Vanilla Pecan Pancakes

The first year my husband and I moved into our house, I very ambitiously tilled up a 400sqft bit of earth to grow vegetables in our tiny backyard. Next, I carefully transplanted about 40 plants which I had babied from little tiny seeds into delicate seedlings. Somehow, though, I failed to  pay attention to the giant pecan tree which prevents the backyard from getting enough sun to ever produce a lovely tomato or pepper. I gave up on the vegetable garden out back and moved it to our even smaller front yard. While I have accepted that my vegetables are going to be in a more non-traditional location, I kept waiting for the pecan tree to actually produce. Two years went by, but we finally have pecans this year; a gorgeous, giant bowl of pecans (the squirrels were good enough to leave us a few) that came from our own pecan tree.
I have been making pancakes from the Joy of Cooking recipe since I was 4 years old. The recipe is so simple and adaptable. You can include almost any item into the batter: nuts, fruits, etc. This local pecan version might be my favorite yet, but maybe that's the locavore excitement I'm tasting.

Vanilla Pecan Pancakes

Ingredients:


1-1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour

3 Tablespoons of Sugar
1 Teaspoon of Salt
1-1/2 Teaspoons of Baking Powder
1/2 Cup of Chopped Toasted Pecans
1/8 Teaspoon of Cinnamon
1/8 Teaspoon of Nutmeg
1-1/2 Cups of Milk
2 Large Eggs
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Paste (or Vanilla Extract)

3 Tablespoons of Melted Butter
Butter for the Griddle/Pan


Cooking:

Whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, spices and pecans in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, vanilla paste and melted butter together, then pour into the dry ingredients. Stir until the dry ingredients are just incorporated. Don't over stir. On a griddle or a saucepan, greased with butter, on medium heat, pour 1/2 cup of batter per pancake. You may be able to do more than one at a time with a griddle. Cook until the center of the pancake's bubbles pop and lift the edges to see if the center is golden brown. This may take around 5 minutes or so. Slide a spatula underneath the pancake and flip it. The second side will take much less time. Remove the pancake when both sides are lightly browned. Serve with syrup and more butter!

Seeds, Seeds, Seeds!

At this time of year, my brain starts whirring with ideas for the year's garden. I gather my seed catalogs, Seed Savers Exchange and Territorial Seed Company winning favorites for this year, along with my boxes of leftover seeds from last year. I carefully catalog what I have and then I get to shop for new fun things that I might be missing. I cannot wait to try some rhubarb plants this year. I know they don't do very well in the hot south, and that my space in the garden is so limited, but I just can't resist the idea of having that gorgeous fruit in my very own yard! I'm also so excited to grow some fava beans this year. From the moment I watched Jamie Oliver crush raw favas, fresh from his garden, on Jamie at Home, I've longed to repeat the experience. So, now that I have placed the orders for the new stuff, the fun begins...I have to figure out where to squeeze everything in! I find a glass of wine helps!

My Garden Delights

So, I feel I have been a bit remiss in my storytelling on this blog. One of the things most important to me about food, besides taste, of course, is sustainability. All of my friends hear me constantly harp on organic and local food, but I'm not sure that I have conveyed that passion here. Let me correct that mistake.

I love food, but it's so important to me that I eat organic and if possible, locally grown food. I belong to a great local, organic co-op (see previous post on Vegetable Husband) and in the past couple of years, one of my favorite past times has been toiling away in the garden for the freshest, most local food I can get. I'm out there almost every morning with my faithful guard dog, who has also gotten very fond of our gardening routine, checking each plant, trying to decide what I should do next, scouring for a fresh vegetable that might be ripe for plucking.

This year, my most successful so far, I started my seeds, most from Seed Savers Exchange, from scratch in the office under a fluorescent light. I found myself tending to those seeds more carefully than some people would a baby. They had to have a heater, and a certain amount of light each day. I almost cried when I had to thin them out.

Then, once the last frost was over, I tenderly began planting them into the gorgeous raised beds that my husband built right in our tiny front yard. We learned last year that while our backyard has the most space, it also has the least sun. I started listening to WHYY's You Bet Your Garden radio show, I read Organic Gardening from cover to cover, and I even started listening to the BBC's Gardener's Question Time podcast (which, admittedly, is a bit silly considering the growing conditions are so very different, but I just love those British accents!) I cannot get enough information about the very best way to grow perfect, organic produce.

And this week, all that hard work and knowledge has started to pay off! I harvested some green Ponderosa tomatoes to fry up for my family this past father's day, and today, I harvested my very first ever okra, along with some lovely, tiny Gold Rush tomatoes. The okra is so handsome, it's an heirloom variety, called Red Burgundy. I cannot wait to fry some up!

It really is so very exciting to step out of your front yard and pluck something ready to eat, and more importantly, you learn to appreciate the enormous amount of work and resources that go into every single bite you consume. Food is one of our most important investments, we eat it every single day, it keeps us healthy and strong, and without our health, we have nothing!