Easy Rainy Day Cornmeal Pancakes

Today in Osaka is a depressing grey drizzly kind of a day and since it's a Sunday (i.e. day of nothing interesting ever happening) I elected to have a cooking and cleaning day. I cleaned my stove, washed all the dishes and began sorting through the dry ingredients tucked away in my meager storage space. That's when I found the unopened bag of cornmeal that has been sitting in my cupboard for a couple of months now. Finally , today I decreed it to be Official Cornmeal Bag Opening Day (quite catchy, no?)
Anyway, I originally bought it to make some pumpkin cornmeal waffles but had to give the waffle maker back to my friend before I got round to it. So instead I decided to make flat waffles - otherwise known as pancakes. I couldn't find a recipe that I had enough ingredients for so I cobbled this one together from a few of them. I was very pleased with the results and decided to share it with you. These pancakes were a little crunchy and reminded me of a sweet taquito thus I decided to fold them over and eat them like tacos.

Anyway, here you go:

"It's a Crappy Sunday Afternoon" Cornmeal Pancakes

You will need:

1 1/2 cups soy milk
1 1/2 tblspoons lemon juice (I think vinegar would work too)

2 tblspoons oil (I used canola), plus some for greasing the frying pan

1 1/3 cups cornmeal

2/3 cup flour (I used all-purpose white)

1/3 cup brown sugar (optional)
1/2 tspoon salt
1/2 tspoon baking soda
2 tblspoons maple syrup

1 tspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1) Stir the lemon juice into the soy milk in a measuring cup or jug. Set aside for a couple of minutes to let the milk curdle.

2) Mix the cornmeal, flour, sugar (if using), salt and baking soda together in a large bowl.

3) Stir the oil, vanilla extract and maple syrup into the milk mixture.

4) Gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry, stirring gently and being careful not to over mix.

5) Drizzle a little oil into a non-stick frying pan and heat to medium heat.

6) When the pan is heated sufficiently, add about 1/4 cup batter and spread the it out evenly using a spatula.

7) Turn the pancake over when bubbles form on the surface and the batter begins to look "set."

N.B. I found these pancakes to be incredibly easy to flip and didn't break a single one so don't worry if you are nervous about that.

8) Continue to cook on either side until a nice golden brown colour is achieved.

9) Serve immediately with the topping of your choice!

I ate mine with brown sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on the inside. I dusted the tops with icing sugar and a little cocoa powder and served them with a cup of Yogi Tea Thai Sweet Delight.

Other toppings that I think would be good are soyatoo/vegan whipped cream, banana slices, grated dark chocolate, strawberries, raspberries and maple syrup. They are very adapatable so you could also try adding other things to the batter.

These really hit the spot!

-- Sarah

It's My Birthday and I'll Overeat if I Want To

I think we might be behind a post or two...Maybe there will be a weekend post to make up for it. My google reader is totally overloaded with all the Mofoing going on, I think I'll have to wait to catch up on all that. Glad we've been finding some new readers to our blog. Hope you are enjoying it. And I've also begun enjoying some great, new blogs.

Well, first off, Sarah and I had birthdays this weekend. Sarah's is the 11th and mine's the 13th. We had a big party for Sarah's that I'll blog about next, but first I want to brag about the cake I made for her.

Check this baby out!

I used the Raspberry Blackout Cake recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance and the Chocolate frosting from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I doubled the cake recipe since we were serving 16 people. Now, I know that making a layer cake doesn't seem like such a challenge, but let me explain. Japanese ovens are about the size of an American microwave. So you can only fit one pan in the oven at a time (like I even own more than that). On top of that, the heat source is some strange convection type thing, but not quite. I don't really understand how it works, but the heat source is concentrated at the top. Anyway, I had to take the cake out of the springform pan, flip it over, put it back in the pan, and continue to bake it for another 15 minutes. Then do the same with the other layer. It took me like 3 hours.

But man, was it worth it, this cake was delicious if not sugar coma inducing.

Here's some more food porn for you all.

Sarah's boy bringing out the cake. The first time, a ceiling fan in the hallway blew out all the candles and we had to sing twice.

Sarah wishing I would finally agree to marry her so we can have this cake for every anniversary to come.

Oh yeah....

Ok, I'll stop...but seriously it was good! And I was so proud I didn't totally fuck it up.

So Happy Birthday to Us! Happy Birthday to Us! Happy Birthday to Us!

--Pamela

Haha! I totally lied one more...

Feeling hungry?...

I feel that Punk You is still lacking the drool-factor required for a successful vegan blog. Thus, I have decided to try to remedy this by including more food prOn in my posts!

Some recent culinary adventures:

Vegan tonkatsu (from the Asian Vegan Kitchen) with Japanese style simmered pumpkin and new potatoes

My modified version of General Tao's Tofu. That sauce is the shit! Highly recommended!

Vietname-style spring rolls (from the Asian Vegan Kitchen)

No-bake Black Bottom Peanut Butter Silk Pie from Vegan With A Vengeance. Soooo good!

And finally, I'll leave you with the money shot ;)

-- Sarah