Wow, Hallowenn already! Time flies. Feels like last Halloween was only yesterday. Even though this spooky holiday is not as big around here yet, as it is in the English-speaking parts of the world, it already made it into the rank of the well-loved traditions of the darker half of the year.

I remember the first time I went trick-or-treating ever with a couple of my friends we had a rather hard time. Instead of already being expected by our neighbours with buckets full of sweets, we were asked to clarify, why we rang the people out of their TV-comfy-mode at this time of day (or night…) and why we were all dressed up as witches or some other scary creature and what we actually wanted of them anyway. Most of those who opened the door were nice enough to go find whatever sweets they happened to have in their goodie-drawer and handed them over (or else, we would play tricks on them, hah! ;–)), while others were just shaking their heads, not really getting what we were explaining and closing the door with a “we aren’t buying anything”-look in their faces. I suppose that was some 15 years ago.

Times change. Now I am one of the neighbours giving out sweets to all the little vampires, pirates, ghosts and witches that live around here. Last year we even had some rather grown-up trick-or-treaters that seemed to think you can never be to old to get yourself some candy. Unfortunately our supply was completely used up, but grown-up as they were, they also accepted a bottle beer each ;–)

Our probably funniest trick-or-treating-moment was two years ago. A gorgeous little group of spooky kids found their way to our door and happily spoke their phrase with a confident sweets-expecting grin, when my husband walked out the door, equally happily saying: Happy Halloween! and spontaneously presenting to them not chocolate, not candy, no! Behold: a huge bag of lovely organic potatoes! ;–D You should have seen the dramatic change in their cute little faces! The reactions were so readable in their looks and ranged from “does he mean it?” to “this guy is SO weird…” to “is that maybe candy-potatoe?” to “is that what they give kids in Brazil?” (my husband is Brazilian). After a moment of suppressed laughter I declared that he was only joking and of course we had loads of sweets for them. Well, they did NOT find it funny. No big smiles after that. Just quickly grabbing a handfull each, respectfully saying their thank-yous and off they went. Nevertheless, my husband did have a good laugh, even though he is probably known now as the weird Brazilian potato-guy or something…

 

Anyways, I am a friend of Halloween and find it a great way to bring more fun and magic moments to our lives. It is my intention to also make this a special day for my little boy. Starting right at breakfast this morning with a yummy, scary, spooky pancake-castle that inhabits a rather eerie crowd of ghosts.

I have been making pancakes for my son at an age when other mothers would serve pureed food – which I tried too. However, he didn’t really agree with this kind of food. So, creative as a mom gets when trying to nurture her baby, I turned all the thoughtfully prepared and frozen little portions of pureed fruit and vegetables into baby’s favourite by transforming them to pancakes! He loved holding his own food and having something to actually bite and chew on (even without teeth).

It is so easy to make and so handy too as it is portable food that doesn’t leave stains all over the place :–) As he grew older and his digestive system was able to handle more “complicated” food, I started to play around with all different kinds of (wholesome) flours and also included nuts and seeds as well as cheese for a savoury snack.

Don’t get me wrong. This is so much more than just baby food! It is also very amazing mom&dad-food! I started making them just for my son, but when I realised how good they actually are, they quickly turned into breakfast/snack for the whole family :–)

Each time I make those pancakes now, they turn out a bit different, as I normally don’t work with a recipe. Just grab the flour that you have sitting in your pantry, the fruit that’s looking at you from over on the counter or the vege that is begging to be used up… Get creative ;–)

Below you find two of our absolute favourites as a basic guide line, along with some other recommendable suggestions for ingredient-combinations.

Blueberry-coconut-banana-pancakes

Ingredients:
(1 cup holds 250 ml)

• 1 cup (200 g) blueberries (fresh or frozen)
• 1/2 cup (105 g / 1 big) banana
• 1/2 cup (36 g) fine coconut flakes
• 1 cup (110 g) (whole meal) spelt flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 egg (also works without egg for all of you vegans)
• dash of salt

Directions:

1. Pour everything into your smoothy-maker/blender/food processor and process until smooth and runny.
2. Put a frying pan on high heat, add a few drops of oil and pour in a heaped tbsp of batter per pancake. You might want to help spread the batter a bit with your spoon. It is important that the pan is very hot before you start pancaking.The heat is our friend and makes sure that the pancakes don’t stick to the pan. Then turn to medium-high and give them a couple of minutes on each side, until golden.
3. Continue until batter is used up and serve with your favourite pancake fixings such as my BBMo-jam, honey, yoghurt…

Carrot-zucchini-apple-banana-pancake

Ingredients:

• 20 g carrot
• 70 g zucchini
• 80 g banana
• 120 g apple
• 100 g (whole meal) spelt flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• dash of salt
• 1 medium sized egg (approx. 50 g)

Directions:

1. Finely mash up banana with a fork
2. Finely grate apple (if for baby peel first), zucchini (unpeeled) and carrot (unpeeled) and add into a bowl with the banana and all other ingredients. (You could just blend it all up like in the recipe above, but sometimes I prefer the mouthfeel of somewhat bigger pieces of  fruits/veges in my pancakes.)
3. Stir well and continue as explained above.

Here some more flavour-combinations for inspiration. The possibilities are sheer endless! I found that all batters work with or without egg, especially if you keep them small. I had some trouble flipping over big eggless pancakes. But I believe a tbsp of added ground flax seed would work well here as binding agent.

• steamed/baked/cooked, pureed red beet + banana + lemon zest + ground poppy seed + flour of choice
• pureed tomato + basil&oregano + flour of choice + parmesan
• pureed mixed berries (put some aside to mix in just before frying) + banana + vanilla + flour of choice
• steamed, pureed spinach + banana + cocoa + ground (pea)nuts + flour of choice
• steamed, pureed spinach + crumbled goats cheese + rosemary&thyme + flour of choice

Have fun experimenting!