lemon & rhubarb cornmeal pancakes

I just spent a lovely weekend in the Windy City with a dear friend (Who says 'dear friend'? What is this, my memoir from the 1850's?!) from college.  It was so great to catch up  together, but even better that we caught up while cooking up a storm! It's pretty special that that's all it took to make it an enjoyable weekend. We endeavored to make ourselves dessert my first night in town, and it turned out that was a very good call. Later we shared cake with some other pals from college on the beach. It was pretty danged ideal.

We even made dinner -- a vegan feast from a cookbook that has never let my friend down: hominy, tomatillo, and squash stew with ginger-lime tofu "cream" on top and lime-marinated cucumber spears served with tortilla chips. It was so good that I had to take a picture of it!

Apologies for the grainy photo; I only had our tiny old point and shoot with me.

But this post is about pancakes. I know, I know, I've posted pancake recipes before, but you should all know by now that pancake-making is serious biz in this home. This variation was a joint innovation by my husband and me. I think the texture of these pancakes were perfect and that's why I liked them so much. I also liked that it used up the rest of the cooked rhubarb that we had sitting around. I also liked eating them at room temperature on the 7AM bus to Chicago the next day. I think the guy sitting next to me had a hard time hiding the shocked look on his face when I pulled a bag of pancakes out of my purse. Be prepared, dude-man. I suppose he was never a scout.

Lemon & Rhubarb Cornmeal Pancakes

recipe by TofuSurprise

1 c. all-purpose unbleached flour

3 T. corn starch

4 T. cornmeal

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1/2 c. cooked & sweetened rhubarb (leftovers from making rhubarb syrup)

zest of one small lemon

1 egg

3/4 c. milk + 1 T. lemon juice, whisked together (or 3/4 c. buttermilk if you've got it)

2 T. unsalted butter, melted

1 t. vanilla

1/4 c. milk

mascarpone cheese (optional)

fresh strawberries, sliced (optional)

maple syrup (THE REAL DEAL PEOPLE!)

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl, mix with zest.

2. Combine all wet ingredients in another bowl.

3. Add ~ 1 cup of wet ingredients to Magic Bullet and blend with the rhubarb. Return to the bowl with the rest of the wet ingredients.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

5. Preheat oven to 200 F with a cookie sheet inside of it.

6. Preheat a griddle to medium heat.

7. Add ~1/4 to ~1/3 cup of batter to the griddle (should fit 4 pancakes). Cook until edges look a bit dry and popped bubbles do not refill with batter (no more than 2 minutes).

8. Flip pancakes, cook 45-60 seconds.

9. Place finished pancakes in the oven as they are ready to keep them warm. Now you can serve all of them at the same time! Yay!

10. Assemble pancakes with mascarpone cheese and sliced strawberries and drizzle with maple syrup. Or whatever suits your fancy I suppose. Pancakes!!!

rigatoni with mascarpone & almonds

I have a guilty pleasure, and its name is mascarpone cheese. Okay, and lattes made with sweetened condensed milk, fine. Basically, whenever my husband is working in the lab and I'm out at the grocery store, I buy it (and illicitly grab a fancy coffee too from time to time). I never really know what I'm really going to do with it, but I want it. As it turns out, it is quite tasty on pancakes or on toasted crusty bread with honey. But I always have vague recollections of recipes that call for it, and for some reason I think that sounds fancy and good.

When the huzz is off at the lab, I also tend to get more gourmet-y than usual while making dinner. This way, he doesn't have to put up with any spectacular kitchen fails and I can go nuts with new recipes. One of these last times I had a) bought mascarpone (natch), and b) my friend from work had brought in a ton of beautiful, curly parsley for the taking so as to not waste it all in the first frost of the year, and had just so happened to grab a bunch. I found this recipe by the good people of Cook's Illustrated and it was a done deal.

Rigatoni with Mascarpone & Almonds

(adapted from "Fettucine with Mascarpone and Walnuts", in The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles)

1 c. roasted almonds

salt

1 lb. rigatoni

2 T. unsalted butter, softened

1/4 lb. mascarpone cheese

1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese

medium bag of spinach

2 T. minced fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

ground black pepper

1. Bring 4 qt. of water to a boil in a large pot for cooking the pasta.

2. Grind up the nuts in a food processor (I suggest the Magic Bullet for these little jobs) to whatever sized bits you prefer. I had a range from nearly almond butter dust up to halves.

3. Wilt the spinach and set it aside.

4. Add 1 T. salt and the pasta to the boiling water. Cook until al dente. Reserave 1/2 c. of the cooking water; drain the pasta and put it back in the cooking pot. Mix in the butter, mascarpone, Parmesan, almonds, spinach, parsley, salt, and peppet to taste.

5. Add enough of the reserved cooking liquid to keep the mixture moist (the mascarpone will melt and disappear).

***And also, if you are not familiar with America's Test Kitchen, get off of my silly little blog and get on over to the Cook's Illustrated website. It's cooking for scientists! Or rather, it is cooking... with the scientific method! I love it! I like that they provide little essays on why their recipe works the best with their variables and results, it is so wonderful and nerdy. I recently saw that they are publishing a Soups & Stews cookbook, and I am pretty close to going back on my no-more-new-cookbooks! policy. Now if they just come out with a veggie-friendly cookbook (not likely), I would be way more likely to never ever buy a cookbook again.