Lonesome Whistle Stacks Up

Hazelnut Banana Oat Pancakes

You know of my fondness for the Lane County Farmers Market and its vendors. Summer is an embarrassment of riches on market day, yet my simple soul deeply loves the winter market. The subtle shades of lavender, white, dusky green and soft gold produce remind me of the quiet rest the natural world takes while it still manages to supply all that is needed. The uncrowded sidewalk gives this introvert lots of breathing room and I return home invigorated rather than spent.

What I most appreciate is that fewer vendors and less bustle offer more opportunity to get to know each of them and really understand their products and special vibe. 

Last Saturday I spent an inordinate amount of time and blew quite a bit of my wad at the pretty little Lonesome Whistle Farm booth. Polenta, rolled oats, various legumes, grains and flours, pasta, and uniquely flavored super-delicious popped corn are their jam, and they do it so well. This farm is 20 miles away from my home, well within my preferred 100-mile sourcing radius. And their name. Can't you just hear the plaintive whistle coming from a faraway field?   

We came away with 5-pound bags of rolled oats and polenta, and a bag each of spicy kettle corn, Indian-spiced popcorn, and their clever lavender-lemon popcorn. It tastes like a summer day in Provence.

Polenta, greens, and pork are a classis combination, and that's what we cooked when we returned from the market. In true leaf-to-root fashion, the turnip greens were washed, coarsely sliced, and sautéed in olive oil, garlic, and Aleppo pepper flakes and served atop the creamy polenta. I especially loved the wholegrain red pericarp in with
the yellow starchier bits.

I had one of my 3 a.m. breakfast inspirations, and couldn't wait for daylight to break. Hazelnut banana oat pancakes were adapted from Julie at The Simple Veganista. (Almonds and almond milk are a no for me, so I made substitutions, scaled the recipe up to have weekday leftovers, and made a one-bowl easy clean-up recipe.) The pancakes turned out beautifully; very moist without any gumminess, nutty and earthy without any heaviness, and wildly delicious. The pancakes we didn't eat were stored in the fridge, and warmed to perfection in the toaster oven for grab-and-go breakfasts.

Hazelnut Flour Banana Pancakes
Makes 14-18 pancakes

3 ripe bananas
1 1/2 cups rice, hazelnut, oat, or almond milk (more or less if your bananas are small or large)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup hazelnut flour
1 cup oat flour (grind rolled oats in your food processor or blender)
2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
1 Tablespoon flaxseed meal
1 teaspoon finely ground sea salt
coconut oil for your skillet

Grind your oats in a food processor until flour/meal consistency. Take your time and pulse often. Dump the oat flour out into a plate.

Give the bananas a few whacks with your fist before peeling them, then peel and drop them into the food processor. Pulse a few times to begin breaking them up, then add the milk and vanilla and pulse a few times more. You're looking for not quite smooth and not quite chunky texture.

Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture in the processor, and pulse several times until it's completely mixed. You don't have to worry about gluten formation with these ingredients, and won't end up with tough pancakes if you overmix, like overmixing would do to a wheat flour- based batter.

Heat your skillet or griddle to medium and melt in some coconut oil (or other favorite oil.) Cook until browned on one side and flip. Brown the other side and make sure they are cooked through. Serve with blueberry compote as I did here, maple syrup, jams, or skillet-caramelized bananas, Foster-style.