Paleo Bacon Maple Kumara Pancakes

Paleo Bacon Maple Kumara Pancakes

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These are.. so very good.

Ingredients

(Makes 1)

To Make the Pancake

·         The flesh of one baked medium Kumara (Sweet Potato)

·         2 eggs

·         2 Tbsp coconut milk (optional)

·         Pinch of salt

·         2 tsp coconut oil

Other Ingredients

·         2 rashers of streaky bacon (I used Havoc free range)

·         1 banana

·         Maple syrup to taste

·         Whipped coconut cream

This yummy meal requires a bit of multi-tasking and pre-prep! Firstly, you want a pre-baked kumara.  Best to have one left over from the night before. 

The bacon also, requires your attention.  Generally I put that on to grill, and check it periodically while the pancake is cooking and I’m whipping the coconut cream.  Once the bacon is crispy, you can stick it in the warming drawer until everything else is ready to go.

The coconut cream can either be straight from the can, or can be whipped like regular cream.  There are many techniques for this, which can be found online. The best is to keep a can of coconut MILK upside down overnight in the fridge. Next day, pour off the watery stuff, then whip the condensed coconut milk with an electric whisk. Half a tsp of malt vinegar helps the process. It generally does not need any sweetener as coconut milk is naturally sweet.

In a bowl, mash the kumara flesh, eggs, coconut milk (if you are using it) and salt with a fork until everything is combined.  You can also use a food processor for this step.

Melt the coconut oil in a non-stick pan and pour the batter in there.  When you can easily lift the edges, flip it. The idea is a slightly golden pancake that is cooked all the way through. Kumara pancakes do stay quite soft.

Assembly

Lay the pancake on a plate

Cut the banana lengthwise and assemble this on half the pancake

Put the bacon over the banana

Fold

Pour maple syrup over the top and add a dollop of coconut cream

Devour

Smile a slow smile of intense happiness and go on to have the best day of your life.

Failure, Glorious Failure

If there's one thing I learned from ol' Stuie, it's the absolute ok-ness of accepting, acknowledging and even embracing ones failings as a human being, even while working to overcome them.

It's ok. Everyone is messed up. No biggie.

For example, I've just started the post-semester cleaning mission and realised, yet again, that I'm kind of deficient at maintaining household organisation.  My offices are pedantically neat and orderly, but in the living areas, stuff tends to pile up.

My kitchen table is still covered in work and study stuff and there is usually a wet cat on the clean, warm-from-the-dryer washing.

In theory, I could be moved.  I guess you just need to ask yourself how much you value your hand.

It's not entirely my fault.  The kitch is being pulled apart right now because the council sent a nice letter telling me that the fire is 15 years old and no longer legal. The logical thing is to install a wetback at the same time as replacing the fire with a more planet friendly one.

This requires removing walls and finding alternate places to stash the sheets and so on (see first pic).

So, there's that.  I'll never be a satisfactory housewife.  *shrugs* I'm sure there are worse things. :D

Also, for the second time, today I failed at coconut whipped cream. Other bloggers make this look easy, so please head over to Angela's tutorial to see how this 'should' go.

To set the tone, I started by opening the wrong end of the can.

Then the right end.  I scooped the still solid coconut cream into the processor, then spent 20 minutes emptying the kitchen cupboards looking for the beater attachments.

Which, as it turns out, were not up to the job.

Should have let the coconut cream warm up a bit first? Impatience only leads to breaking things.

I dove back into the alternate universe of my under-bench spaces and eventually located old faithful.

This beater is at least as old as me. It's viciously quaint and lacks modern devices like an automatic kill switch. A few years ago I was holding the beater part in my hand while fiddling with the buttons in a 'hmmm, I wonder what this switch does?' manner.

WRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

That would have been quite funny if it hadn't stung so badly and left me with fat fingers for a week.

Even under the onslaught of old faithful, my coconut cream never got further than this sad mess:

I'm doing something wrong.  Can someone enlighten me? Vegan readers, I'm sure you know the magic trick that makes it work. Save me, please.

I hope your weekend is going fabulously.  Here it's grey and rainy but the office is warm and I'm browsing flight prices.... ;)  I predict some adventure in my near future.