Cooking with Kids: Green Pancakes and Green Eggs

It doesn't have to be St. Patrick's Day to serve these charming green pancakes and bright green scrambled eggs. You can add a touch of bright spring colour to any breakfast or brunch with these little jewels (no artificial colours used here, and the pancakes can be made gluten-free and dairy-free, too). (Skip to recipes.)

Yes, I know this post is too late for St. Patrick's Day this year, but hey - it's good and early for next year! Gotta look on the bright side.

The sun is warming on our skin, and it feels like spring is sneaking around the corner and peeking into our snow-filled yard to see when she can make her entrance. So these green pancakes and emerald-toned eggs are a fitting feast for the season. A great, sneaky bonus is that no artificial colour is needed for a beautiful shamrock-green hue: a handful of spinach whizzed into the pancake batter and the beaten eggs easily turns it all bright and verdant while only adding a faint herbal note to both.

Cooking with Meredith

Meredith requested breakfast for dinner when she came to cook with me last week, so in the interest of the approaching St. Paddy's Day, we came up with a bright green breakfast variation of our favourite meal. We had a blast and cooked up a proper green storm. However, life and work intervened, as it is wont to do, and here I am getting this post out much too late for a any kind of a St. Patrick's Day breakfast. I think there must have been some little trickster leprechauns cavorting around here, preventing me from getting my work done. And what can I say? I'm a sucker for any form of procrastination, especially if it's of the leprechaun persuasion.

So these green pancakes and eggs will do fantastic double-duty as a celebration-of-spring kind of dish, too.

To go with our bright green pancakes, we whipped up a batch of greener-than-green scrambled eggs. The colour might give you a jolt, but the flavour is fantastic; light and creamy eggs that taste just like . . . . eggs! A handful of spinach adds only its verdant hue (and a sneaky bit of extra nutrition) but doesn't mess with the glorious flavour of perfect eggs.

So Let's Get Cracking! Green Eggs and Green Pancakes Galore!

First you whiz up the spinach with the milk to make the pancakes. Watch it turn kelly green in the blender. Then toss in the rest of the wet ingredients.

Whisk up the dry ingredients and pour that lovely green stuff in.

Look at that batter! Any leprechaun would be proud.

Pour little plops of green into a hot skillet and turn 'em when they're brown.

They're ready for tasting.

We also made up one variation with mint and chocolate chips - they're delicious to eat just out of hand, but Meredith and I decided we liked the plain green ones better for eating with maple syrup, green eggs, and bacon.

For the eggs, you start the same way; whiz up a good handful of spinach with 2 of the eggs, break the rest of the eggs into a bowl, then whisk in the green eggs. (If you blend them all, you can over-beat them and they won't be as light and fluffy.)

Cook the green eggs in butter in a skillet over low heat, stirring constantly, until they are just cooked but still soft, moist, and buttery.

You'll have eggs that any leprechaun would be happy to snitch.

* * * * *

Kitchen Frau Notes: If the eggs or pancakes are too green for you liking, just toss a few spinach leaves into the blender with the milk or eggs. Whiz them up and keep adding a few more until the shade is right for you. They'll lighten up when mixed with the other ingredients, then get a bit more intense again when you cook them.

I've made the eggs and the pancakes both with cooked spinach and fresh spinach. They turn out well both ways, but the green colour is a much more bright when you use the fresh spinach.

We also tried a mint chocolate chip batch of the pancakes by adding fresh mint leaves to the spinach and stirring in a handful of chocolate chips at the end; they are very tasty, but we preferred the plain green ones for eating as a meal. The mint chocolate chip pancakes are great for eating out of hand as a snack.

Green Pancakes

• 1½ cups flour (or 200 grams/ 7 oz. gluten free all-purpose flour blend)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ cups (360ml) milk or non-dairy milk alternative
• 1 cup of packed fresh spinach leaves (50gms) or ¼ cup of thawed, squeezed frozen spinach or squeezed cooked spinach
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 large egg
• oil, butter, or cooking oil spray for cooking the pancakes

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.

Put the milk and the spinach into the canister of a blender. Whiz it until the mixture is a smooth, bright green and you no longer see any little green specks whirling around. Add the vinegar, oil, and egg, and whiz for another 2 or 3 seconds.

Pour the green mixture into the flour mixture and stir it together with a whisk just until everything is moistened and there are no more lumps.

Heat a skillet over medium heat and coat it with oil, butter, or cooking oil spray. Ladle the batter into the skillet in ¼-cup amounts to make 4-inch (10cm) pancakes. Cook one side until golden brown, then carefully flip the pancakes and cook the other side.

Makes 12 green pancakes (4"/10cm diameter).

*For a Mint Chocolate Chip version of green pancakes, add ¼ cup of packed fresh mint leaves to the spinach in the blender and stir in ¼ cup of chocolate chips just before cooking them.

* * * * *

Scrambled Green Eggs

• 8 large eggs
• 1 cup of packed fresh spinach leaves (50gms) or ¼ cup of thawed, squeezed frozen spinach or squeezed cooked spinach
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter
• optional: 1 tablespoon chopped dill or parsley

In a blender combine the spinach with 2 of the eggs. Whiz it until the mixture is a smooth, bright green and you no longer see any little green specks whirling around.

In a separate bowl, whisk the rest of the eggs with the salt and the pepper. Pour in the green eggs and whisk them together just til combined. (Over-beating makes for less tender eggs.) Or you can add the eggs, salt, and pepper to the blender, but only pulse it quickly a few times to just blend them all together.

Heat the butter in a skillet over medium-low heat until it is melted. Pour in the green eggs and leave to cook, undisturbed, for about one minute. Then stir the eggs with a silicone spatula, scraping evenly across the bottom of the skillet. Continue to cook the eggs, stirring them constantly, until they are creamy and cooked, but still moist. Sprinkle with fresh herbs if desired.

Serves 3 to 4.

Guten Appetit!

 

For more fun cooking projects to make with kids, see the ‘Cooking With Kids’ series here.

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