weekend recap {banana walnut pancakes, boating, & my chosen fermented food}

Did everyone have a nice weekend? Hopefully it was filled with quality family time and good food!
For breakfast on Sunday, my dad requested banana walnut pancakes. We headed over to my grandparents house in the morning and I whipped those up. It's a very easy recipe, which I adapted from my raspberry oat whole wheat pancakes. I ended up using regular all purpose flour, which I rarely use anymore, but it's all they had on hand at my dad's house. Feel free to replace it with whole wheat pastry flour, or half regular whole wheat flour + half all purpose.

mobile photos + paper plates = had been cooking breakfast all morning and was too hungry to care about presentation

big daddy enjoying his pancakes. P.S.- when is he NOT wearing Gators attire?? his PJ pants are also Gators

Yield: ~14 medium-sized pancakes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of flour
• 2 bananas, cut in half lengthwise & sliced
• 1 cup of chopped walnuts
• 2 tbsp of distilled vinegar + enough milk to make 2 1/4 cups (to mimic buttermilk)
• 4 egg whites
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of ground cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 2 tbsp butter (divided) or non-stick cooking spray, to prevent sticking
• Extra sliced bananas and chopped walnuts to garnish, optional but highly recommended! 

Directions:

Make your buttermilk by adding 2 tbsp of distilled to vinegar to a liquid measuring cup. Add milk to the measuring cup until you reach the 2 1/4 cup mark. Let sit for 5 minutes.

In the meantime, mix together your dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

Using your stand mixer with the whisk attachment or a hand mixer, add 4 egg whites and whisk on medium-high speed. I think mine was on "6". Whisk until you achieve soft peeks and the egg whites become frothy and fluffy.

Peel bananas, cut them in half length-wise, and slice into ~1/4 inch thick slices. Chop walnuts.

Heat a griddle or pan to medium and let it get nice and hot.

 Stir the vanilla extract into the buttermilk. Add your wet ingredients (buttermilk/vanilla) to your dry ingredients, and whisk until just combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold in bananas and walnuts. Then lastly, fold in the egg whites until just combined. Try not to over-fold the egg whites when adding them. You want them to keep their fluffiness so that your pancakes will also be fluffy!

Add a tiny bit of butter or nonstick cooking spray to your griddle or pan, then pour ~1/3 cup of the batter onto your griddle for each pancake. Once they start to bubble around the edges, you know they are ready to flip!

Plate and drizzle with maple syrup :)

 *****

It was such a beautiful weekend in good ol' Spring Hill. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, especially for taking the pontoon boat out on the flats for a couple of hours.  

*****

 Even though Monday technically isn't the weekend, I was still in Spring Hill working on tons of homework assignments and brainstorming what I was going to bring in for my microbiology lab on fermented foods yesterday. We weren't asked to cook anything, but how could I not??

Bread and dough are fermented due to the use of yeast, which contributes greatly to the flavor and the soft, airy texture that we all love! With my grandpa having everything on hand to make a pizza, I thought that it would be the perfect fermented food to bring in to class.

For some reason though, I couldn't let myself stop there, and I ended up making homemade ricotta too! The end result was a Basil Pesto, Ricotta, & Italian Sausage Pizza. It turned out so yummy!!! It was a perfect fit for my assignment and I think my class really liked it. I can't wait to make it again using whole wheat flour (I have endless amounts of it just waiting to be made into dough.)

I didn't take any pictures, so I'm thinking I will make it again within the next couple of days. Stay tuned for the recipes of the both the pizza and the ricotta! :)