My 2 Ingredient Sweet Potato Breakfast Pancakes (Gluten & Grain Free)

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Earth Bunny Recipe Sweet Potato Pancakes

Gluten & grain free breakfasts can be challenging and uninspiring so I love simple recipes that can become the foundations for endless fun experiments in the kitchen. A simple culinary idea works perfectly on it’s own, but can be added to, to make new variations  – Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations (the basis of Vulcan philosophy of course!)

These pancakes first came about last year, I was still on Slimming World and I had started to cut grains out of my diet to alleviate my various stomach woes. Like any sane person I love pancakes and I love American style breakfasts (possibly more than a good old full English Breakfast, controversial I know!) So I was experimenting to create a ‘syn free’, grain, and gluten free pancake recipe and after a bit of trail and error I came up with these little beauts!

They’re a lot like American pancakes, ‘hot cakes’ or English ‘drop scones’. Thick, slightly stodgy pancakes, as opposed to thin crepes, perfect comfort food. Quick and easy to make and they keep for about 3 days in the fridge so it’s easy to make a big batch that will get you through the first half of the week.

Basic Sweet Potato Pancake Recipe

  • 1 medium sized sweet potato (approx 250g)
  • 3 eggs

How to make them

  • Stab your sweet potato with a knife several times (with plenty of glee and malice and maniacal laughter) and then microwave on full for 5 mins, or until it’s very well cooked and soft and squishy. Or cut it up and boil it until very soft.
  • Cut it into chunks and allow it to cool (you don’t want the hot potato to scramble your egg!)
  • Leave the skin on the sweet potato for extra fibre, or peel it if you don’t like the skins.
  • Crack your eggs straight into your food processor or blender.
  • Add your cooked Sweet Potato and whizz it all up until it’s smooth!
  • Your pancake batter should be about the consistency of cake batter when finished. (It will vary depending on the size of your Sweet Potato, if its reeeally thick and not pourable, add another egg!).  If you left the skin on you will have some small pieces of skin in the mix but these just adds a bit of texture!
  • If you don’t have a food processor or blender, mash the cooked sweet potato flesh thoroughly with a potato masher (leave out the skin) and mix it together with the eggs in a mixing bowl (with a whisk if you have one!).
  • To cook, heat a frying pan with butter, oil or cooking spray (or nothing if you have a good non-stick pan) and spoon little pools of pancake batter onto the pan….or just cover the whole of the pan with batter and make one huuuge pancake. Cook until the side touching the pan is golden brown, then flip the pancakes with a spatula and cook the other side! Voila! Pancakes in your belly!

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Additional Tasty Ingredients to Try

  • 1 pinch of Cinnamon
  • 1 pinch of Nutmeg
  • 1 pinch of dried Ginger
  • 2 tbsp Cocoa Powder (chocolate pancakes!)
  • Chocolate chips (you know you want to!)
  • Chopped Nuts
  • Bacon pieces (drooool)
  • 1 tsp Honey or Maple syrup

(These are entirely optional things that you can add to your wet pancake batter, I like to play with my food and try new things!)


Awesome Pancake Toppings

  • Dairy free chocolate syrup (as shown) -  Just 1 tbsp honey, or agave or maple syrup & 1 tbsp cocoa powder melted together!
  • Banana (as shown)
  • Lemon or orange juice & sugar
  • Maple syrup & crispy bacon
  • PB&J or Nut butter & homemade jam/jelly
  • Icecream (!)
  • Nutella…or homemade chocolate spread
  • Chopped cooked Mushrooms & cream cheese
  • Greek yoghurt & blueberries…or any berries!

Shelf Life
3 days in the fridge.

Freezable?
I have tested freezing both the cooked pancakes and the batter with good results. Once you have defrosted the cooked pancakes, put them in a hot frying pan again to warm and crisp up, otherwise they’re a bit flabby.

Have fun experimenting with all the infinite combinations and let me know if you try anything new!

x Charlotte

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Earth Bunny experiment – does Acupuncture improve your health?

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AcupuncturePinUpCharlotteThomsonMorley

I’m a Fox Mulder “I want to believe’  when it comes to alternative therapies, I’m skeptical but I like to approach everything with an open mind. Health is high on the agenda in our house at the moment, it has been for some time but now, more so than ever! I suffer from PCOS so I’ve spent most of my life battling to alleviate my symptoms and balance my hormones in order to have a body that functions within normal parameters (as Spock might say).

I recently gave up grains (which has helped no end), removed chemicals from my beauty regime (no shampoo!) and cleaning regime (dirty house!). I’ve spent 2 weeks without booze and caffeine (though I’ve never been a big drinker of either) and have cut down my sugar and sweetener intake and processed food. The next step seemed to be something more drastic and my extensive research showed that Acupuncture shows a lot of positive results in regulating hormones and female fertility.

So naturally I asked for a few recommendations which led me to Acupuncture in Nottingham (aka Lindsay Lukehurst)! Lindsay has 25 years experience and practices her own tried and tested mixture of Traditional Chinese Acupuncture (TCM) and the even more ancient Five Element method of Acupuncture, so I had complete faith in her!

Last night was my first session, a 2 hour incredibly thorough consultation which my husband attended with me.  Lindsay was wonderful and put us at ease throughout the health questions (none of which my GP or doctors have ever asked!) and some more holistic questions. Within an hour she had 2 pages of handwritten notes which she then used to devise my first treatment.

Up on the trolley bed I went, skirt hitched up as needles in my legs and feet were a key part of the treatment. She took my pulse from various parts of my wrist and then we were ready for needles! I wasn’t sure what to expect but Lindsay warned me before she put each needle in so I was prepared. It was a bit ouchy,  it felt a lot more like a needle being jabbed into me than I expected it would (daft right?)
But once they were in, the sensation changed!

Each needle was placed on a pressure point, three in each foot, one in each knee and one over each ovary. Once they were in place I began to feel a warm sensation beneath each one, which became – what I can only describe as a small ball of tingling energy, I didn’t expect to feel anything quite so dramatic!

The needles were left in place for around 20 minutes, during which time we chatted (no cringey whale music thankfully!). In the last few minutes my legs suddenly felt like lead, but this subsided once the needles were removed and I could barely feel them being taken out.  Acupuncture requires a course of regular treatment to be effective, so we booked another session in a weeks time and I left feeling warm, positive and uplifted.

We arrived home and I felt fine but different in a way I couldn’t pin point. I had a bite to eat (I have to keep my blood sugar steady) and about an hour and a half later went to bed. That’s when it hit me, the strangest feeling, dizziness like the room spinning fast, but no nausea, like energy rushing around my body.  It subsided with a bit of yogic breathing. I have since read that this is quite common and possibly a good sign!

Today I’ve been hyper aware of the points where she placed the needles on my abdomen, like a dull ache, certainly not pain from the needle pricks, a deeper feeling, but my legs and feet feel normal. I don’t know what to make of any of this so time will tell! It was a fascinating experience and I look forward to seeing what effect is has over the next few months!

x Charlotte

If you’re interested in Acupuncture for pain relief, fertility or other problems check out Linsday’s website

I’d also like to add a little disclaimer that the sketch is for illustration purposes only, I was in no way a human porcupine in a bikini! ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by the words – evocative song lyrics

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The moon over Arches National Park – the kind of landscape that might inspire you to dance barefoot…

Inspiration strikes at the strangest times, a song you’ve heard a thousand times can suddenly take on new meaning and form new imagery in your head which just cries out to become a painting!

I always find music a great place for inspiration, I’m always inspired by characters and there are so many fantastic characters that are painted with music and words.  There are the more obvious ones like the femme fatales of songs like Dollys Parton’s ‘Jolene’ or Elivis’ ‘Marie’ in His Latest Flame, but there are more fleeting ones too.

My latest inspiration came from one of my favourite Creedence Clearwater Revival songs ‘Green River’, a song we turned up very loud during our US road trip in 2012 whilst driving along the river itself (it is pretty green by the way!) Listening to it transports me back to that day, which is rather lovely on a miserable, grey drizzly Nottingham commute.

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The wide open road in the USA, this is what I dream of on a grey day driving to work in the East Midlands!

The inspiration struck from a single line in the song, one that hadn’t really registered in my mind before:-

“barefoot girl, dancing in the moonlight”

What a wonderfully evocative image! Sketchbook and pencils at the ready!

A peek inside my Sketchbook

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There’s nothing I love more than having a nosey into another persons sketchbook. I love seeing how they put things together on a page, the materials they use, the construction lines and the techniques they use in their rawest form!

So here’s a few pages from mine…although strictly speaking not any single sketchbook as my ‘sketchbook’ is a thousand pieces of loose paper, and a dozens of different sketchbooks scattered around the studio.

Most of these didn’t amount to much, but you might notice an early concept for my ‘Nouveau Love’ digikit for CraftArtist (One of the kits I showed off on Create&Craft shopping channel!) There are also some very early concepts for my Christmas card designs and a bit of Neil Gaiman fan art thrown in for good measure! Anything to keep the creative juices flowing!

I mostly sketch in pencils (2h, 2b and 6b) and marker pens (Sharpies mainly but anything lying about) but some of these have watercolors added aswell.

Charlotte x

Becoming a more Mindful Crafter

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Charlotte Thomson-Morley

As creatives and crafters I find it’s really easy to get swept up with hoarding and buying the latest greatest artsy craftsy thing. My studio room is filled with mountains and mountains of paper, paints, brushes punches, card blanks, envelopes, cellophanes …and more paper! We would often joke about the ‘rainforests’ worth of watercolour paper and pads alone that I get through & stash away.

A couple of years ago that started to really bug me, it started to really play on my conscience. Surely if I do this then everyone else with a creative inclination does too, and that adds up to a lot of ‘rainforests’!

So I have begun to look into becoming a carefree creative, a crafter with conscience, an artist with ethics…or an ‘Earth Bunny‘ as I like to call it! It’s an interesting journey so far!

I’m researching sources of responsible, sustainable, and where possible, chemical free, paper & paints.  I’m researching sustainable, fair-trade pencils and cruelty free paintbrushes (just think about where those sable brushes have come from!). I’m looking into how toxic our marker pens and inks are, and looking into alternatives. I’m getting samples, looking carefully at suppliers and testing everything rigorously. Eventually I hope to stock my discoveries in my online shop, but that’s a long way off.

Nottingham Lace

‘Nottingham Lace’ – My limited edition screenprint – printed with water based inks onto recycled board by PrintShop 19
Buy this on my Shop Page

This website Eco-Craft  has been a godsend for my craft projects so far and supplied the card for my last batch of Limited Edition screen prints, which were printed using eco-friendly water based inks by Print Shop 19. I’ve already started to produce my art prints and printed greetings cards onto recycled paper and have begun using biodegradable cellophane bags to sell and display them in. I’m still experimenting with the best white card for printing digital craft projects at home (watch this space).

I’ve got a long way to go and there’s a lot of contradictory information and a lot of strong opinions to wade through, but in life all we can do is approach all our endeavors with the very best intentions! I’ll keep you posted! ……….Wish me luck!

x

Charlotte T-M

 

What’s an Earth Bunny?
A person with a big heart, who cares about the world and wants to change their own life to make it a better place.