Gluten Free Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes

February Hot Breakfast Foods

Oatmeal Pumpkin Pancakes Gluten Free

I love pancakes so when I found a gluten free option on the menu at the ‘The Bicycle Café’ in Flesherton Ontario I had to try them – Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes.  The flavour and texture were wonderful.

14 Sydenham Street, Flesherton, Ontario N0C 1E0

I have thought about those pancakes often and tried many recipes with great disappointment.  So I set out to create my own recipe.  I remembered that the flavour was one of a savory pumpkin pie, while the texture was dense with a touch of crunch.

To get the crunch I toasted my gluten free oatmeal in 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil and to get the savory pumpkin pie flavour I used a mixture of pumpkin pie spices.  I added ginger to one batch and while not my favourite at the end of the meal all the pancakes were gone!

Gluten Free Oatmeal Pumpkin Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 cup pumpkin puree

½ cup almond milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup steal cut oats

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ cup gluten-free flour

½ teaspoon allspice

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon salt

1 to 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon (love this spice)

¼ to ½ teaspoon ground ginger (optional)

¼ teaspoon xanthan

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

Directions:

1) Mix your flour, baking soda, sugar and spices together and mix well

2) In a saucepan toast your oats until lightly brown in coconut oil (1 to 2 Tablespoons)

3) Once toasted add to the hot saucepan ½ to 1/3 of a cup of water and stir cooking for no more than 2 minutes

4) Lightly beat the eggs with a fork

5) Incorporate all of the liquid ingredients into the dry adding more milk if the batter is too thick.

6) Fry the pancakes in a greased frying pan.  I found the best results when using a medium low heat.

Enjoy

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Children's Mental Health

Is Normal really what we want?

Today I had the privilege of participating in an interdisciplinary think tank.  We were gather together to explore how our educational system can grow and change in response to children who struggle alone with mental health concerns.

 

Beautiful 1st Runner-up 2013 Change the View

To ensure that we the adults stayed focused and ‘real’ 12 high school students participated along with us.  They challenged us see the issue not as yet another problem to be solved – they asked us to ‘get real’ with them – to see them – to be in relationship with them – to know them as they know themselves.

Over and over again I heard the adults and youth use the word normal as if it was the Holy Grail that we all should strive for.  Then one of the youth said “I am more than my attention deficit…”   and my inner voice took exception to her words.  I have attention deficit and because of this unique part of me I have achieved things that I otherwise would not have – take this away from me and I am diminished.

 Smile 2nd runner up 2013 Change the View

I raised my hand and offered these words.  Normal is to be average or ordinary and what parent dreams that their child will only achieve average, that they will be ordinary.  What is normal?  I believe that normal is a fantasy and one of the most destructive words that parents and educators use.  

Heads around the table moved in agreement and the young woman who described herself as more than said “I want to be me only teachers, doctors, and peer say I need to be their definition of normal” – this I could agree with.

Tonight I Googled “historical people with ADD” all of the sites that I went to listed the following people: Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander Graham Bell, Orville and Wilber Wright, Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein.  These are not average or ordinary they were exceptional.

 We are all equal the winner of Change the View 2013

The videos that are included in this post are from the 2013 Change the View project on understanding children’s experiences of mental illness.  Please take the time to view them.

Please see the exceptional potential of all our children and dream larger than average and ordinary.  

Know that being mentally healthy is a fluid process all of us have been mentally ill at one point in time.

I carry at least two mental health labels, Attention Deficit and Depression.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Baked Vegetables Parmesan

Baked Vegetable Parmesan

Once again a cold stormy Ontario winter evening found us looking through our fridge and pantry - what to make for supper?

What did we have that needed to be used up?  Well there was spinach, mushrooms, onions, garlic, a 2 inch by 2 inch square of hard and well-aged parmesan cheese, Almond milk, one bulb of fennel left over from last week’s soup and coconut oil.

At the grocery store last week I picked up Better Homes and Gardens Italian Make It Ahead magazine and didn’t I read something in there about fennel… yes I did on page 75  ‘Baked Fennel with Parmesan’ only this recipe calls for 3 bulbs of fennel and I had was one small bulb.  Undaunted I used this recipe as inspiration and we dined on a very tasty, ‘Baked Vegetable Parmesan’.

Ingredients:

3 cups of baby spinach

1 cup sliced mushrooms

4 garlic bulbs slice thin

1 onion slice thin

1 fennel bulb sliced thin

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

¼ cup almond milk

3 tablespoon coconut old

¾ teaspoon nutmeg

2/4 cup chopped almonds and walnuts

1 Tablespoon fresh chopped dill

Salt and pepper to taste.

Directions:

1) Melt the coconut oil and sauté the mushrooms, garlic, onion, fennel until the onions are transparent.

2) Turn your oven on to 475 F.

3) Grease your baking dish and place the spinach in the bottom the dish

4) Mix together your almond milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg and dill

5) Pour your sautéed vegetables on top of the spinach

6) Return the pan to the stove add your nuts and sauté until they are lightly toasted

7) Add the grated parmesan to the top of the vegetables

8) Pour the almond milk and seasoning over the top and place in your oven for 15 minutes.

9) Just before eating add the nuts.

Grandma Snyder

©2013 to 2014 twosnydergirls