Recipe of the Month: Chick Pea Pancakes

I discovered this month's recipe while doing my daily walk-and-watch exercises (which I've started doing for at least a short spell after most meals to help keep my blood sugar down). I came upon a video titled "$25. One week. 21 VEGAN meals," which was exactly what you'd expect from the title: vegan YouTuber Merle O'Neal attempting to cook for a whole week on a $25 budget. Naturally, this piqued my interest, since it combines three things I love: plant-based food, saving money, and a good challenge. 

So I watched the video and made mental notes about which dishes looked the most appealing as potential future Recipes of the Month. I ruled out some, like the potato cheese, because they didn't contain enough veggies (no, potatoes are not a veggie, no matter what your school cafeteria says) and others, like the tomato confit, because they were too similar to something we already make (the roasted tomato pasta from The Clueless Vegetarian). Of the remaining dishes, the one I found most intriguing was something O'Neal called a "chick pea flour omelette," which she described as high-fiber, high-protein, and pretty simple to make. And I also knew we happened to have some chick pea flour in the pantry, so we wouldn't even have to take the extra step of grinding up the chick peas.

O'Neal had thoughtfully provided links to all the recipes below the video (except for a couple that she typed out in full), so I clicked the link for the "omelette," which took me to a recipe on The Hidden Veggies. And for a change, Brian followed this recipe exactly, with no tweaks. It calls for a quarter-cup of "vegetables of choice," so he threw in a bit of broccoli and red bell pepper. He also made a second batch in which he doubled the veggie additions to half a cup to give it a bit more body. 

First things first: Neither of these versions looked or tasted even remotely like an omelette. They were more similar to our homemade veggie cakes (originally based on the spinach pancake recipe from Snack Girl, but we now make them with all sorts of veggies). I would say the one made strictly according to the recipe, with just a quarter-cup of vegetables, was much less successful than the one with the extra veggie boost. It was sort of doughy and didn't seem to have cooked all the way through. The double-veggie version was firmer and crisped up much better. As for the flavor, not surprisingly, it tasted mostly of chick peas, which is a perfectly fine flavor, but a trifle bland. I think it could have used a bit more salt and nutritional yeast than the recipe called for, along with maybe some spice (garlic? Pepper? Cumin?) to punch it up a bit. 

All in all, I'd say this isn't a great recipe, but it has potential. Brian says if he were to try it again, he'd want to make it "as an adjunct to something" rather than a stand-alone dish. For instance, maybe the cakes could replace the rice as an accompaniment to a stir-fry, or maybe instead of forming the batter into pancakes, he could make balls to add protein to a pasta dish. It's worth experimenting with a bit more, but it's unlikely to become a staple meal in its current form.