Saturday is a special day for us: it is our only day off in the week and we like it being a family day. That is why I like making a nice pancake breakfast on Saturdays.

Last Saturday we had a feast of mainly homegrown yummies on the table: Bunya nut pancakes, Yakon and Passionfruit jam, raw cream, avocado chocolate mousse and bananas.

Bunya nut pancakes, avocado chocolate mousse, raw cream and a little dollop of yakon & passionfruit jam

BUNYA NUT PANCAKES:

Bunya nut season was a couple of months ago. Bunya nuts only grow in a small area in Queensland, and we are lucky enough to be right in the middle of it! We boiled and froze about 20 kilos worth (our neighbour has some trees and doesn’t use the nuts, so we get to harvest them. Our bunya trees are too small to fruit, we need to give them another 10 years or so…) and we dried around 3 kilos. I use the frozen ones for a simple pancake recipe:

Put a couple of handfuls of frozen Bunya nuts, 6 eggs and around 400ml of buttermilk (from this week’s butter making) into a heavy duty blender (I use the Vitamix, never regretted buying that one, it is fantastic!). Blend the ingredients in short bursts until it has become a nice and smooth batter. Heat a pan over medium heat and melt some ghee (see recipe below) in the hot pan. Pour some batter in the pan, enough to form pikelets or a little larger (big pancakes have trouble being turned over). Bake until almost dry on top, then turn around. Bake the other side. Put on plate close to stove so they keep warm whilst you cook the others.

AVOCADO CHOCOLATE MOUSSE:

We were given about 20 kilos of avocadoes by an avocado growing ex-PDC student of Tom’s who lives close by (thanks Sara, they’re awesome!). One of my favourite ways to eat avocado is to turn it into chocolate mousse. Again I use my Vitamix blender for this:

Scoop the flesh from 2 – 3 avocadoes into the blender. Add 1 heaped Tbs of raw cacao, a small handful of cacao nibs (optional) and around 1/2 cup of coconut palm sugar (or other sugar of your liking. I like the coconut palm sugar because it is low GI) Add a splash of vanilla essence and pour in enough water to cover ingredients. Blend in short bursts, some more water may need to be added to ensure the mousse draws down and is properly blended. Pour into a bowl or jug (depending on thickness, we like ours pretty thick, so a bowl is better) and serve.

RAW CREAM:

Raw cream from the cow. Our cream yesterday was a little sour due to our fridge not keeping up with cooling. That made the cream nice and thick, with a little tang, which is quite pleasant. Raw cream still has all the good bacteria in it, so we received an extra boost of probiotics as a bonus…

YAKON & PASSIONFRUIT JAM:

We had an abundant harvest of passionfruit and some yakon was also dug up. I decided to make a Yakon and Passionfruit jam, since there was too much to eat whole.

I peeled the yakon, washed it and chopped it in pieces. I put it into the Vitamix blender and blender it with a small amount (maybe half a cup) of water to draw it down. I poured it into a large saucepan. I had around 3 blenders full of yakon. Then I cut the passionfruit (about 5kg worth including the skin) and scooped the fruit out, into the saucepan with the blended yakon. I put it on the stove and brought it to a gentle boil. Some scum floated to the top which I scooped off. I turned down the heat and let it simmer, stirring occasionally. The mix was simmering the whole day, reducing it down. Towards the evening I tasted the jam and found it a bit too tart, so I added around 250 grams of Rapadura sugar to it to sweeten it a bit more. It simmered some more whilst stirring on occasion. When finished I turned off the heat, boiled some old jam jars in boiling water and poured the jam into the jars. The jars were sealed and left to sit overnight. This process needs to be done when it is hot, so it cools down while in the jar. This vacuum seals the jam so it will keep longer. We had some with our pancakes the next day. It is still a tart jam, but I think that was because of the enormous amount of passionfruit we had…

GHEE:

Make butter as per butter making recipe, put butter into a small saucepan. Heat the butter over gentle heat. When all the butter is melted, take the pan off the heat and let it cool down. Then use a tablespoon to scoop the scum off the top and discard the scum. Gently pour the clear yellow liquid into a container. Some impurities may still be on the bottom, run the liquid through a piece of cheesecloth and squeeze out the ghee. The impurities should stay behind in the cheesecloth. The ghee will harden when put in the fridge. As far as I know, ghee and coconut oil are the only 2 oils that do not go toxic in high temperatures…

Everyone’s garden is different, due to taste and climate, but please do not be afraid to experiment with what is in season in your area, eg replace the bunya nuts by nuts or seeds that grow in your area.

We added some homegrown bananas to our Saturday pancake breakfast, with our chocolate mousse, cream and jam. Although the breakfast was not completely homegrown, step by step we are getting closer to totally eating from our own garden!