I'm still mentally stretched out on a chaise lounge in the backyard, the sun warming my knees. My book's open in the overgrown grass next to me where it fell out of my hand when I last dozed off. And the ice is slowly melting in the glass of freshly squeezed imaginary lemonade on the little iron side table next to me.
You probably don't observe the holiday in your house, but here May means Trina Appreciation Month where my birthday is followed by Mothers Day and then warm weather and barbecues and picnics, so I'm trying very hard to shake off the pampered fog and get my head around to writing something. I was thinking, maybe something about pancakes - meyer lemon pancakes with cashew ricotta and berries? With your own mother to celebrate this Sunday, I thought you might need an edible "I love you and I think you're great." That's what meyer lemon pancakes with cashew ricotta and berries are - a hug and a kind word - that you can eat. Here's the recipe:
Meyer Lemon Pancakes
Makes about 40 3-inch pancakes, or less if you like them bigger.
- 1 meyer lemon
- 2 cups soy milk (a little less actually, see below)
- 2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 cup melted non-dairy butter
Zest lemon into a large bowl. Squeeze two tablespoons of juice into a large measuring cup. (If you have a medium-sized lemon it will probably yield about 2 tablespoons of juice - a little more or a little less is fine. If it's a very large lemon, then measure out the juice and save the rest to make cashew ricotta.) Add enough soy milk to the lemon juice to make two cups. Set aside to curdle and thicken.
Add the dry ingredients to the zest and whisk to combine. Make a well in the center and add the rest of the ingredients. With dainty little strokes, whisk together the wet stuff in the middle and then mix the whole thing together to make a smooth-ish batter (a few lumps are okay and much preferable to over mixing).
Heat a griddle over lowish medium and brush with more melted butter or oil. For small pancakes, pour a couple tablespoons of batter onto the hot griddle, or for larger, pour out 1/4 cup pools. When the edges are dry and bubbles have formed and popped, flip and cook on the other side. Repeat.
Serve with berries - whatever sort you can get. Though I know it's early, I was gifted some black berries (probably from the wilds of Costco) so we used those, but fresh strawberries or defrosted blueberries would be good too. To turn black berries or raspberries into a pancake topping without cooking them into a syrup, I sprinkle them with a bit of sugar, smash a few against the side of the bowl, stir, and let sit while I make pancakes. The juice from the crushed berries will melt the sugar and give you a bit of fresh syrup.
And I highly recommend a good dollop of cashew ricotta.
