Sourdough Pancakes, and grit yeast gravy saves a pie.

Two sorts of sourdough pancakes

I needed to use up the last of the sour dough I had prepared, and so two batches of sourdough pancakes seemed to be the solution. Fox a New Year's present, my dear friend Ghita gave me some duck eggs. Ah, duck eggs. Yum. I love eggs, and can only eat duck eggs, and so if they come to me as presents once a year, you can be sure I will eat every one. However, I did not want to spend ALL my eggs on pancakes, so I tried two different recipes. The first, the pancake on the left, based on this recipe, was very, very simple:

2 cups “heart smart” bisquick mix
1 1/2 cup almond milk
1 cup sourdough starter

Mix this all together, set aside to rise 15-30 minutes, and cook on a griddle pan.

This was actually an excellent compromise between my favorite vegan pancakes and standard sourdough pancakes. They are slightly "gummy," as sourdough can sometimes be, but I think a little more milk and flour might change that--if I bother to try. These were really quite good just the way they are, and I did not find the lack of the perfect pancake texture to be a problem at all. Very easy. Very tasty. Less need for bisquick and almond milk. I used my sourdough after it had been fed for a week; it'll be interesting to see what it's like after one day out of the fridge.

The second pancake, on the right:

1½ cups of starter with
1 duck egg, slightly beaten
1 Tablespoon of canola oil
2 Tablespoons of almond milk

2 Tablespoon of sugar
¾ Teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon (generous) of baking soda


All ingredients were at room temp. Mix all the wet ingredients, then add the dry ingredients, and stir quickly to mix. Once the baking soda goes in, the pancakes have to be cooked immediately, so don’t mix that up until your pan is ready and you are prepared to cook the cakes. Once you add the baking soda, the rise begins immediately. It’s no joke, you have to cook them up straight away. I cooked them on a moderate heat griddle. I let them cook to the point where they were nearly dry on top—like injera—before flipping. These are thin, liquidy—you have to let them cook enough to be set.
My previous experiences with classic sourdough pancakes have not been great—gummy, with too much alkaline flavor as a result of the rising agents used. This was really good, though—I ate them straight out of the pan, with no syrup, et cetera. They make a thin pancake, and yes, with a slightly gummy quality, but it seemed to me merely to be the nature of a heavy, moist bread. Much better than eating something that tastes like the gel inserts for your shoes. "MMMM, I'm gellin'!" should not apply to pancakes. ;-)

A Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie I like!

And so, with tons of grit yeast gravy left over and a yen for Shepherds Pie that is now a year-old monster craving, I decided to give it a try. Oh, what a WIN. This is mostly a note to myself that quorn crumbles, grit yeast gravy, and sauteed veggies all mixed together will be so very tasty that the lesser quality of mashed potatoes made with vegan spread and almond milk instead of butter and whole milk will be unnoticeable, and this returns to me one of my absolute favorite comfort foods. Ah, Shepherd's Pie, how I have missed thee. You don't taste the same this way, but the difference is not worth worrying about. Yay!