This Saturday is going to be my first ever experience of watching cricket live (well, at all). Duncan, who is a cricket obsessed Aussie boy, has been looking forward to this match for over a year. Him and his friend managed to get tickets and I was chuffed for them. Unfortunately, his friend Adam has bailed on him less then a month before the event and no other cricket obsessed friend could make it at such short notice!
I really felt for poor Duncan, he was crestfallen, so I sheepishly volunteered my humble company…I said that as long as I can bring a picnic and read a book, I will come. Duncan said yes and only then he informed me that the match could potentially last 8 hours (I mean EIGHT HOURS!!!) and there is a chance that a ball can go into the crowd and I might get hit. Thanks a bunch, Adam!!! Duncan was a bit hurt by the fact that I said that 8 hours is taking the piss, but I am like ‘Duncan, 8 hours of anything is just way too long’. Don’t get me wrong, when we first met I did make an effort to learn more about this interesting game of standing around and bowling at each others’ heads (that’s what it looks like to me anyway), but the impossibility of understanding this game quickly became clear. Everything seems to be called a ‘wicket’!! I stopped trying after that and just got used to seeing cricket trivia on my phone (we share a Google account). So anyway, we are going and it’s meant to be fairly warm, so, perfect picnic weather. I am also bringing a book and the Saturday Guardian as I intend to catch up on my reading, apparently it is the done thing so it’s all within the rules, right? I shall report back next week… So that’s our main weekend plan. On Sunday, we might treat ourselves to pancakes as we have not had any in a very long time. I’ve been tracking my food in a bid to correct my excessive snacking and emotional eating and it made me more aware of unwanted calories, so in the past two weeks I’ve been quite restrained. For breakfast, I would have a skinny (half water, half almond milk) oatmeal with strawberries and a smidge of maple syrup instead of lashings of maple syrup and a generous sprinkling of chopped nuts. While it’s been good to be good for a while and I can already see the results on the scales, I have a hankering for a stack of hot pancakes with a mountain of strawberries and that’s what I’m having this weekend. My tracking app won’t be happy, but I sure will be! It is sometimes worth breaking the rules to stick to the rules, am I right? Well, that’s my ‘dieting’ philosophy anyway 😛 – total deprivation has never really brought about any lasting change.
fresh fruit chopped nuts of choice thick vegan yogurt, to serve (optional)
title: “Vegan Buckwheat Pancakes” ShowToc: true date: “2024-10-20” author: “Elizabeth Rodriquez”
Who doesn’t like a breakfast in bed? Sometimes, when I’m feeling generous and when I somehow manage to drag myself out of the bed early (which is very rare as my sleeping skills are legendary), I make us breakfast and bring it to bed.
There is something nice about waking up to a smell of coffee and a lovingly prepared breakfast. In a bid to encourage you to do the same for your other half, I put together a quick pancake recipe that is both vegan and gluten-free. The vegan buckwheat pancake batter is made up of buckwheat flour, which despite its misleading name has nothing to do with wheat and it is 100% gluten free. You should be able to find one in a health store and possibly even in other shops as with so many people being intolerant to gluten these days, loads of shops carry an array of gluten-free products. Don’t worry if it’s a mission impossible though as making your own flour from buckwheat is super easy and quick. What you want to buy is raw buckwheat (as opposed to an already roasted one, often referred to as ‘kasha’). Have a look at my photo below – the grains are mostly pale brown with a few greenish ones thrown in. That’s what raw buckwheat looks like. The other type, kasha or kasza (it’s very popular in my homeland, Poland), looks similar but the grains are dark brown. It tastes much stronger and while it’s super healthy and suitable for other uses, it would be overpowering in pancakes. So once you get hold of raw buckwheat, dust your coffee grinder off and grind for a few seconds until you transform it into a flour. It happens really quickly as unroasted buckwheat is fairly soft. Pancakes are one of many possible uses for raw buckwheat and I’ll be sharing some more buckwheat recipes with you soon. This recipe is dedicated to my friend, Elie, who has recently discovered that she has several food intolerances, poor thing, and is going through a tough time at the moment. She has asked me to come up with gluten-free cupcakes, but that’s still work in progress and I am hoping to buy myself more time by giving her a recipe for a tasty gluten-free brekkie instead:).
maple syrup seasonal fruit chopped almonds
