Day 1 is here! Day 1 is here! I am so freaking excited to be cooking exclusively from My New Roots and share all my recipes with you. I am so ecstatic to venture outside of my norm as well and try new ingredients I’ve never heard of before. Case in point: Freekah. Has anyone else never heard of it before? I did some reading up on it and it seems to be a super cool little grain. It is made of green wheat, which is roasted and is used most often in middle eastern cooking. What is super cool about it is it has 4x the amount of fibre compared to other grains, and has a low glycemic index. Super neat!
I kicked off the week making Freekah Pancakes with Wilted Swiss Chard – and I threw on some poached eggs (although this is optional vegan friends!) The recipe is found in the My New Roots Cookbook – page 36. The recipe uses an egg to bind it, but I could see it easily being replaced with a flax egg if you are avoiding dairy.
I really enjoyed making it, the recipe was very easy to follow. There was minimal ingredients, and freekah was found easily at my local organic grocery store (bonus: I found it in bulk so I could try a bit of it before investing). I have never really had much success with swiss chard, so I was skeptical, but bought the nicest bunch I could, local and organic as Sarah would have liked. I cooked the freekah in my rice cooker, and it took approximately 15 minutes to cook. The patties were easy to mould, and stayed together in the pan. I think her directions on the egg poaching could have been a bit more thorough. I really like the way she describes the process here.
The taste was great, flavourful and dense with the freekah patty. I even liked the swiss chard on it! The flavors complemented each other well, without being overpowering. I really also loved the runny egg on top. I think for a vegan eater, possibly some avocado on top would be a nice touch!
I did a nutritional analysis of it, found here. Each serving is 370 calories, and is made up of 35.4% fat, 48.7% carbohydrates, and 16% protein (with 16.4 grams each serving) which is a great balanced breakfast. Carbohydrates are great to stock up on for breakfast as they fill the stomach and provide you energy to burn off throughout the day. I felt full and satisfied after this meal.
Overall, I rate this recipe a 35.5 out of 40, see my full analysis below! I really good start to my challenge, and this recipe will work great leftover the next day, I’m going to take it for lunch tomorrow!
Anyone else tried this?! What do you think?
xoxo Hannah