walnut and orange buckwheat pancakes (eggless)

the more i blog, the more i say to myself, 'this is turning into a breakfast blog by the minute'. while i do love dinner, i don't necessarily enjoy lunch. but well, who really likes to eat by themselves in a giant cube maze? i mean, you can't even crunch a potato chip or a carrot stick without people snickering and asking 'what you munchin' on?' .

if you go out, everybody and their mother wants to place an order like you're their personal admin and then not give you enough money to cover their bill on top of that. then you might say, well get your ass over to the cafeteria. then i would tell you there is no cafeteria. what there is, is a dark and damp storage room that houses a microwave and a dirty fridge and of course the favorite water cooler. but i won't even get into that now. the gross fridge is a post all of its own. and so is the water cooler. and so is the storage room come to think of it. do you know how many times rude people just leave the water bottle empty for the next person? that is so not cool.

well, you must know by now that i loves me a hot cup of tea in the mornings and something warm and toasty on the weekends. isn't there something nostalgic about being able to lazily take the time to actually crush the ginger into the water and letting it steep instead of making it half assed like on the weekdays? i love mornings, i really do, but having to go to work really messes it up for me. so on the weekends, i purposely take my sweet time and actually think before i make something instead of just grabbing the first thing thats dunkable for my tea.

usually i do prefer savory over sweet in the mornings, but sometimes you just want pancakes. i like to make my own because they're so easy, it's quite silly really and they just taste so much better because you can make so many combinations. i have made pineapple, dried cherries & pecans pancakes when i was craving a pineapple upside down cake one time. that was pretty awesome. another time i made one with banana and cocoa nibs - that was pretty awesome. sometimes i just keep it simple and grate some lemon zest and add blueberries. that's always good. i've even added grated carrots and walnuts in order to satiate a carrot cake craving. too bad i didn't have cream cheese frosting! oh man, that would've been killer.

so it's pretty straightforward and simple - make your favorite buckwheat pancake batter (use a box mix if you're not so keen on making your own) but substitute half the amount of milk with fresh orange juice. then add some grated orange zest and chopped pecans. and fold into the batter. no need to whip it and beat it up. this is a batter, be delicate or it will be tough chewin' for you.

Notes: i don't use eggs in my baking, so depending on what i'm preparing, i will substitute using Ener-G egg replacer which is basically potato starch (so don't use this if you're cooking for strict Jains). sometimes i just use applesauce. other times i use sour cream, which works really well but adds unnecessary calories. sometimes, i don't use anything and just add more liquid. you know, just wing it like i do.