It is fall and that means spice. It is fall and that means simple dinners. So tonight we had breakfast! Who doesn't love breakfast for dinner?!?! I LOVE to try new recipes and tonight was no exception. I searched for -- and found! -- a spice pancake recipe. I didn't really want pumpkin, but I did want the spice. What I found, I LOVED! I made only half of the recipe since I figured I might be the only one eating them. In doing so, I used 2 egg whites, but only one yolk. It seemed to work just fine! I would contemplate even putting just a bit of whole wheat flour into these! I found this at
MyRecipes.com
Spice Pancakes
- 3 large eggs, separated
- 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
- About 3 tablespoons butter or margarine, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons dark molasses
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1. In a deep bowl with mixer on high speed, whip egg whites until they hold distinct moist peaks.
2. In another large bowl (with unwashed beaters), beat egg yolks, buttermilk, 3 tablespoons butter, sugar, and molasses until blended. Add flour, ginger, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and cloves. Beat until smooth.
3. Add whipped whites to batter; fold gently to blend.
4. On a buttered nonstick griddle or 12-inch nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat, pour batter in 1/4-cup portions, spacing so pancakes don't touch. Cook until tops are full of bubbles, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn over and cook until bottoms are golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Repeat to cook remaining batter. As pancakes are cooked, stack on plates, or arrange slightly overlapping on baking sheets and keep warm in a 150° oven.
Kent is kind of a plain ol' basic buttermilk pancake sort of guy, so I found this recipe. The cakes were a bit thin, but extremely tender and delicious!! Definitely a keeper recipe! I found it
here. Emily and Jonathan were both fans of these, too!!
Buttermilk Pancakes
1½ cups (350ml) buttermilk
1 egg
3 Tablespoons (50g) melted butter - use microwave
2 Teaspoons (10ml) Vanilla (add 1 more for kids!)
1 cup (125g) white flour
3 Tbsp (40g) sugar
½ tsp (3g) baking soda (make sure it's not 3 years old... ;-)
½ tsp (2g) baking powder
½ tsp (4g) salt
Put the wet and dry ingredients into separate bowls. Whisk each one lightly. Add roughly half of the dry mix into the wet and whisk smooth, not too long. Add the remainder of the dry mix and barely whisk together. Make sure all of the flour is mixed in. You don't want to beat this too much as it strengthens the gluten in the flour and makes the pancakes tougher. Don't worry, you can't screw this up; just don't put it in an electric mixer and let it run forever.... If possible, let the batter rest for a few minutes to allow the baking soda and baking powder to perform their magic. This will make for airier pancakes.
NOTE: The batter should be fairly thick, not runny. The perfect batter should pour onto the fry pan and not move much; it should only require a few taps of the measuring cup to spread it out. A few UK readers have commented that they get runny batters and this is most likely due to thin buttermilk. If this happens don't worry, just add a bit more flour, a few tablespoons at a time until it thickens up.
This recipe will make about 8 pancakes and can be easily doubled.
I loved the Bumblebee's bum, the Ladybug's smile and the Flower's trick-or-treat bag!!
I liked my first one, too!
What a great fall day!! I woke up this morning, did the breakfast thing for the family (a weekday first!!), washed the dishes, made a card and headed off to work. I couldn't believe the dark fall day that I faced on my way to work, but through the day I became more and more inspired to go for a post-work run! I came home, changed clothes and went for a 4.2 mile walk/run. My latest thing is walk a song, run a song, walk a song, and so on. I happened to hit a "run" song on a HUGE hill. It was really my first real hill run! I made it to the top, thought I might just die, recovered and did it again! After the next longer, but not-so-steep hill I will feeling pretty good, so I did one recover song and then ran for the next 5 songs or so!! It felt GREAT!! NEVER did I expect that one day I would love to run, but that day is here and I feel STRONG!! And may the endorphins floating through my body kick the booty of any virus that tries to attack! And now as I write this, it is DUMPING BUCKETS OF RAIN outside! Glad I got my run in before this!
The rain pouring off of the roof because of a clogged gutter!
For more pictures, click on the old house!
As I'm cleaning up the kitchen this morning, I spy this leftover reminder of the fun we had Thursday night and I start thinking about the internet. The connection you ask? I'm thinking about what the internet has made or is in the process of making obsolete. I'm thinking about the advances the internet has made in our everyday lives, what it has made easier and thus maybe even harder!! The first thing I thought of was phone books and even catalogs, although, those have been going out for maybe even longer than the internet has really played a huge role in our lives. My question, after Thursday, is what ever will we do without phone books in their altogether paper glory when we have little guests and no booster seat? Ok, so we have one plastic booster seat, but we had two kids who needed one. Both kids needed to eat, so what to do? Pull out the phone books! Or, in days gone by we would have needed to supplement with a Sears and Roebuck or Montgomery Ward catalog or both! So, the internet is taking away booster seats, but at the same time opening up a whole new shopping experience to us! The internet is taking away our encyclopedias (do the kids even know what those were any more?!?!) but giving us far more up-to-date, real-time, straight-from-the-source information that could indeed lead to greater understanding of peoples and cultures in an effort to make world peace. Or, because the only communicating we do is from behind an impersonal screen and we never get to MEET these people face-to-face it may continue to breed more and more hatred because sites can also be so one-sided. The internet has taken away the ability to communicate effectively while opening the door to more communication. How? We can leave a quick message on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, a comment on an article, but never really sit down over coffee or tea and just honestly, openly discuss issues at hand. We have lots to say, not all of it nice; we can stay in touch with long-lost friends and family, but we can't talk to one another. The postal service is languishing in debt because so little mail is going out, but email can run rampant. But what kind of mementos will we have to show our kids that they will in turn show their kids and so on through the generations? Where are the love letters? Where is that last letter from Grandma, from the soldier at his post? "OH NO! We deleted that!" - never to be returned again. The internet lets us "see" our loved ones in video, in chat. We can see how much the grandkids are growing, how much they talk, how busy they are, but how much can we really connect and sit with them and read them a book while holding them on our laps and cuddling them? We forward funny emails, nice emails with good messages, but is there a personal letter involved? The internet has become so ingrained in our lives that we may even begin to feel panicky without it. I love to find recipes on the internet, but then when I don't write it down with trusty pen and paper, I may not find it again, or at the store I can't remember the ingredients. Yes, I know there are internet capable phones, but we aren't springing for the plan! Directions to grandma's house are now just a click away, but what if it were to vanish tomorrow? Have we lost our skills to survive without the internet? And all of these musings are here -- on the internet -- for you to ponder too. What if we went a day without it? A week? A month? What would you HAVE to look into each day? What would be your resource without it? Who would you connect with? How far would you walk on a crisp fall day? Who would you smile at on the street, in the coffeehouse, in the library? What would you read? Where would you shop?
