Food for (yummy) thought

Question of the day: What do you do with leftover rice?? 

Make rice pudding? Eat it with whatever else you cooked it with? Throw it away?

This morning, I opened the fridge to look for something resembling breakfast for Little Man and I, and what do I see? A big container of brown rice, leftover from dinner two nights ago. At that moment, I happen to remember seeing a recipe for Brown Rice Pancakes in my King Arthur Whole Grain Baking cookbook. I was intrigued.

As it just so happened, I had (almost) all the ingredients! :) and per usual, I made lots of substitutions. After all, recipes are more like guidelines than actual rules (Pirates of the Caribbean reference). Here is the actual recipe, with my modest substitutes:

Brown Rice Pancakes by King Arthur Flour

4 eggs

1/4 cup buttermilk (I used homemade yogurt)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter (I used coconut oil)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon grated orange or lemon zest (I used a splash of OJ since I didn't have any citrus on hand)

1 cup cooked brown rice

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt and ground nutmeg

Pinch of cinnamon

Beat the eggs in a medium bowl and whisk in the buttermilk, melted butter, vanilla, and zest. Stir in brown rice. 

Combine the four, sugar, salt, and spices.  Stir them into the wet ingredients until just mixed, and let sit for 10 minutes before making the pancakes.

Heat a nonstick griddle if you have one.  When the surface of your pan is hot, spoon the batter into the pan, 1/4 cupful at a time.  These pancakes set up pretty quickly, but don't really bubble as they cook.  As soon as they start to look set, flip them and bake until golden brown.  Be sure to check the first pancake you make for salt content; depending on how you've prepared the rice, you may need to adjust the salt in the batter.  Serve the pancakes immediately (really good with maple syrup!).  

Side 1, set up...

Flipped

My impression of these pancakes: don't call them pancakes, the texture is waaay off.  They are really more like Brown Rice Breakfast Cakes.  However, I thought they were very tasty!  Little Man gobbled them up (once I started feeding him; he is such a pokey little eater sometimes).  Will I make them again?  Probably, when I have more brown rice.  With a little maple syrup, I can see this being a good breakfast 1 1/2 to 2 hours before a run or race.  Enough complex carbs for sustained energy, but the maple syrup adds some simple carbs for fast energy when you need it in the morning.  Plus, they hold up enough to travel well.

My kind of breakfast!