Tempeh Bacon and Subpar Pumpkin Pancakes

I have been wanting to make pumpkin pancakes and tempeh bacon for months now. I typically wake up early and go into work on the weekends so I haven't had the opportunity to do this. If I didn't go to work then I was out of pumpkin or tempeh. I purposely stayed home yesterday morning to make pumpkin pancakes and tempeh bacon. The bacon was pretty tasty however the pancakes were reminiscent of a crappy pie I made a few weeks ago...subpar.

marinating tempeh...(new band name??)

The bacon...
I will start with the bacon because I was proud of how this turned out. I bought Lightlife Soy Tempeh
and cut in small, thin strips. I added it to a pan with olive oil, liquid smoke, tamari, garlic and pepper. I let the tempeh and marinade hang out for a bit and turned the tempeh over a few times to allow both sides to be coated.  Once the pancakes were declared a disaster, the same griddle was scraped off in preparation to cook the bacon. I poured a lil olive oil on the griddle and placed the bacon strips on the griddle about 3 minutes on each side. It crisped right up, just like bacon without the fear, death, misery or saturated fat (if you need a personal reason to refrain from killing animals for food when it isn't necessary).

tempeh bacon with tolerable pancake

We loved the bacon so much that we enjoyed it again for dinner in a sauteed veggie sandwich. I added kale, green onions, mustard greens, mushrooms, nutritional yeast, garlic and then lemon juice and zest to a pan. Once mixed and warm, we placed on toasted bread with tempeh bacon. Damn that was a good sandwich. No pictures, I ate it too fast.

The pancakes...
The pancakes were made from a box mix (first mistake). I asked Elena to prepare the flax egg that she KNOWS is one tablespoon of flax seed and 4 tablespoons of hot water. I am not sure what she was thinking though because her flax egg was a some flax and some cold water. Oh well, I used it anyway (second mistake). I added canned pumpkin to this mix which changed the consistency so I added more milk to thin it out (third mistake). Needless to say, I should have made the pancake batter from scratch instead of saving time with a mix. For some odd reason, two or three of them turned out while the remainder made a huge globby mess.

Big globby pancake mess

Jason was incredibly supportive as I beat myself up over crappy pancakes. Thanks cutie! I will just have to try again if I can ever stay home again on the weekend.

To experimenting and trying again,
Christy