Bean pancakes with buckwheat flour and a fruit-vegetable salad

For many of us, fruits are probably associated with desserts while we think of vegetables in more savoury contexts. But have you ever tried a smoothie that had vegetables in it? Combining fruits and vegetables is actually very common in world cuisine. In Scandinavia, cranberry jams are used as side dishes during meals, while in France such sauces are combined with cheese. Hungarians are known to add sugar to salads, while anyone who likes Indian food will have already encountered chutneys and curries from things like mango and pineapple. And we can’t forget the most argued about food of all time: Hawaiian pizza.

For today’s lunch, we also decided to try to mix up our combinations a bit, by creating a salad with apples, cucumber, pineapple, and celery. For our main course, we made bean pancakes with buckwheat flour.


Recipe, preparation, and cost

 

Quantity

(g or ml)

Price for 4 person (EUR)

Main dish

Buckwheat flour

155

0,62

Beans

380

0,93

Flax flour

20

0,08

Salt

4

0,00

Coconut oil

50

0,20

Side dish

Peppers

64

0,16

Eggplant

8

0,02

Olive oil

8

0,05

Salad

Pineapple

200

0,46

Apple

240

0,37

Stem celery

200

1,42

Cucumber

300

1,09

Together

5,41

 

 

We began by preparing our pancake batter, which we made by mixing canned beans (along with their liquid), buckwheat and flax flour, and water. First, we blended up the beans and their liquid; to this, you could add some garlic, salt, pepper, or any other seasoning to taste. We then added the buckwheat and flax flours. If you have flax seeds at home but no flour, you can grind the seeds up with the beans. We then left the mixture to sit while we prepared the salad. 

For the salad, all the ingredients were cut up and mixed together in a bowl, where we then added some almonds to give a nice crunch and some black cumin to taste. Even though it has the word “cumin” in the name, black cumin is in a different genus than regular cumin (Cuminum cyminum) and has a different taste. In fact, black cumin may refer to two plants, both of which are used as spices and both of which have very different culinary attributes: Nigella sativa and Bunium bulbocastanum. When the salad was done, we started baking pancakes.

Once the pancakes were cooked, they can have a variety of spreads used on them, or vegetables. We had a canned sauce on hand that we used, but cooking up eggplant and red pepper together in olive oil can make a great sauce! We also added green mustard shoots (Sinapis alba) to our dish to add a fresh hit.

As you’ve probably noticed, we at Hungry Pumpkin are not only hungry, but also curious (curious pumpkin doesn’t sound as good for a blog name though) and always wanting to try out new ideas and combinations. Though we managed to make vegan and gluten-free pancakes with beans in them, this recipe still needs some work. For those of you not intolerant to gluten, adding some in would likely be a great way to help your pancakes hold together, as ours were prone to tearing. We tried to keep them small and thick though and this helped with the problem. In addition to playing with the composition, various fresh herbs such as basil, chives, or parsley can be added to enhance the flavour. If you want a really treat, try making savoury pancakes with curry! Yummy! The point is, don’t be afraid to experiment and see what you come up with. Sometimes it may have your whole family asking to order take out, but others you may find a new favourite dish or alteration to an existing meal. 

The price of today’s lunch for 4 people came out to 5.41€, which is 1.35€ per person. This is slightly above the average price for our lunches, with the most expensive ingredients being the celery and the cucumber as they were not in season. These could be substituted for cheaper alternatives. 


Nutritional value

With lunch consumed quantity

% From daily needs

Energy

500,96

kcal

25,00

Proteins

15,01

g

26,80

Total fats

18,79

g

42,70

Carbohydrates

73,72

g

 

Starch

38,05

g

 

Sugar

16,37

g

 

Fibers

18,83

g

75,30

Calcium (Ca)

138,49

mg

13,80

Iron (Fe)

4,68

mg

46,80

Magnesium (Mg)

194,42

mg

48,60

Phosphorus (P)

341,06

mg

48,70

Potassium (K)

1026,39

mg

51,30

Sodium (Na)

436,94

mg

79,40

Zinc (Zn)

2,70

mg

27,00

Copper (Cu)

0,57

mg

63,10

Manganese (Mn)

1,56

mg

68,00

Selenium (Se)

6,76

µg

13,50

Vitamin A

18,92

µg

1,90

Vitamin E

0,73

mg

4,90

Vitamin D

0,00

µg

0,00

Vitamin C

38,94

mg

38,90

Thiamin (B1)

0,52

mg

39,90

Riboflavin (B2)

0,21

mg

14,10

Niacin (B3)

3,55

mg

24,50

Pantothenic acid (B5)

0,85

mg

14,20

Vitamin B6

0,52

mg

34,30

Folic acid (B9)

195,68

µg

48,90

Vitamin B12

0,00

µg

0,00

Vitamin K

26,31

µg

37,60

 

With today’s lunch we consumed 25% of our daily calorie requirements and almost 27% of our protein requirements. Most of the protein was contributed by the beans (almost 8 g per person) but the buckwheat also played a large role (almost 5 g per person). We also managed to ingest lots of fibre, iron, magnesium, calcium, and folic acid, getting over 40% of our daily needs. As you can see in the table though, some of our vitamins and minerals fell short of our 25% daily requirement goal for the meal. This goal is used so that each nutrient would be consumed in at least equal measure to the daily percentage of calories we consumed, which is 25%. Most of these nutrients can be easily replaced in other meals. The only exception are vitamins D and B12, which cannot really be found in a vegan diet and thus require vitamin supplements. Our table does not give the daily percentage for carbohydrates or starches because the differences between individuals are very dependent on the other nutrients consumed. We do not need free sugar in our diet and thus the minimum amount we need to consume is 0 g; this does not mean that any sugar is unhealthy, but when we exceed about 50 g it begins to be excessive. 

If you have questions about today’s lunch (or ideas for future lunches) then feel free to write to us at hungry.pumpkin.blog@gmail.com and we will get back to you!

Have a great weekend!

-The Hungry Pumpkin Team

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