As part of my healthy eating plan, I’ve cut out most of my favorite breakfast foods. I mean, I’m pretty much a sweets breakfast kind of girl. Waffles, muffins, french toast, etc… And yes, pancakes. Which means most days for breakfast, I now have eggs, some kind of grain (like brown rice), and veggie for breakfast. I’ll admit, I’m starting to warm up to the eggs for breakfast thing. I’ve never been much for eggs usually – so it’s a work in progress. But I can see making pancakes like these every so often.

Because I’ve eliminated white flour and sugar from my diet, I had mostly written off most of my favorite breakfast foods. Atleast, I had until I came back from the farmers market last Saturday to Miss Thing having some kind of meltdown because she wanted Mr. Man to take her out for Pancakes. Apparently there’d been this whole thing where she was really in the mood for pancakes, and had been thinking about it all day. The dietary changes have been hard for her to accept – we all have had to make sacrifices. Most days are fine, but this one wasn’t really one of them. She didn’t end up getting her pancakes, through a combination of poor behavior, lack of available breakfast joints (it was 3PM), and my lack of desire to drive further than -/+ a mile. However, the next day as a sort of peace-making enterprise, I decided to get up the next morning and attempt a whole wheat pancake.

What I ended up with turned out to be pretty good. I looked at a few different recipes online, trying to find a recipe that fit my needs – ultimately, I ended up mashing together a few different recipes to come up with my own version. However, these should be considered a first-pass. Don’t get me wrong, they’re pretty good – but Mr. Man and I were talking, we have a few ideas on how to improve them, so there will probably be a Whole Wheat Pancakes Version 2 before long.

For those who are interested in keeping up with my progress, I’ve lost twenty-four pounds, and I think it’s finally starting to get better. I still have to force myself to get on the treadmill in the morning, but once I’m on and going it’s been good, and meals are getting easier. I even went out to eat a couple of times recently. I’m starting to learn where my limits are.  With my restricted carb intake, these pancakes are definitely not an every day event – but as a once in a while treat, it’s nice. They were more satisfying and filling than conventional pancakes. I had them for a ‘dessert’ after a breakfast of eggs, bacon and veggies, and they even went over well with Miss Thing, who usually turns her nose up at whole wheat things.

Making pancakes also gave me the opportunity to play with Agave syrup again. I’m starting to feel a little more confident of Agave. This is only my second attempt at using it, the first time I didn’t have a chance to take pictures, but I adapted a Banana Cake recipe from Whole Grain Baking by King Arthur. It turned out very well – I made it to take to a Diablo Valley Pagans Meet & Greet, and everyone was very surprised that it was ‘healthy’. I have a hankering to try and tackle something chocolate with it next. We’ll see how that turns out.

Back to the pancakes – As you can probably tell from the pictures, the batter for the pancakes came out very thick, making it difficult to pour. Although I liked the convenience of mixing it in the blender, I think next time I might use a ladle or something to get the batter in to the skillet – if only because it was impossible to get nice round-ish pancakes when the batter fell in to the skillet in big globs. lol. The other tip I would share is cook them slower and lower than you would conventional pancakes. I ended up burning a couple because the whole wheat took a little longer to cook than I expected, so the outside was a tad overdone by the time it was done in the middle.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
• 4 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/4 tsp Kosher Salt
• 2 cups Buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 4 tbls Butter, Melted plus additional for cooking
• 3 tbs Agave Syrup
• 1 tsp Vanilla

Method:

• In a bowl, stir together the dry ingredients
• Place all wet ingredients in blender and bzzz bzzz until combined
• Add the dry ingredients to the blender and whizz until just mixed, batter will be thick and may be lumpy – and you might need to scrape flour mixture down to get it fully combined
• Set aside for about 10 minutes to allow the whole wheat flour to absorb moisture
• Heat a skillet to medium-low. Melt butter in the skillet.
• Pour batter in to hot pan and cook until surface begins to look bubbly all across and is beginning to dry out a little bit, or bottom is golden
• Flip and cook until golden
• Serve with Maple Syrup, Fresh fruit, or Agave Nectar

Oh huzzah! It’s the weekend, it’s Saturday, and I’m staring down the barrel at what I’m expecting to be a whole week of sleepy days, since Miss Thing has vacation from school all this week. I’m sure it will go by entirely too fast, but for the moment at least, I’m enjoying it. Although I suppose I should get up marginally early-ish on Thanksgiving proper to start the Turkey… although I technically don’t have to. The couple of people we wanted to invite over had plans already, so it’s looking like it’s just going to be Mr. Man, Myself, and Miss Thing for dinner on Thursday… So we can eat whenever we want, Neener neener!

I still haven’t managed to convince Mr. Man to let me get creative with Thanksgiving Dinner, which makes me a little sad, but I’ve kind of given up now that it’s getting so close to the actual day. I guess I’m just not as big on ‘traditional’ meals as he is (whatever that means). But we should still have a nice holiday meal anyways. It’s hard to believe that it’s already the end of November. This year has just flown by. Pretty soon we’ll be heading in to the new year, and Delementals will celebrate it’s One Year anniversary. But I’m probably getting ahead of myself. For now, I’m just enjoying the fall seasons fruits and veggies and trying to figure out what to get Mr. Man and Miss Thing for holiday gifts. It’s actually even started to get a little chilly lately, which makes me feel a little more in to the season. It’s hard to really get in to the holiday season when it’s still shorts & sandals weather outside, lol.

The last time I placed an order with Spud, they had fresh cranberries, and I’ll be honest – I had some vague notion of maybe using them for thanksgiving, but I hadn’t actually sat down and planned anything out yet – it was mostly a “oooo… they have cranberries!” kind of purchase. I was going to wait to use them, but when rearranging some things I noticed that a couple of them looked a little ah… less than fresh. When I realized that the drawer that contained the oranges was over flowing from my recent FFTY delivery, it seemed like the perfect time to make a Cranberry Orange bread.

I started off with a recipe for Orange Yogurt Bread that I found on a site called Pinch My Salt. I made a few changes though – (aside from adding cranberries, obviously), namely I opted to use Sour Cream instead of Yogurt, because I was out of Yogurt, I swapped out some of the sugar for brown sugar, reduced the total sugar just a little bit and I doubled the batch so that I could have two loaves of bread. The results were pretty incredible. Although, sadly – there wasn’t as much orange flavor as I might have hoped in the finished product, the bread did turn out moist, dense and delicious – almost like a pound cake, really. Next time I think I’d try to maybe double up the orange juice and reduce it – to see if I could get a more concentrated orange flavor (I’d also probably have to reduce the sugar at the point… ) but simply as is, it’s very good – and would be great to make the night before for an easy and quick breakfast (such as oh… I dunno for Thanksgiving?)

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/3 cups Butter, softened
• 1 and 1/4 cup Sugar; divided
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 cup Sour Cream
• 1 cup Orange Juice (Fresh squeezed, if you have it)
• 4 eggs
• 5 cups of Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• ½ pound Fresh Cranberries; coarsely chopped

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350°
• Grease two 9″x5″ Loaf pans
• In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt and set aside
• Toss the chopped cranberries and 1/4 cup of the sugar together in a small bowl and set aside
• In a large mixing bowl, cream together the Brown Sugar, Sugar and Butter until fluffy
• Add the eggs, one at a time, until well combined
• Mix in the sour cream, and then add the orange juice
• Add the Flour mixture, a little at a time, until just combined (do not over mix)
• Fold in the cranberry mixture
• Divide the batter between the two loaf pans and bake for for 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean
• Cool in pans for a few minutes, and then transfer to wire rack
• Allow to Cool completely before slicing

On Tuesday, Mr. Man had a meeting with one of his higher-ups and had to go in to the office. Normally he works from home on Tuesday, and let’s me have a sleepy-in-day once a week. For a little while there it was looking like I wasn’t going to get a sleepy-in day – but at the last moment, Miss Thing made plans to go over to a friend’s house after school, so Mr. Man dropped her off and took the car. When I woke up, I had a whole day in front of me with no errands to run, no Miss Thing to pick up from school, and nothing between and something ambitious in the kitchen.

So I put on my thinking cap, and looked around for some ideas on what to do with these beautiful asparagus that I received in this week’s FFTY box. Finally, I decided on a tart. Having never tackled a pie crust, or anything like it – it seemed like just the right amount of challenge. Plus, I had this nifty tart pan that I’d picked up last week that I wanted to try out.

Of course, since I’ve never made a pie crust before, I needed to find a recipe. There’s about a million and one different pie crust recipes out there – but eventually I settled on the recipe in this post over at Chocolate & Zucchini. I did a little tweakerage, but used her measurements. Basically, I combined her measurements with a method for making pie dough that I’d seen on a couple of other sites using the food processor. Surprisingly, it came out really good – although my rolling technique needs some work. (How on earth do you turn a big blob of pie crust dough in to a perfectly round circle?)

With the leftover dough, I lined a small tart pan that I had so that I could make a cute little tart for taking pictures of. If I’d had more little tart pans, it might have been fun to make a bunch of individual tarts… on the other hand, it might have just been really, really big pain in the you-know-what. Now that I know how easy whipping up a pie crust is though, I might just have to do it more often. Using the food processor turned the whole thing in to a couple of quick buzz-buzz on the pulse button and zip-bam-boom, pie crust!

While the tart shell was baking, I assembled the ingredients for the filling – so that soon after the crust was done with the first bake, I was ready to fill’er up and finish her off. Or atleast, that was the plan. In case you were wondering – if you have a tart pan with a removable bottom, you might want to make sure that your crust doesn’t leak. Don’t ask me how I know this.

In spite of springing a leak, and an emergency transfer to a non-leaky pan – it did turn out delicious. And fortunately, the small tart was leak free. So remember, boys and girls, leaky tart shells are bad, mmmkay? I’m going to list the recipe as if I didn’t have a mini-disaster, because I’m thinking that you crazy kids at home might want to just take my word on the whole trying to move a loaded and leaky tart crust in to a different pan.

Pie Crust Ingredients:

• 4.4 ounces Whole Wheat Flour
• 4.4 ounces Flour
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup Cold Water

Pie Crust Method:

• Preheat Oven to 400°
• Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor
• Pulse once or twice to combine
• Add the Olive Oil, and blend until mixture is crumbly
• While the food processor is on, drizzle in the cold water through the feed spout and blend until a ball forms
• Roll out on a lightly floured surface until about 14″ around (ish)
• line a 12″ Tart Pan, pressing up the sides and trimming excess
• Lightly Prick bottom and sides with a fork
• Bake for about 15 minutes, or until crust is no longer doughy

Filling Ingredients:

• 1 lb Asparagus
• 8 oz Crimini Mushrooms; sliced
• 4 oz Serrano Ham; coarsely chopped
• 3 Gypsy Sweet peppers; diced (about half a cup)
• 2 large Spring Onions; diced (about 1/2 cup)
• 4 cloves Garlic; minced
• 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• 1/2 cup Milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup Cheddar Cheese
• 2 tbs White Wine
• 1 lemon; juiced
• 2 tbs Butter
• Kosher Salt to taste

Filling Method:

• Trim last 1″ or so of Asparagus stalks, and discard. Cut remaining asparagus in to thin slices (Optional: Cut top 2-3 inches of the asparagus tips off of stalks and blanch, then top the tart with them – only cutting the middle part of the stalks in to slices. It’s not neccessary, but it makes for a lovely presentation)
• Melt butter in a large skillet
• Add the onions and saute until translucent
• Clear a spot in the onions and add the Sweet Peppers. Saute until tender.
• Push onions and peppers to the side and add Sliced Mushrooms. Saute until tender
• Add the Asparagus and Garlic
• Saute until asparagus is tender-crisp
• Add the lemon juice and white wine
• Simmer until liquid is reduced by 1/2
• Remove from heat and add kosher salt to taste
• In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs
• Add the milk and Heavy Cream and whisk to combine
• To assemble the tart, spread the asparagus mixture in to the bottom of the pre-baked 12″ tart crust
• Top with Serrano Ham, cheddar cheese and Asparagus Tips (optional)
• Bake in a 350° until set around the edges

Frittata’s have become one of my favorite planned-leftover style breakfast items. It’s so easy to incorporate a wide variety of flavors and tastes in to them, and they’re dead-easy to prepare. So when Mr. Man and I were trying to squeeze in a quick breakfast while we worked on the website this weekend, a frittata seemed like an egg-celent (groan!) way to take care of a couple of meals at once.

I already had some leftover wehani rice, which is a type of brown rice. I picked up a bag of it a while back at Whole Foods to try out. I had cooked up a batch earlier in the week to make the Stuffed Peppers recipe from the other day, and since I didn’t end up using all of the brown rice, I thought it would be nice to add to the frittata to round it out a little bit and make it more filling.

The Collard Greens came from, of course – this weeks FFTY box. Ever since I got that first bunch of Collards in my first box, I’ve been completely enamored with them. In fact, I almost didn’t want to use them in the frittata, just so I could save them and use them later – lol. I had another recipe I’ve been kicking around, thinking about that I’ll have to try out next time I get Collards. Of course, if you don’t have any Collards, just about any sauteing green will work.

Ingredients:

• 12 eggs
• 1 bunch Collard Greens, stemmed and chopped in to 1″ strips
• 1 Cup Cooked Brown Rice (I used Wehani)
• 1 cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
• 1/2 cup Chopped, cooked, Bacon
• 1 Onion; diced
• 1 tbs Butter
• 1 tbs Fresh Rosemary, finely chopped
• 1 tbs Fresh Thyme; finely minced
• 1 tbs Homemade Mustard
• 1 tbs Roasted Garlic
• 2 tbs Water
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt

Method:

• Preheat Broiler
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, mustard, roasted garlic, water and Kosher Salt. Set aside.
• In a large, oven safe skillet, melt the butter over medium heat
• Add the Onions and saute until translucent
• Toss in the Collard Greens, and cook until leaves turn bright green and tender – 3-5 minutes
• Stir in the Rosemary and Thyme
• Then Add the brown rice and Bacon. Stir to combine and break up any lumps.
• Flatten out the Collard mixture to a fairly even thickness
• Pour the egg mixture over the collard mixture and reduce heat
• Cook until the egg mixture sets around the edges, but not in the middle
• Spread the shredded cheese out on top of the egg mixture
• Place under a broiler for 3-5 minutes, or until cheese is golden and eggs are nearly set.

On Saturday, while we were cleaning up and preparing for the arrival of Mr. Man’s grandparents, I made a very lazy and lame lamb pot roast with potatoes for dinner in the crockpot. It barely qualified as a recipe, 3 lbs of lamb shoulder, 1 quart of broth, 2-3 lbs of potatoes; peeled and diced and kosher salt. We were pretty busy, so I didn’t do anything really fancy to it, figuring I’d try and dress it up around dinner time. Strangely enough though, the lamb turned out excellent (huzzah for homemade broth adding supah flava) – although the potatoes were really ho-hum, and a little overdone. Given a choice, I probably wouldn’t make this particular dish again, but I ended up being left with a ton of these less than spectacular potatoes.

In a fit of creative inspiration, I made these dense little pancake-like things. I knew we weren’t going to eat the potatoes as they were, so I didn’t bother to look up a recipe for them and just kind of winged it, figuring if it didn’t turn out, no real harm done. It probably could have used some leavening, because as I mentioned, they were a little dense. However, Mr. Man and Miss Thing both said that they were delicious and to please, please make them again. The potatoes I used had broth and small bits of pot roast mixed up in them, but you can use pretty much any well-cooked potato for this, I would imagine, as long as it’s soft. (Leftover mashed potatoes, leftover potato soup – I’ll bet you could even use leftover Au Gratin or Scalloped potatoes). This is very much a ‘use up the leftovers in a new way’ kind of dish. (A stand mixer helps though – srsly!)

Ingredients:

• 5 cups Soft, Cooked, leftover Soupy Potatoes; room temperature
• 1-3 cups Flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 stick butter; room temperature
• 2 tsps Kosher Salt
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1/2 tsp Black Pepper
• 1/4 tsp Red Pepper
• Shredded Cheddar (Optional)
• Sour Cream (Optional)

Method:

• Preheat an oiled griddle or frying pan over medium heat
• Mix together the potatoes and the butter until combined
• Beat in the eggs one at a time until combined
• Add the Kosher Salt, Cumin, Black Pepper, and Red Pepper to potatoes, mixing thoroughly.
• Add flour, half a cup at a time, until a thick batter forms.
• Drop batter in 1/2 cup rounds on to the frying pan.
• Cook each side until golden brown – try to flip only once
• Serve with Shredded Cheddar Cheese and Sour Cream, if desired.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Mr. Man and I have been super busy painting and decorating and visiting with family the last couple of weeks. Because of that, I’ve barely had time to cook, let alone blog. Fortunately, I did already have a few little recipes and pictures tucked away, just waiting for me to whip them out.

When I was young, this dish was a staple in our household. As a working mother, at times being single and at other times being married to a marine, this was a dish that could easily be prepared with little or no real planning (a must for busy nights!), and as an added bonus was hearty, filling and inexpensive. My Marine step-father called this dish “Shit on a Shingle” or if he was feeling politically correct, SOS. Not the most flattering of names, for such a delicious dish, but I would imagine that the chow-hall version was signifigantly less tasty than this one, so perhaps it was appropriate at the time. I usually will make this as a weekend breakfast for the family, but it can easily serve as dinner or lunch. If you don’t have time to make biscuits, serve the gravy over toast, english muffins, bread, mashed potatoes, or any other carby side you have lying around.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs Breakfast Sausage
• 3 cups Milk
• 1 onion; diced
• 4 cloves garlic; minced
• 3 tbs Flour
• 1 tsp Sage; finely chopped
• 2 tbls Parsley; finely chopped
• Kosher Salt
• Black Pepper; Coarsely ground
• 1 batch Buttermilk Biscuits (optional)

Method:

• In a large skillet over medium high heat, crumble and brown the breakfast sausage
• When the sausage is browned, add the onions and saute until onions are translucent
• Stir in the garlic and the flour and cook for 3-5 minutes or until flour smells nutty (assuming you can smell it over the sausage)
• Slowly stir the milk in to the sausage mixture.
• Bring to a simmer and reduce heat to medium-low.
• Simmer until gravy reaches desired consistency.
• Stir in Sage, Parsley and add Kosher Salt and Black Pepper to taste.
• Serve Immediately (over Buttermilk Biscuits if desired)

The Farm Fresh box came last night, and of course, I had to make something with it as soon as possible. I decided to use the Kale in this Frittata for breakfast this morning – although, after I was (of course) committed to it, I realized that this Kale was the sweetest Kale I’d ever tasted – and I really should have saved it to use in a salad (yes, a salad – it was seriously that good!)  At any rate, this Frittata came out excellent – and I couldn’t be happier with the picture really either. (Except for if I figured out how to stop the shadow of the lens to stop showing up in the picture!) This recipe is ideal for a large group (or planned leftovers, which is what I’m doing) As an added bonus, this recipe is dead-easy.

Ingredients:

• 12 eggs
• 2 c. Cheddar
• 1/2 lb Breakfast Sausage
• 1 bunch of Kale; stems removed and torn in to pieces
• 1 cup sliced Crimini Mushrooms
• 4 tbls water
• 2 tbls Roasted Garlic
• 1/4 cup Cilantro

Method:

• Preheat Broiler
• In a large, oven safe saute pan, brown and crumble the sausage
• When sausage is completely browned, push to one side to clear an area. Add the mushrooms to the clear area.
• Saute the mushrooms until tender
• Add the kale and stir to combine
• Let that cook, stirring occasionally, until kale turns bright green and becomes tender – 4-5 minutes.
• Meanwhile, scramble the eggs with the water and roasted garlic.
• Stir the cilantro in to the egg mixture
• Pour egg mixture over kale mixture
• Cook eggs over medium heat until edges is set, but the center is still liquidy
• Sprinkle the shredded cheese over the top of the eggs
• Place under broiler. Cook until eggs are set and cheese is lightly browned and bubbly.

These Scones came out really incredible – I might have to make a batch for the Meet on Friday – that is if I’m not inspired to make something else before then. I usually don’t have quick-cooking oats on hand, but last time I ran out of Rolled Oats and bought some more, I accidently grabbed the wrong container, and ended up with the quick-cooking. They work for this recipe, given the short cook time and lower moisture level. The Apples were really good – a little bit of texture, but not too much. If you’ve got it (I didn’t), Decorator’s sugar would look beautiful sprinkled on top of these instead of the regular sugar I used.

Ingredients:

• 1 Granny Smith Apple; cored and chopped
• 1 Braeburn Apple; cored and chopped
• 1 cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
• 10 oz Flour
• 5 oz Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
• 5 oz Quick-Cooking Rolled Oats
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 2 tbls + 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 2 tsp Salt
• 1 stick Butter
• 4 tbls Shortening
• 1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1 cup Milk
• 1 tsp Vanilla

Method:

• Preheat Oven to 450°
• In a large bowl, mix together the flours, oats, baking powder, soda and salt
• Add the Shortening and the butter to the flour mixture, and gently rub together to form crumbs
• Mix the brown sugar in to the butter/flour mixture
• Toss the Apples and Cheese in flour mixture
• Stir the Vanilla, cream, and milk together
• Add the Cream mixture to the flour mixture, stir just until combined (dough will be very sticky)
• Drop by large spoonful on to parchment lined baking sheet
• Bake on middle rack of oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown

If there’s one thing Mr. Man and I can never agree on – it’s breakfast foods. He’s always been a solidly eggs-toast-sausage kinda guy. Which isn’t exactly healthy. Atleast, not the way he eats it… 3(!) eggs and buttered toast… I’ve tried to suggest/offer dishes that included veggies and whole grains, but generally they’ve been a failure of the colossal variety. Not because they weren’t good… just because he didn’t like them. Until today, that is.

A while back I saw this post on the kitchn about savory oatmeal… and it was like a whole plethora of opportunities opened up to me. I hadn’t ever really considered making a savory oatmeal – but now that I had come across the idea, I knew I would have to try making something with it soon, and my opportunity came today in the form of a bout of insomnia. It tends to happen about once a week or so – I just can’t settle down or relax, and then it gets late (or early, depending on your point of view) and I have to stay up and take Miss Thing to school. Well today, I had the usual… not sleepy, stayed up, but I had a last little burst of energy right around the time Mr. Man was getting up and came up with this beauty.

I had hoped it would change his mind about healthy breakfasts – and it did, he loved it! But it also rocked my world, too. This had to be the best breakfast I’ve had in a long, long while. I will definitely have to experiment more with savory oatmeal for breakfast.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 3 cups Scrap Stock or other broth/stock
• 1 cup Steel Cut Oats
• 2 tsp Champagne Vinegar
• 1 tomato; chopped
• 1/8 cup Cilantro; finely chopped
• 1 tbs Roasted Garlic
• 1 tsp Butter
• 2 pinches Kosher Salt (or more to taste)
• 3 slices Prosciutto (optional); dry heated and coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup Cottage Cheese (optional)

Method:

• In a medium saucepan; bring the stock and the vinegar to a simmer.
• Poach the eggs in the stock, working in batches if neccessary
• Set the drained poached eggs aside and wrap with foil to keep warm (place in warming drawer if available)
• To the remaining stock; stir in the roasted garlic (I used a small bowl, and mixed the roasted garlic with some of the stock to make it thinner before adding it to the remaining stock, to prevent lumps)
• Stir the butter, the salt and the Oats in to the Stock.
• Cover and reduce heat to low
• Simmer on low for 30 minutes, or until oats reach desired tenderness.
• Remove from heat.
• Stir in Cilantro, Tomatos, and Proscuitto (if desired)
• To serve, transfer to bowls and top with Poached eggs and Cottage Cheese

Miss Thing had a friend spend the night on Saturday. It happened to be her best friend at school, and the first time said friend had come over – so of course, she drove us all nuts trying to get everything just perfect. We still haven’t really unpacked or anything yet, mostly because we decided we’d go ahead and install the crown moulding before going any further… We basically came to the decision that it will never be any easier than it is right now, with everything still packed up and out of the room. I’m not thrilled about it, but I can agree with the neccessity. I’m really just so sick of having everything packed away – I want to start livening up the place! So Miss Thing had to be content with just having things look clean, even if it looked bare.

Her friend seems like a nice girl – I’d met her twice before, briefly. Although between the two of them, I swear they were going to drive me nuts with indecision. “What do you want to do?” “I dunno, what do you want to do?” “What do you want to eat?” “I don’t know, what do you want to eat?” ARGH! Just decide something already!

At any rate, after a few minutes of “I don’t know, what do you want for breakfast?” on Saturday night, I pulled out the “Would you rather have Eggs or Pancakes?” They chose pancakes, and I made these. Texture and taste wise, they came out perfect. Just a hint of vanilla, light and fluffy – you don’t even need maple syrup on them, although I think they’re even better with it. Best part is, you can go from hungry to pancakes in only a few minutes the next morning, and the batter will keep for up to a week in the fridge.

Ingredients:

• 2 and 1/4 tsps Active Dry Yeast (or 1 packet)
• 1/4 cup Warm Water (105-115 degrees)
• 1 tbls Brown Sugar
• 4 Cups Flour
• 2 tbls Baking Powder
• 2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 and 1/2 tsps salt
• 6 Large Eggs
• 1 quart Buttermilk
• 1/4 cup Melted Butter
• 3 tsps Vanilla

Method:

• Combine the Yeast, warm water and sugar in a small bowl or cup. Let stand while assembling other ingredients (minimum 5 minutes)
• Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a stand mixer bowl (or large bowl).
• In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the eggs. Add Vanilla, Butter and and buttermilk – whisk to combine.
• Attach Stand Mixer bowl and whisk attachment (if available – or use a hand mixer)
• Turn mixer on low speed and slowly pour the buttermilk mixture in to the flour mixture until just combined
• Stir in the Yeast Mixture
• Cover and refrigerate for a minimum of 8 hours, overnight, or up to a week.
• When ready to prepare pancakes, heat a griddle or skillet to medium
• Melt a little bit of butter (can use oil) in the pan
• Using approximately 1/4 cup of batter per pancake, pour in to pan and cook for 4-7 minutes on each side, or until golden brown (do not overcook, do not overcrowd pan)