Dairy Free Soft And Fluffy Blueberry Pancakes

January 2023. New Year's morning. Ozoni. The seventh year. The seventh bowl. The dashi made from memory, the miso dissolved by instinct, the mochi grilled by feel. The soup is Fumiko's and mine, the way the chipped bowl is Fumiko's and mine, the way the grief is Fumiko's and mine — she gave it to me when she died, the grief, the same way she gave me the bowls and the recipes and the tamagoyaki pan, and I carry it all, the love and the loss, in the same hands that hold the bowl, and the hands are steady.

Miya ate her ozoni and said, "Oishii," and the word was both Japanese and personal, both a language and a love letter, both a sound and a bridge between a great-grandmother she never met and a six-year-old sitting at a table in Portland eating New Year's soup that tastes like Sacramento and Japan and all the women who came before.

I have a resolution for 2023: no resolution. No improvement plan. No list of things to fix or achieve or become. I am, for the first time in my adult life, not trying to become something. I am being something. The being is the achievement. The miso soup is the resolution. The practice is the plan. I will make miso soup every morning. I will write every week. I will teach yoga. I will raise Miya. I will visit Ken. I will endure. The enduring is not a resolution. The enduring is the family. The family is the practice. The practice is the life.

The blog started the year with sixteen thousand readers. I did not celebrate the number. I made miso soup. The two are not in competition. The miso soup is the thing. The sixteen thousand people are reading about the thing. The thing comes first. The audience follows. Fumiko's kitchen did not have an audience. Fumiko's kitchen had me. One audience member. The recipes survived. The audience will take care of itself.

Ozoni is the New Year’s bowl — the one you make from memory, the one that carries everyone who taught you. But the practice doesn’t end on January first. It continues every morning in whatever you set in front of the people you love, and on the Saturday after that quiet New Year’s Day, Miya asked for pancakes the way she always does — not with urgency, just with certainty, the way children ask for things they know will come. These dairy-free blueberry pancakes are the weekday-morning version of that same intention: soft, unhurried, made by hands that know what they’re doing, for someone who will say “oishii” and mean it as a complete sentence.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4 (about 10 pancakes)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/4 cups oat milk (or unsweetened almond milk), room temperature
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons refined coconut oil, melted and slightly cooled
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (do not thaw if frozen)
Coconut oil or neutral oil, for the pan

Instructions

Make the dairy-free buttermilk. Stir the apple cider vinegar into the oat milk and let it sit for 5 minutes. It will thicken slightly and look a little curdled — that’s exactly right.
Whisk the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until evenly combined.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, whisk the egg into the oat milk mixture, then whisk in the melted coconut oil and vanilla extract.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined. A few lumps are fine and preferred — overmixing toughens the pancakes. Let the batter rest for 3 to 5 minutes while the pan heats.
Heat the pan. Warm a large nonstick skillet or griddle over medium heat. Brush lightly with coconut oil. The pan is ready when a drop of water skips and evaporates immediately.
Cook the pancakes. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto the pan. Scatter 6 to 8 blueberries over the top of each one. Cook until bubbles form across the surface and the edges look set, about 2 to 3 minutes. Flip and cook until the underside is golden, 1 to 2 minutes more. Adjust heat as needed — every pan is different.
Keep warm and serve. Transfer finished pancakes to a plate tented with foil, or keep them in a 200°F oven while you cook the remaining batter. Serve with maple syrup, extra fresh blueberries, or a dusting of powdered sugar.

Nutrition (per serving)

Dairy Free Soft And Fluffy Blueberry Pancakes — The Morning Practice That Holds Us