The Real Secret to Ditching Industrialized Food – Forever (Power Pancakes)

4.67 from 3 votes

Annette Cottrell started Sustainable Eats in 2009 as a way to document her “midlife food crisis.” ย She swore to avoid grocery stores for a year in an effort to connect her children with recognizable, local foods — and she hasn’t looked back. ย Her book, The Urban Farm Handbook, just came out last month, and it’s awesome! ย She sent me a copy to check out — it covers everything from gardening to backyard chickens to dairy goats (!), to grinding your own grains. On top of all that, it includes nearly 100 recipes.

Annette has offered up a free copy of her book to one lucky October Unprocessed participant. ย After you read her post, check out the instructions at the end for how to enter the giveaway. (Note: The giveaway has now ended)

You can also find Annette on Facebookย and Twitter.

Sustainable Eats' Garden

I’ve been following Andrew’s blog for a few years now and noted with joy how many people are ready to separate from industrialized food.ย  This is the end of my own third year of feeding my family predominantly local farm or garden fresh food and along the way Iโ€™ve had loads of failures, complete dinnertime meltdowns, a fair bit of family mutiny, and moments where I just wanted to quit.ย  It’s hard.

What I’ve come to realize over time is there are many paths to real food and no one path is right for everyone.

When I ripped out the lawn and planted a year-round garden, I got the attention of my neighbors.ย  People started walking by after dinner, pointing to all the food growing.ย  Cars drove by slowly, amazed at all the produce.ย  So many visitors began coming from other neighborhoods who had heard of this food oasis on a tiny in-city lot that my enterprising son — then but a wee lad of six — began selling tours for $1 a head.ย ย ย  Although this is a great path towards ditching industrialized food, I could easily have found a local CSA or shopped at Farmers’ Markets.

When I sourced local milk and spent hours learning to make my own cheeses I had fun, but I also ended up until 3 am, stirring, timing and flipping the cheese.ย  I lost a lot of it to mold in my wine fridge doubling as cheese cave too until I discovered that you could shrink-wrap it.ย  My family approached each new cheese with trepidation and never totally embraced the whole adventure.ย  So cheesemaking may be a great path for some of you with affordable sources of good quality milk (Iโ€™m looking at you backyard goat keepers!) but it’s not the only path.ย  There are some phenomenal cheeses at the farmerโ€™s markets and some great ones made with local milk you can even purchase from Costco, like Beecherโ€™s (here in Seattle).

Homemade Bloomy-Rind Cheese

When I first got backyard chickens and ducks I was smitten.ย  I found them easier to care for than my dog, albeit slightly less cuddly.ย  The eggs are amazing and I can control what they eat and how many bugs they get (bugs and greens make the healthiest eggs possible).ย  But you can also buy some pretty amazing eggs at the Farmers’ Market so that’s not the only path you could take.

When I decided to never shop at the store again I canned everything in sight.ย  I ended up with my own grocery store down in the basement.ย  Then I realized with remorse I had been so busy canning that I missed the entire summer.ย ย ย  I vowed to freeze, dehydrate and fermentย as much as possible going forwards but since then Iโ€™ve discovered an even easier preservation strategy: simply eating in season.ย  My family is not quite there yet so I still can things like tomatoes that we can’t imagine an entire winter without.ย  But if you were committed to seasonal eating, or didn’t have the time to preserve at all, you could eat very well by dining on winter squashes, potatoes and kale all winter and reserving the fruits of summer for summer.ย  So preserving isn’t the only path either.

When I vowed never to buy meat at a grocery store again, I went in with a few friends and split a grass-fed cow, and a pig.ย  I was there at the farm to observe how the animals live, and I was there for the slaughter to be sure it was not traumatic for the animals.ย  Itโ€™s the only way this ex-vegetarian can stomach meat.ย  Since then I’ve also learned to process chickens that don’t lay (like roosters and old, decrepit hens), and other small backyard animals that I can control the diets and lifestyles of.ย  But there are other paths here too:ย Local legumes and more cheese and eggs.

When I decided to break up with the grocery store I bought a grain mill and ordered bulk grain berries from Bob’s Red Mill (I’ve since found other, more local grain farmers but Bob’s is a great place to start.)ย  I learned to make pancakes and whole wheat breadย that wasn’t a brick, pizza dough and crackers, and how to crack oats and emmer to cook into porridge.ย  I learned how to soak my grains in acidic medium overnight to increase their digestion and make their nutrients more readily available and watched my energy levels increase.ย  I’ve come to appreciate their very distinct flavor profiles. I love knowing that I’m not just eating hard red wheat flour that has been tinkered with for the last hundred years in order to bake a high rising loaf of bread at the expense of nutrition and flavor.ย  And I really love that I’m not feeding my children corn in a thousand disguises and as many brightly colored plastic and cardboard packages.ย  But grinding my own isn’t the only path I could take here either because so many small grist mills are springing up around the country, and it’s increasingly easy to find ground heirloom grain flours (some even grown close to you!)

There isn’t one clear path that you should follow in order to ditch processed foods.ย  The path that’s right for you is the path that is the most do-able, the one that you can sustain long term.

And remember, if the path you choose today doesn’t work, simply choose a different path.ย  Tiny paths covered with many footsteps eventually turn into well-worn roads.

Sustainable Eats' Garden
4.67 from 3 votes

Power Pancakes

By: Annette Cottrell
These pancakes will take a little extra prepping the night before opposed to the opposition of Bisquick but if that time is put in there will not be any regrets in this delicious recipe.
Prep: 6 hours
Cook: 20 minutes
Total: 6 hours 20 minutes
Servings: 14 servings

Ingredients 

Stage 1: Mix and soak for 12-24 hours*

  • 2 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour, from soft wheat, Spelt Flour , and/or Oat Flour
  • 2 cups Buttermilk, preferably home-cultured

Stage 2: When ready to make pancakes

  • 1/4 cup Organic Cane Sugar or Rapadura
  • 2 tsp. Baking Powder
  • 1 tsp. Baking Soda
  • 1/4 tsp. Sea Salt
  • 1/2 cup Virgin Coconut Oil, melted
  • 4 Eggs, preferably pastured or free-range, organic

Instructions 

  • After the overnight soak your grains will be almost gelatinous and difficult to mix the other items into so technique is important here. Mix the leaveners, salt, and sugar together in a small bowl. In a separate small bowl, beat the eggs then add the melted coconut oil in a small stream until they are completely incorporated.
  • Add the content of the sugar bowl to the liquid bowl and mix well.
  • Grease a cast iron griddle with a small amount of coconut oil and heat over medium heat.
  • Finally, make a well in the middle of the soaked grains and stir the liquids and sugar in just until itโ€™s all evenly incorporated. Your leavener will begin to party immediately so leave this step until your griddle is good and hot.
  • Adjust the batter to your thickness preference by adding additional water, milk or flour (some buttermilk is much thicker than others so itโ€™s hard to get a precise recipe for everyone -- plus I grind my own flour and it tends to be fluffier then bagged flour so it measures less.)
  • Once a drop of water sizzles when dropped on the skillet, spread 1/4 to 1/2 cup amounts of batter onto the griddle.
  • If you want to add fruit or cocoa nibs now is the time to do it. You can gently press apple chunks, nuts, berries, or cocoa nibs in at this point.
  • When the edges begin to bubble and the bottoms are brown flip them over and cook for a couple of minutes more.

Notes

* Soak the grains loosly-covered, at room temperature. By soaking overnight, you make the nutrients in the grain more absorbable.

Nutrition

Calories: 179kcal, Carbohydrates: 18g, Protein: 4g, Fat: 10g, Saturated Fat: 7g, Cholesterol: 50mg, Sodium: 185mg, Potassium: 196mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 5g, Vitamin A: 125IU, Calcium: 83mg, Iron: 0.9mg
Like this recipe? Rate and comment below!

Giveaway: The Urban Farm Handbook

Please note, this giveaway has ended!

Want your own copy of The Urban Farm Handbook? ย Just leave a comment on this post (email and RSS readers, click through to the website), and share at least one new thing you’d like to try on your journey of ditching industrialized food. It doesn’t have to be complicated or huge, just a step in the direction that’s right for you.

The fine print: Giveaway ends at 12pm (noon) Pacific, Wednesday, October 19th. Limit one entry per person. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received. No purchase necessary, you’ve just got to leave a comment as described above. After the entry period ends, I’ll use random.org to pick a winner at random, and will email that person directly. She or he will have three (3) days to reply with a shipping address, else I’ll pick another winner. Shipping is limited to U.S. Addresses only. ย Thanks!

A photo of Andrew Wilder leaning into the frame and smiling, hovering over mixing bowls in the kitchen.

Welcome to Eating Rules!

Hi! My name is Andrew Wilder, and I think healthy eating doesnโ€™t have to suck. With just three simple eating rules, we'll kickstart your journey into the delicious and vibrant world of unprocessed food.

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Sharon Wallis
October 16, 2011 8:57 am

I am so glad to have happened across your blog this morning! My family lives in an area blessed with a vibrant local, organic food market. We have a garden, a CSA share, and are easily able to source cheese, bread, and meat from local farmers and artisans. One thing that I would like to move towards is sourcing our grains more locally. We do buy our flour in bulk from the health food store, but it would be nice to support our local bakeries in funding a regional, organic mill. I look forward to exploring your book.

Wendy
October 16, 2011 8:56 am

I’m currently on a quest for local free-range eggs and local milk. Not an easy search! I’m hoping to make my own butter and cottage cheese at least. It’s been a slow road for us, but we’re on it and moving forward! I’d love some new ideas to help us along the path.

Tamara Bannister
October 16, 2011 8:53 am

I’ve made dairy, canned, and baked until the wee hours. I have yet to take the leap and raise livestock, I think I’d like to start with laying hens!

Brenna
October 16, 2011 8:51 am

Wow – I really need to get back on track! Very inspirational piece and comments. When you mentioned “breaking up with my supermarket” It dawned on me, that I really need to do that. I used to go to 2 farmer’s markets a week to get all my produce, and I’m sad to say I haven’t been to one in a month. Hopefully your book will help me choose a path.

October 16, 2011 8:49 am

Thank you for pointing out that there are many paths to better eating. It’s never all or nothing – there are interim steps and compromises to be made along the way. I know I’m not getting backyard chickens unless I also get a divorce, so I buy good eggs from sources I trust. I’m also not ripping up our lawn for garden space without said divorce, thus the farmers market. There’s always a way.

Christy
October 16, 2011 8:44 am

Wow, everything we are striving to become. Can’t wait to read your book!

Jen
October 16, 2011 8:39 am

I also have tilled under my grass and planted a veggie garden. I am now turning more of my small city lot under so I can grow more. I am hooked. I would love to get some ideas from the book!

Laura S.
October 16, 2011 8:35 am

Love what you’re doing. Have had raised bed gardens for 3 years and quit the CSA. Just bought a grass-fed local 1/2 cow this past spring. Get farm brown eggs when I can…need a new contact. Looking to buy organic chickens next. Would love your book. Thanks.

October 16, 2011 8:24 am

We just bought a house and are putting in raised beds, fruit trees, and getting chickens! I’m so excited for backyard eggs. Since we already get a CSA which I am committed to supporting, I also want to learn to preserve our future produce through canning and fermentation. Can’t wait to check out your book whether I win or not!

October 16, 2011 7:58 am

You had me at cheese. I want to make my own, but first need to either join the goat milking cooperative or find a piece of property to raise my own.
Love how your family hesitates, in mine it is three steps forward and one step back in trepidation.
Would love to get your book to let it guide us.

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