand of KWeeks in mine, in that moment and for the next 50 years.

Against all odds and at the impossible age of 50, I am hopeful, on the path and laying flagstones ahead as I walk it.