Pumpkin Pancakes (Lakota Puree)

The Lakota Pumpkin that I pureed earlier this month yielded four cups. I froze two bags of 2 cups each and a separate cup for lasagna, then I had a cup left over. “Puree” is not quite right, I roasted and smashed it instead of using a blender, and I refuse to put it through a screen because I need the fiber, but that’s too many words.

Pancakes. I love buttermilk pancakes. I don’t make them often enough, but since they’re normally just sugar and white flour I have a hard time justifying them. But I had a birthday, and Mr Radish’s promise that he would wash all the dishes later, and “pumpkin is healthy”. I made buttermilk pancakes and dropped some pumpkin in them, using this random food blog recipe as a sort of guide.

Not really a puree, but who cares: Look how cool the liquid mixture looks!

I am against “pumpkin spice”[sic] as a cultural phenomenon, but I advocate using pumpkin pie spices in recipes that contain actual pumpkin. Load them all up!

But for this project, I used Lebkuchengewürz, a spice mix used in German/Austrian Christmas baking. The two mixtures are not the same (I have started a treatise, I will finish it in December), but I need to use up my stash so I can buy more next October at the Kirchweihdult from the traveling spice merchant.

I ignored “whole wheat flour” because I didn’t have any, and instead threw in half a packet of ground almonds leftover from Christmas baking that fell on my head while I was searching the cupboard for the baking powder. The batter was very lumpy.

But it worked out OK on my griddle (which is a “crepes pan,” but crepes are just tasteless limp omelets, and I refuse to make them).

This recipe made a lot more than my usual buttermilk pancake recipe; we ate them (with scrambled eggs) for three lunches. They were extremely tasty with butter and maple syrup, but they were mushy in the middle. Maybe I could have cooked them longer; maybe it was the ground almonds. Either way, I kept the recipe for next year. They’d probably be really good with coarsely chopped walnuts.

And yes, if you were wondering, Mr Radish did wash up all the dishes while I sat on the couch with FUZZ. Couldn’t ask for a better birthday lunch.