Someone once said, we are all creative beings. That person went even further: She said if one doesn’t create, she becomes a menace to society.
So, I finally tuned out the news and social threads about what is going on and started to tap into my creative side again. God, I had to detox from the news - if just for a day.
I looked into my fridge and pantry. There were a couple of potatoes, my homemade sour cream made of cashews from a month ago and frozen blueberries. And I always have ginger to cut the sweet from the blueberries.
For some crazy reason, I was craving potato pancakes, latkes, jun - whatever you want to call them.
I had a savory pancake mix from 2014. It was probably going to expire like never. Given all the hoarding and scarcity at the supermarkets, I sometimes think of this widow visited by biblical Elijah during a famine. I think it was a famine. Alright, I won’t be too lazy - I will have to google her story to jog my Sabbath school memories. (Nominal Seventh Day Adventist). Well, with this staying home, everyday is the Sabbath. But I think I made the pharisees mad cooking a lot on the sabbath.
Anyway, prophet Elijah is called to see this “Gentile woman of a foreign land.” He’s hungry and she has only a handful of flour, a bit of oil and one roll of toilet paper. Imagine how annoyed she is with this stranger who knocks on her door. But she’s less grumpy as he’s just a prophet and not a census taker. The widow had already filled the census electronically which only reminded her that the household was minus one, thanks to the husband who croaked too early.
Sometimes I offset my anxiety during this crazy time with a dark sense of humor. I think I’m this widow of Zarephath saying something morbid like “I am gathering sticks to make this last meal for me and my son so we can then just die.”
This sense of humor makes me thrilled to find a pack of flour with baking powder — and no son or offspring whatsoever. Yes, I try to be gluten-free, but sometimes, I just need to eat what’s available.
I took 2 small potatoes and made them into fine matchsticks with a mandoline.
Then I took 180 mLs of this un-expired savory pancake mix and made a runny batter by adding 300 mLs of water.
I spritzed the frying pan with avocado oil and set it to warm on the range.
With a spoon, I shaped 4 round latke-like molds and flattened them onto the frying pan.
Ever so gently, I poured a thin amount of the batter over each “pancake.”
I flip them over when one side is crispy brown.
Then I lay them on a dish. I top each one with a scoop out of the homemade cashew/sour cream.
Instead of applesauce, I use the frozen blueberries, some grated ginger and whiz them into a little blender.
Add salt and pepper onto the latkes/pancakes/jun. And there you have it — a savory, crunchy, yummy potato treat with a ginger-y blueberry sauce. The ginger offsets not only the sweetness of the berries, but the oily texture of the potatoes.
So yummy, if Elijah were to stop by, he’d hunker down here too. But he’d have to have God bring more toilet paper if that were the case.