Veni, Vidi, Vici - Ingredient No.4

   This one is out there, I'm not gonna lie! I've seen in on TV and I've heard about it for years, but I never though of using it myself... until this New Year resolution thing! Flour made out of crickets, or if you prefer more detailed description - pressure cooked crickets ground into a dust! Who is in?

   If you are still reading it, that means you are genuinely interested in my experience with the cricket flour, so here it is. The flour itself is a little bit denser and a little "coarser" than a regular flour, and has some kind of smell to it! I can't tell you if it smells good or bad...it just smells, lets leave it at that! It's also quite dark (see pic.). I saw recipes for muffins, cakes, cupcakes, but somehow I thought pancakes would be the easiest, the quickest and with only few ingredients we had a better chance to really taste the cricket flour. I chose ricotta pancakes, because I never made them before and also I thought that crickets might need some "carrier protein" to help out!

Ingredients:

* 1 cup cricket flour
* 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 cup ricotta cheese
* 2 eggs
* 3/4 cup milk
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 2 tbsp sugar
* 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 
* zest from one lemon
* pinch of salt 
* cooking spray

Directions:

1. Combine flours, sugar, salt and baking powder in a bowl and mix together.

2. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, ricotta, milk, vanilla extract and lemon zest and whisk everything until smooth.

3. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix everything until combined.

4. Heat the pan on a medium heat, spray with a cooking spray, pour the batter (1/4 cup) in the middle of the pan and cook couple minutes on each side.

5. Best served with maple syrup, lemon juice and almonds.

   So here are the pancakes, looking good, but before I tell you how they tasted, you need to know that my husband, who refused to try them, ended up eating three of them in one sitting! Also, all my coworkers (well, all, but one) tried them... and some of them even took a second bite! I am surrounded by brave people! Oh and my son ate it too... but let's be honest, he had no idea what he is eating (not that knowing about crickets would stop him!).

   Anyways, going back to the taste... the best way to describe them is that they have this "healthy taste", if that's even a thing! They are dark, dense and everybody swore that they could feel some minor crunchiness (yikes!). They have a nutty (almost naughty) taste and smell, but turns out that if you smother them in syrup and lemon juice... you can barely notice it anymore. In conclusion, as the title suggest... it's a kind of thing that you want to try at least once, to either concur your fears or to satisfy your curiosity, but somehow I am not planning on making more of those.

Enjoy,
Magda