As a vegan I know all too well that when the dinner invitation comes it goes like this:
"Gary, why don't you guys come over for dinner? You are SO AWESOME. We can drink cheapo jug vino and gossip about everybody!"
And I have to reply "We are difficult guests, no meat, no dairy, we are vegan!" and you hear back
"Oh. We were going to roast a pig and grill some steaks. I guess you are not so awesome after all."
And I reply "Wait wait, we can bring our own twigs and lawn clippings to eat!" but they have already hung up the phone.....
The wife will say "Good manners is making other people comfortable" and that is why I REALLY DO bring my own food when I am invited to other people's houses...unless they specifically tell me they are cooking vegan, I pack an apple and pb and j in the car.... that way I have good manners and do not make my hosts uncomfortable by making them cook up a big stew pot of lawn clippings and twigs.
Conversely, when people come over here, I explain how I cook but that my cooking KICKS ASS and any carnivore, locavore or dinosaur will be happy here...and happily stuffed!
BUT, you and I know, there is a new guest type out there these days: THE GLUTEN-FREE guest, and I want to have good manners and treat them well and make them comfortable. Plus, truly, compared to white flour, oat flour has wonderful nutritional elements and I like trying recipes using it: it has iron, fiber, protein and cholesterol fighting properties. White flour is crap! (I still use it though, with as much multi-grain as possible, but that is not the subject of this post)
SO, I wondered if I could make my SUPER tasty multigrain vegan pancakes with oat flour, a simple substitution. NO. No I could not. Tasty but very crumbly. So I rewrote the thing on Sunday and made them this am. I took out sugar and used molasses (sticky!) and made and added egg replacer (sticky! for cohesion!) out of one TBS ground flax seed and 2 TBS water stirred together. ***
HOT DAMN they were good! Sort of hearty like buckwheat pancakes, you know?
In other news, we seem to do ALL of our eating outside when it is nice...Sunday was NICE, 70s nice!
I was making a bunch of vases last week and this one sorta modestly snuck in and I was like
"HOLY CATS, perfect!" As a potter, you do so many steps on some items, they can surprise you when they all come together and are suddenly...beautiful!
(vase by Gary Rith)
***
Gary's oat flour vegan AND gluten-free pancakes! makes 6 wee pancakes
-in a small bowl mix one TBS ground flax seed and 2 TBS water
-in a mixing bowl put in and stir together 1/2 cup oat flour, 1 1/4 Tbs baking powder and a dash of salt
-add to the flour mix: 1 Tbs molasses, 1 1/4 Tbs oil, 1/2 cup soy milk and your egg flax egg replacer
-I added 1/2 cup bluberries
-do not let it be thin--add a little more flour if you have to for a good, thickish batter
-fry them like any pancake!