Magazine Monday #53: Pancakes!

Our MM hostess, Ivonne of Creampuffs in Venice, commented recently that I should be on Canadian Living's payroll, since my MM posts predominantly come from Canadian Living Magazine. And you'll probably see even more CL recipes on here, now that Gourmet is defunct.

So, what's on the menu for today's MM? Well, how about pancakes? I made this recipe from the July 2009 issue of Canadian Living: Lemon Ricotta Pancakes (without the compote included in the recipe - I'd rather have maple syrup, thank you very much). Instead of blueberries, I used some of my locally-foraged huckleberries.

These were delicious - light and airy and cakey. Perfect! The recipe made way more that one lone coyote could eat on her own, so I took the leftovers to my brother, who gladly ate them up.

A recipe for the "keeper" file for sure!

Huckleberry Slump

The name is catchy, isn't it? When I first came across the Sour Cherry Slump recipe in Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, I knew I just had to make it for the name alone. Alas, two pints of sour cherries are just not doable on my food budget, so I let this recipe go - until I went huckleberry picking this summer! This, in addition to the huckleberry pork loin, was one of my first ideas for using the berries in a unique way.

According to the book, a "slump" is "essentially a twice-removed cousin of the cobbler family, consisting of cooked fruit filling topped with a biscuit crust that's cooked entirely on the stovetop" (page 44). The slump refers to how the biscuit topping "slumps" over the filling as it cooks.

The recipe for the original sour cherry version can be found online here.

Huckleberry Slump (adapted by me from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito)

For the biscuit topping

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• Raw sugar for topping (optional)

For the huckleberry filling

• 3 cups huckleberries
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• juice of half a lemon (use some zest if you have it, too; I didn't)

Make the biscuit topping

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With a wooden spoon, stir in the melted butter and mix until combined. Add 1/4 cup of the sour cream and stir. Add a few heaping tablespoons of the remaining sour cream, stirring between each addition, until the dough feels wet. You may end up using slightly less than the 1/2 cup of the sour cream. Set aside while you prepare the huckleberries.

Make the huckleberries

In a well-seasoned 8-inch or 8-1/2-inch cast-iron skillet, gently combine the berries, sugar, and lemon juice. (I used my nifty cast iron KitchenAid dutch oven and it worked great.)

Cover the skillet with a lid or a piece of tight-fitting foil and bring the mixture to a rapid boil over medium heat.

When the mixture reaches a boil, remove the skillet from the heat and scoop heaping tablespoons of the biscuit topping over the berries, covering as much surface area as possible. If using, sprinkle the top with raw sugar. Cover the skillet tightly and return it to low heat. Cook for about 15 minutes. Do not remove the lid. After 15 minutes, check the topping for doneness; it should be dry to the touch. (The topping will not brown the way it would in an oven.)

Serve the slump hot from the pan.

Can we all say YUM? Holy huckleberries, man, this was wonderful! Really quick & easy and totally delicious. The huckleberries cook down and thicken and you get an almost jam-like consistency. The biscuits, which are more like a dumpling, are light and tender. I'm only sorry I put off making this so long because it was super! I will definitely be making this again, and it's versatile, too; you can probably use any seasonal fruit you want to. Excellent!

Huckleberry Pikelets

As you might have read, I have an abundance of huckleberries kicking around my freezer and I'm looking for new and interesting things to do with them. I came across a post by Bellini Valli of More Than Burnt Toast, a fellow BC foodblogger, featuring blueberry pikelets, and my interest was piqued. I had all the ingredients on hand, so I went down and made them immediately.

For an explanation on pikelets, you can read Bellini Valli's information about this treat here. I also found an interesting article on pikelets here, baking up Bellini's assertion that there are a lot of contradictions around these things. The Hub UK site has a recipe for pikelets that uses yeast, and this seems far more crumpet-like to me than the recipe I used. I grew up in a pretty British household, but had never heard of pikelets before; I must ask my dad if he remembers them.

The pikelet batter I used, got from Bellini's site here, was very much like a pancake batter, though slightly thicker. Initially, I didn't use rings because I didn' think they would be necessary, but I had a bit of a disaster with my first batch that made me rethink that strategy. I then unpacked my English muffin rings, buttered them well, and had far better results.

These are, essentially, a thick pancake. They were wonderful! Not terribly exciting or exotic, as the name might suggest, but they were certainly yummy. Thanks Bellini Valli!

Full Flickr set here.

Pork Tenderloin, Starring....Huckleberries!

So this is my first kick at the can using my lovely huckleberry bounty, locally picked by yours truly. I wanted to do something different; muffins are so pedestrian! I whipped this pork tenderloin idea up on my own...divine inspiration out in the berry patch or something... My dad donated the tenderloins, of which there were two, and initially four were supposed to partake in the meal, but then plans fell apart, as they do once in a while. So, I knew there would be a ton of leftovers, I just didn't yet know if that was a good thing or not. Here's how it went.

For the rub:

1/3 cup brown sugar
ginger, cinnamon, allspice, garlic powder, salt & pepper - all to taste (I didn't measure)

For the filling:

1 package (140g) unripened goat's cheese (i.e. not feta), softened
a whole bunch of huckleberries
4 cups of spinach
3 cloves garlic
1tsp or so of the rub mixture

I was going to just put the spinach in raw, but decided against it. In fact, I wasn't going to put any spinach in at all, but I had so much left over from a salad I made that I decided what the hell. When my SIL does pork loin, she usually puts spinach in the stuffing and it's always awesome. Anyhoo, I sauteed the spinach because I wanted to cook the water out of it first. It was worth it to spend the extra few minutes to do this, I think. I sauteed the spinach in olive oil and the garlic.After the spinach was wilted, I added it to the goat's cheese & huckleberries. What I got was not particularly appetizing...But this was an experiment after all, right?Yeah, great colour, eh? At this point I was thinking, Hmmm...was this a good idea? But I soldiered on, and stuffed the tenderloins, after making a cut along the length in order to flatten them out and create a pocket for the filling.After that came the rub...I realized too late I should have rubbed first and filled second, but we live and learn, don't we?

Then, truss truss baby. You can see my blue silicone trussing thingies in this picture. Very cool gadget.Then into a 375F oven, covered with foil for about half an hour, then off with the foil and continue baking until an internal temperature of 180F was reached. And voila...While my meat rested (it took about an hour to cook, and I set my fancy-wancy thermometer with probe 180F so it would beep when the temp was reached) I made a sauce, using, what else? Well, yes, huckleberries, but also POM! The last of my POM (I have one coupon left). This was the one with blueberry juice in it as well.

Pomegranate Huckleberry Sauce

juices from the roasted pork loin
about 1/2 cup POM juice
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 cup brown sugar
a whole bunch of huckleberries

I dissolved the cornstarch in the POM as the drippings, brown sugar, and ginger came to a boil in a small saucepan. Once the drippings boiled, I added the huckleberries and the POM. I simmered for a few minutes... And forgot to take a pic of the sauce. Sorry. It looked like...blueberry syrup. Use your imagination.

Slicing the tenderloin proved difficult - it was very delicate and the filling so soft that it squished out the sides. This is what I got:Yeah...presentation-wise, I don't think this is a winner.The overall verdict, however: a hit! I loved it right away. Everything went really well together, from the rub on down. The sauce was great. The spinach, however, I could have lived without. It didn't really add any flavour and made the presentation less than stellar. I'd leave it out next time. Additionally, I would use feta cheese the next time, for a couple of reasons. A) I think the flavour contrast between saltiness of the feta and tart-sweet of the berries would be killer. B) It's a firmer cheese and would probably slice & present better than this goat's cheese.

My dad took a bit more convincing. He's not used to having sweet things mixed with his otherwise savoury dishes, and I get that. It's not everyone's cup of tea. He did, however, have seconds, and by the end of the meal, he was converted! He has half of the second loin we didn't even touch for leftovers, as do I. (I served this meal, by the way, with a barley & bean salad that will be the subject of an upcoming Magazine Monday post.)

Definitely a successful experiment! With a bit of tweaking, I might just make this my signature dish! And - I still have a ton of huckleberries frozen for future kitchen experiments!

Enjoy!

Huckleberry Time!

On Saturday, I got to go out into the bush and pick huckleberries. You can read more about that here.

I got 10 cups of huckleberries! So, now what? Well, yesterday morning I made huckleberry pancakes, using Nigella's homemade pancake mix. The pancakes were totally excellent and I still think this recipe makes the best pancakes I've ever had.

So, now what do I do with all these other remaining huckleberries? Yeah, there's muffins and pies...But I want to do something different.

Hucklberries are quite tart in comparison to blueberries. I'm thinking goat's cheese; I'm thinking pork loin; I'm thinking spinach!

Any ideas? Let me know!

Full Flickr set from the berry-picking spree is here.