Spinach and Sun-dried Tomato Pancakes

I'm not sure what the tradition is in non-Catholic countries, but in Ireland people traditionally give up things for Lent (the 40-days before Easter) usually food products they enjoy. And so I assume that's where Pancake Tuesday comes from - people using up all their nice cupboard items the day before Lent (butter, eggs, sugar), and coming up with pancakes. Of course, in our consumer age, people go out and buy new ingredients or ready-made pancake mixtures, forgetting that such inventions originally came out of necessity or practicality.

When making vegan pancakes, there isn't really a whole lot to use up. No butter or eggs, and since I'm avoiding refined sugar there's none of that either. I did have a whole bag of baby spinach to use up though. And some white cabbage and stray bits of veg. So, I decided I'd make Spinach Pancakes.

First I blended the spinach with some sun-dried tomatoes and oat milk in a bowl (water is also fine - I used oat milk I made by blending oats and water - simple!). Then I added some wholemeal flour and some solid oats for texture. You want a nice sloppy consistency, so it'll spread on the pan. I fried up my pancakes and kept them warm in the oven, then served them with a sort of creamy topping, made thusly:

I fried up some cabbage, garlic, a bit of onion and some capers. As I went along I threw in some spinach I had left, as well as a bucket-load of nutritional yeast and Frank's Hot Sauce. Also, more sun-dried tomatoes and the oil that they come in. The nutritional yeast makes a nice creamy sauce with the oil (I normally add it late in the cooking process as heating it too high can kill off some of the vitamins it contains). I also threw in good few spoonfuls of soy yoghurt and grated a small amount of carrot in, but that's just what I had at hand. Any small amounts of tasty veg will go nicely in this. Throw a generous helping of the sauce on top of the pancakes and dress with some grated carrot, capers, spring onion and a sun-dried tomato.

Get it into ya.

- Dara