Note of the Living Deb

Continuing my quest to find produce that my picky taste buds will approve

IKEA's

Recently, I got to taste a side dish at the IKEA cafe called Grönsakskaka or Vegetable Medallions. I liked them and wondered what was in them. The web page shows that it's mostly potatoes.

I then read that they sell these frozen, so the next time I was in IKEA I found them in the frozen section and looked up the ingredients. They also have cheese and don't look especially healthy. Not a big surprise.

Trader Joe's

Later, I happened to notice the Cauliflower and Broccoli Vegetable Patties at Trader Joe's and decided to try them out. This seems healthier because potatoes come third after cauliflower and broccoli and there's no cheese, yet it still tastes pretty good. It tastes a little bit like broccoli, but it could definitely be used in place of hash browns.

The nutrition information shown is not particularly exciting. There's a lot of Vitamin C, which I can easily get in yummy ways. But modern nutrition labels show hardly anything. (When I was a kid, it seemed like companies would add extra information if there was extra good news to report.) But surely cauliflower and broccoli have plenty of good nutrients that aren't shown.

Home-Made

Robin then developed his own recipe. His patties have no salt at all, but that's easy to add. But they also taste strongly of broccoli. So he'll be cooking those for himself, but I don't want to eat them.

Conclusion

I have added the Trader Joe's version to my diet. Victory! They do take about ten minutes to cook because you're supposed to saute them for five minutes on each side, so it's not super quick. But I can start them first before I start whatever else I'm eating.

Blog Entry of the Day - Empirical Question's BBC Sherlock Revisted - A fun and informative description of why the author does not love the new Sherlock the way so many people do. One reason, for example: "Sherlock's approach to crime-solving is still presented as cutting-edge, when it's not

"The original Sherlock Holmes (SH) was operating far outside the bounds of police work in his era. In those days, the cops were big guys who would round up the usual suspects after a crime and "interrogate" them until someone confessed. The use of forensic evidence was basically non-existent. (Indeed, modern forensic scientists credit/revere SH as their patron saint.) Using careful observation and logic to solve a crime was just not how things were done at all. It's very hard for us to appreciate how revolutionary SH was for his time. At least watching/reading SH set in Conan Doyle's period, we can see how different SH's approach was from that of his contemporaries in the police force."

I can also highly recommend following the link to her previous comments if you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes.

There's a coupon at HEB right now. If you buy Thomas's English muffins you get free HEB brand pancake mix. There are several kinds but they are something I would never buy because they are all made from white flour. But the thought of a lot of free pancakes brought me to the pancake mix aisle to investigate.

They had two mixes that require adding just water: regular and buttermilk, so I got the buttermilk. I've read that just-add-water mixes don't taste any worse than the kinds where you add oil and eggs, but people feel too much like they're cheating or something. I am not one of those people. If the eggs and oil are included for the same price, why not get that? Plus, then you can make any amount of pancakes without having to figure out how to use fractions of eggs.

So, I tried a batch. As expected, it was not as good as my favorite pancake recipe, but it was okay and better than Bisquick pancakes.

I tried adding chocolate chips; they did not help. Then I thought that blueberries might really go well. (I know, finally we get to the blueberries!)

On my next batch, I tried adding dehydrated blueberries. Robin has recommended these as much better than regular blueberries for pancakes (the latter are too wet to work properly). However, I didn't like them. They were a little crunchy and also got lost in the batter.

Then I bought some frozen blueberries, let some sit out to thaw, and added them to my next batch. Yum. Yes, they turn the batter blue and there is a bit of a moisture problem, especially involving sticking to the pan a little, but they feel like success to me!

I have to say that it is quite nice to just mix up a small batch of blueberry pancakes instead of doing all the work it takes to make my double batch of banana chocolate chip pancakes. I have been feeling kind of gleeful doing it. And it doesn't wreck my diet, either, by which I mean that I don't automatically weigh more the next day every time I eat some.

But how much of a serving of blueberries am I eating? I like to make half a batch of pancakes, which means 1/2 cup of mix and 3/8 cup of water (I just fill the half-cup measuring cup about 3/4 of the way full). Then I added 3/8 cup of blueberries, and that seemed about right, and like a lot. But that turns out to be 1.5 servings of pancakes and 1/2 a serving of blueberries. So, this is not a nice, easy way to get a serving of fruit. So sad. However, it is a nice, easy way to get a half serving of fruit! Yum!

My next step is to try the smaller wild blueberries for sale at Trader Joe's. I also checked Trader Joe's for just-add-water pancake mix and they do have one but it's also made with white flour. (And coconut, interesting.)

When I run out of this mix, I may try making my own with whole wheat pastry flour. But how easy is it to find powdered eggs and powdered buttermilk or whatever? I checked the ingredients list and noticed that there are no eggs at all in my mix. Weird.

I actually found two recipes online. They do have some weird ingredients.

* The one from Anastasia's Palace just has powdered milk.

* The one from My Food Storage Cookbook involves egg powder, butter powder, powdered buttermilk, powdered milk, and malted milk powder.