Buttermilk Pancakes with Apple Compote

I've been expecting hubby to get bored with Pancake Saturdays; he seemed incredulous when I first told him the idea, and I've just been waiting to hear a whine of "pancakes? again??"(not that hubby whines.. unless I ask him to wash some dishes). So imagine my surprise when this morning, after I awoke to yell at him for accepting one of the Olsen twin's invitation to a weekend in Maui (weird dreams, weird dreams) he "told" me to get up and make pancakes. He seems to be enjoying this tradition, which is quite nice! Also good to hear that your food audience actually wants the food you're making!

So I've started a list of pancake ideas in my planner. It's pretty small. For this Saturday, I decided to make an apple compote of sorts, similar to what I used when I made the apple coffee cake (which I purposefully didn't post, remember?). I kept the pancakes pretty simple (adapting Nigella's recipe again), so they wouldn't be overpowering, and the combination was great. Hubby and I both really enjoyed them! To balance the sweetness, I cooked up some bacon as well for its delicious salty, smokey taste. Yum yum.


Vanilla Buttermilk Pancakes with Apple Compote:
Pancakes

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled to room temp
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 1/3 cups buttermilk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Compote

• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 medium, sweet apples, diced *
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• approximately 1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 200F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place in the oven. This is where you'll keep your completed pancakes so they'll stay nice and toasty while you make the rest.

For the compote, melt the butter in a large, nonstick skillet. Toss in the apples, cinnamon, and sugar. Cook over a medium-low heat, stirring occassionally, while you make your pancakes. You want the apples to soften and release some of their juice and the sugar to begin to carmelize. This will create a nice, thick syrup. I didn't cook mine long enough, but it was still good.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large measuring cup or small bowl, combine the buttermilk, eggs, butter, and vanille extract. Create a well in the dry ingredients into which you pour the liquid. Mix well. Let sit about 5-1o minutes.

Heat a small amount of vegetable oil in a large, nonstick skillet (cast iron is awesome) over medium low heat. You'll know the pan is warm enough when you splash a tiny bit of water into it and the water beads up, then sizzles.

Pour about 1/3 cup of batter into the center of pan. Use your spoon or measuring cup to spread the batter out with small, gentle circular motions. Once the pancake starts to show bubbles around the edges and into the center and the shiny sheen of it has dulled, flip it over. Gently pat the pancake. Let it cook for a few minutes, flipping it ever so often to see how the bottom looks. A great way to tell if its cooked enough is to gently press down (with a finger or spoon handle) and see if it springs back up. That is a finished pancake. Place the cooked pancake on your baking sheet in the oven. Repeat until batter is gone.

To serve, spoon apple compote on top of pancakes.

Devour.

Onion Strings

Hubby has discovered frying. He (quite) successfully fried up some chicken the other night and wanted to try out onion rings to go with our burgers. As I looked around online for any tips, hubby decided he wanted really thin ones, which is awesome because those are my absolute FAVORITES. I remembered coming across a post on the Pioneer Woman Cooks about onion strings, so we checked that out. Hubby used it as a loose guide in his adventure.

There are very few better ways to spend an afternoon than cooking with hubby in our itty bitty kitchen. Maneuvering, joking, trying each other's food.. it's wonderful. I feel so lucky that he enjoys coming into the kitchen and cooking, that he sees it as the adventure I do. He is (mostly) fearless and very creative. He also likes to goof off as much as I do; no seriousness in the kitchen, only fun! After a day like today, there's no doubt in my mind that I've married the right man.

Mushiness over.. onto the food. Hubby was so happy with his onion strings that he wanted me to post them up here. I love posting his stuff too!


Onion Strings

• 1 onion, thinly sliced (mandolin slicers rock for this. He had it set on 1/16 inch)
• milk to cover the sliced onions *quantity's not important as long as they're covered* (that's what hubby said)
• 2 cups flour
• approximately 1 1/2 tbsp Chachere's
• approximately 1 quart vegetable oil for frying
  

Place the onions in a bowl or baking dish and cover with milk. Let sit 1 hour.

In a large bowl, combine flour and Chachere's. Mix well.

In a big pot, heat the oil to 375F.

Grab a cluster of onion rings and dredge in the flour. Shake off the excess and drop into the hot oil. Hubby used a metal spoon to keep the onion cluster completely submerged, ensuring they stayed together and fried both top and bottom. Fry until golden brown.

Remove cluster and place on a papertowel lined plate or baking sheet.

Repeat with the rest of the onions.


Hubby also tried frying up some mushrooms, but this particular method didn't work too well. Most of the breading came off.

Homemade Burgers

One of the foods I miss the most from home is a hamburger. A hamburger you ask skeptically. Why yes, my dear readers, a burger. Here in the midwest, burgers are not nearly as good. Sure, they might have cheesy goodness or delicious mushroom and onions sauteed on top. But the patty itself is always bland, always lacking the beautiful harmony Cajun burgers had. Lately, I've been craving those good ol' burgers found in restaurants and bakeries back home (Southside Bakery in Lafayette, LA. GO THERE) Today, while discussing what to have for dinner with hubby, I mentioned burgers and he jumped on that idea. From there, our dinner ideas expanded into the most delicious, most unhealthy stereotypical American feast. And let me tell you, it was damn good. We rarely fry things (last night being the first time when hubby fried some chicken breasts) so I figured it wouldn't be so bad to do it today.

Since hubby had such a good experience frying chicken last night on a whim (his first time frying anything) he thought he'd try onion rings. You'll hear more about those delicious bites of heaven in a bit. Look forward to it!

And, having burgers and this amazing Spring weather outside, it was a perfect time to have potato salad too. Mmmmhmmmm.

I think I gained 10 pounds today.


Burgers

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1 egg, or 2 egg yolks (long story, involves angel food cake and only have 10 eggs. ok. short story then)
• 1/8 cup breadcrumbs
  
• Chachere's or season-all or lawrys
• Onion powder
• Garlic powder
• Black pepper
• oil

Yields 4 patties.

Alright. Get ready to get your hands dirty.

In a large bowl, mix up the meat, eggs, breadcrumbs, and seasonings (use your hands). I can't really give you measurements; it depends on what you want out of your burger. I probably had a tbsp of Chachere's and 1 tsp black pepper with a 1/2 to 1 tsp each of the garlic and onion powders. I wanted my burgers really well seasoned with the nice little kick Chachere's gives.

Here's a cooking tip: use your nose!! So often by just sniffing what you're mixing up you can tell what's missing. It is a vital step when cooking with meats since you can't just taste it right then and there.

Once your meat is mixed to a fragrant perfection, divide it up to make patties. We had small buns, so hubby (who took over the burgers at this point) divided the meat into 4, making 4 smaller patties. Shape the patties into discs about 3/4 inch to 1 inch thick. Make the center a little thinner than the edges as the burgers will plump up quite a bit.

In a large, heavy, nonstick skillet, heat up 2 tbsp of vegetable oil. Place the burgers around the pan and cook them a few (maybe 5) minutes, then flip them over. Press down gently on each patty. After another 5ish minutes, flip over again for 2 minutes, then flip again. The sides should both be nicely, richly browned. We decided they were done after we cut one open and it was cooked through.

Sorry these directions aren't the best. Hubby has a poor sense of timing when it comes to the kitchen, and I was whipping up an angel food cake.

Spiced Pancakes

Pancake Saturday continues! This morning, I played around with the recipe I used last weekend, adding some spices to it to give it a bit more pizazz. I kept it pretty simple still. Hubby and I both loved these; he ate his with syrup, and I had mine with honey. Delicious! Hubby said I should definitely keep this recipe.

Spiced Pancakes
(adapted from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess)

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
  
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
• 1 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Yields 9 pancakes.

Heat your oven to about 200F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. This way, you'll be able to keep the pancakes warm in the oven as they cook since the process takes a bit of time and no one really wants cold pancakes.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Create a well in the center of the mixture, into which you'll later pour the wet liquid.

In a separate bowl (or large measuring cup if you have one) beat the eggs, milk, butter, and vanilla. Pour into the well in the dry ingredients and mix well.

Pour a tiny bit of vegetable or canola oil into a heavy non-stick skillet. I use my nice big cast-iron one. It's fabulous. Heat it over a medium-low heat; you don't want to completely fry the pancakes. Most of the oil should collect around the edges of the pan, and that's good.

Once your oil is nice and warm, pour about 1/3 cup of the batter into the center of the pan. Gently spread the batter out by making a circular motion with your spoon/measuring cup in the middle of the batter. Don't use enough pressure to scrape the bottom of the skillet; you're just trying to coax the batter to expand out.

Let the batter cook for a few minutes, until bubbles start to pop through around the edges (and in the center a bit) and the batter no longer has such a shiny sheen.


At this point, flip the pancake over. Lightly tap around surface of the pancake, especially around the sides. Let cool a couple of minutes more. After the first minute, you're free to flip the pancake over to see how done it is, then flip it back to cook some more. The pancake is finished when, if pressed, the indentation springs back. If you don't want to poke the pancake (hubby thought I was insane and would burn my hand off), lightly press the spatula against the pancake and wiggle it back and forth. If the pancake moves across the surface of the pan instead of jiggling, then it should be done.

Remove pancake from the pan and place on the baking sheet in the oven. Move on to the next one. It's always a good idea to sample your first pancake to make sure your batter is right and your timing is good. Plus, if you're making pancakes, you're probably hungry and it's gonna take awhile.

I've never been a big fan of maple syrup. As a kid, I absolutely hated it. Even when I first started dating hubby, if we had pancakes, I'd make him chew gum or brush his teeth before I'd let him kiss me. I hated maple syrup so much I'd refuse kisses! That speaks of a deep hatred, no? In the past few years, I've come to appreciate maple syrup, though I in no way love it. I prefer fruity syrups or honey by far. What do you like on your pancakes? Got any syrup/pancake-topping ideas for me?

Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies

I spent my first year in college living on burritos and salads; the cafeteria is awful. Horrible. Gross. I feel sorry for students who live on campus all four years. The cafeteria screwed up most foods... except cookies. Their cookies were decent. One particular type was actually delicious. They had cranberry and white chocolate chips and were amazing. Recently, hubby and I went to a lecture on campus where they were serving refreshments, including those cookies. Hubby was quite the fan as well. So I decided I'd try to make them myself.

I scanned a few cookie recipes and found they're all very similar for what I want. I just sort of winged it from there..


Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies

• 3/4 cup flour, room temp
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup dried, sweetened cranberries
• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in egg and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix into wet mixture.

Stir in cranberries and chips. Drop rounded tablespoons on cookie sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes, until edges start to brown (slightly).

Lavender Teacake

When I was a kid, I got a bottle of stuff from Bath and Body works that supposedly would help me sleep. It was a lavender mist to be sprayed over the sheets before going to bed. After a few days, I realized I was not a fan of lavender. Fast forward many many years (as in a few months ago) and I had the chance to reexperience lavender in a much more positive way. And HEY I thought it was mighty nice.

Sunday, I made a lavender teacake. I bought some lavender quite some time ago, wanting to play around with it in the kitchen, but then I basically forgot about it. Randomly, I remembered it and had to do something with it. After searching TasteSpotting, I found this recipe (Australian, I believe) and thought it sounded nice.

I've taken quite some time posting about it because I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it. For so long, I've viewed lavender as a scent only, not something to be eaten. The cake is nice and soft and sweet, but when I eat it, I feel as if I've accidentally eaten lotion or soap or something else. The lavender does not taste bad; it's just my associations with lavender taint the experience. Four days after making it, I'm still not sure how I feel.


Lavender Teacake

• 1/4 cup butter, room temp
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp lavender

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray pan with nonstick spray (I used a bundt cake pan, but a smaller pan would work as well because this is a little cake).

Cream butter and sugar. Mix in egg and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to wet ingredients and mix well. Add milk and mix until well combined.

Stir in lavender. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake approximately 25 minutes, until cake is golden and cake tester comes out clean.

Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan before inverting onto cooling wrack to cool completely.

* The original recipe called for 1 cup self-rising flour. I only had all-purpose, so a quick google search landed me at this site which informed me that I could use, per 1 cup self-rising: 1 cup all-purpose;1 1/2 tsp baking powder; 1/2 tsp salt.

** The original recipe also had a slight "icing" but I didn't want to do it. I thought of being clever and trying to come up with my ownn (Earl Gray maybe) but I don't feel the cake even needs one.

I think hubby is scared to try it. I might bring it to work tomorrow to see what the coworkers think.

*******

An update:
I brought this cake to work to see what my coworkers thought of it. I had started to move away from it; I just can't adjust to lavender as a foodstuff. I found that my sentiment was universal. Of the four people who tried it at work, none liked it.

One called it disgusting.

One special coworker told me "I just feel so betrayed by cake right now."

That same coworker had the following conversation with another one.
Coworker 1 - asking if I'd shaved some deodorant into the cake.
Betrayed Coworker - 'tastes like teen spirit'
Coworker 1 - 'tastes like teen angst'

Please note, I have great relationships with these coworkers and they generally greatly enjoy the things I bake for them. While they're comments might seem harsh, I laughingly agree with them all. Lavender cake is not for us. We'll stick with lavender lotion, mist, and soap.

Pancake Saturday

Look on my pancakes, ye hungry, and rejoice!

Today's pancake adventure went MUCH better than last week's!! Firstly, I used Nigella Lawson's pancake recipe from How to Be a Domestic Goddess, which I feel is a good, trustworthy source for a recipe. Secondly, I had way more confidence and never needed to call hubby in for help. And having some leftover blueberries, I even threw those into the last couple of pancakes.


Drizzled with honey, they were quite divine.


Mmmmmm.

So I think I've gootten a hang of the cooking process. Now, I just need to perfect the recipe. Not that Nigella's isn't great, I just feel the typical pancake lacks something. It's my job to find out what that something is.

Potage Parmentier, or Potato Onion Soup

After two decades of not really liking soup (other than baked potato and corn & crab bisque), I'm finally coming around. It all started with a little coffee shop's chicken tortilla soup. I was absolutely star struck. It was such a perfect blend of chunky chicken and vegetables with a smooth, slightly spiced tomato base... so good. Then I tried the same shop's chicken curry stew. Again, delicious soup! Lobster bisque, yessiree! Plenty of soups still disappoint me, but I'm willing to try them now. Most importantly, I'm willing to try to make them.

Does anyone not like potatoes? Is there really any better combination than potatoes and onions? Honest answers, guys and gals. I'm not sure there is a better food pair, so today I present you with Julia Child's Potage Parmentier (potato and onion soup). I found the recipe on this site, and it just looked so amazing that I had to try it.

This particular blogger added carrots to hers which gave it a nice orange hue and bulked hers up. I opted out of the carrots and got a rather thin soup, which was a bit sad. The flavor was amazing though.


Potage Parmentier

• 4 cups peeled and diced potatoes
• 3 cups thinly sliced yellow onions
• 2 quarts water
• 1 tbsp salt
• 6 tbsp whipping cream
• 1 tbsp softened butter
• 2-3 tbsp minced herbs, for decoration (I used scallions I had for the scallion pancakes)
  

In a large pot or dutch oven, simmer the potatoes, onions, water, and salt partially covered for 40-50 minutes until the potatoes are tender and the onions are thoroughly cooked. (Mine still had a bit of a bite).

Mash or puree the veggies with a fork, masher, hand blender, etc. Don't puree too well; you want some character to the soup texture. When I reached this step of the process, I realized my potato to water ratio was not going to create a creamy delicious soup, so I pulled out about 2 cups of the water. Then I spooned ladlefuls of potatoes and onions into my stupid Bullet blender and pureed it in there, returning it to the pot afterwards.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. I found I didn't need to; the seasoning was perfect.

Before serving, remove from heat and stir in cream and butter. Serve decorated with herbs.

Again, my soup was really thin, which was unfortunate, though the flavor was really superb. I think I might actually use this as a base for a creamy vegetable soup.

Onion Scallion Pancakes and Glazed Salmon

Man, had I been craving salmon lately! I think it had something to do with the warmer weather we got a couple weekends ago, which set my heart singing out "Spring is here! Spring is here!!" and remembering all the wonderful things that come with warm weather, like summer days with the windows open, baking to my heart's content and light, fresh flavors and the veggies from the farmers market. And though cold weather set back in, my heart just wouldn't stop straining towards Spring. I've decided to just ignore the cold weather from now on.


Now, I realize salmon isn't just a Spring food, but I've spent the past few months hunkering down over heavy, warm foods to keep my body from frosting over. Salmon is light, and light I equate with Spring. Add the asparagus, softly steamed, and it's a light, refreshing meal. The salmon was glazed with a little mixture of: soy sauce, hoisin, and rice vinegar with splashes of oyster sauce and teriyaki. Odd combination of a lot of things, but it worked.

But I'm not really here to tell you about the salmon. I'm here to talk about the Chinese scallion pancakes I made to accompany the salmon and asparagus. They were so easy to make, but more than that, they were so delicious. Like a tortilla, but the punch of scallions in each little bite were perfect. It really does amaze me how so few ingredients can create such an amazing food.

Chinese Scallion Pancakes

• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• 1 bunch scallions, finely chopped
• salt
• vegetable oil

In a food processor (I used my stand mixer), slowly pour the boiling water into the flour until it's all incorporated and forms a ball. Mine wasn't really pulling together, so I added about a tbsp more water. The dough should be silky, not sticky. Leave in the bowl, covered with a damp kitchen towel, for 30 minutes.

Form the dough into a dome and split into 6 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball. Lightly flour a working surface.

For each ball: roll the ball out as thin as possible, keeping a circular shape. Brush entire surface with oil and sprinkle with salt. Sprinkl 1 - 2 tbsp of scallion over the pancake.

Starting at one edge, roll the pancake up, as if rolling up a rug. Curl into a spiral and pinch the end to seal. Gently roll out the pancake again to 1/8 inch thickness.

Heat a tbsp of oil in a skillet over medium heat. Fry the pancake until the bottom is crisp and golden. Flip and fry an additional minute or so.

The original recipe that I linked to has a recipe for a dipping sauce, which i didn't make. I thought it was great plain, but hubby would have liked to have the sauce.

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

Before the floods of June '08 devastated downtown and forced my company to move, I worked next to an awesome little coffee shop that had divine lemon poppyseed muffins. Hell, all their muffins were fabulous. But theirs was the first lemon poppyseed muffin I ever truly loved. I think of it often, with it's light, sweet lemon tang, crunchy poppyseeds, and light, fluffy texture. I aspire to muffins of their quality..
I've been craving a lemon poppyseed concoction lately. I had a loaf recipe, but with my Sunday muffin extravaganza I decided to make delight little muffins. Luckily, I stumbled across this recipe and went with it.


Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tbsp poppyseeds
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• zest of 1 lemon or 1 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup plain yogurt (not nonfat)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Glaze

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray muffin tin with nonstick spray.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, poppyseeds, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at time. Add lemon (zest or juice), yogurt, and vanilla and beat until well combined.

Stir in the dry ingredients until moist and just combined.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin. Bake 18-20 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes.

While the muffins cool, mix together the sugar and lemon juice for the glaze. The icing should be runny (so you can drizzle it). I needed to add a bit more lemon juice.

After 5 minutes, remove the muffins from the pan. Drizzle the glaze over the muffins and let cool completely.



I feel the muffins were a bit unbalanced when it came to the lemon flavor. The lemon was VERY subtle within the muffins and overwhelming in the glaze. As I used zest in the muffins, perhaps next time I'll opt for the lemon juice. And perhaps I'll do half lemon juice, half water in the glaze. But all in all, these were nice little muffins

Applesauce Oat Bran Muffins

I like muffins. Unfortunately, muffins aren't always the healthiest things ever. But I figure bran muffins are at least a step up, right? So when I found this recipe, I thought it'd be great to try out. And I did. And they were.


Applesauce Oat Bran Muffins

• 2 cups unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup (2 oz) dates, pitted and chopped*
• 1 cup wheat bran
• 1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp honey
• 3/4 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 2 tbsp ground flaxseeds **
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp old-fashioned oats

In a medium saucepan, cook applesauce and dates over medium heat, stirring frequently. Cook mixture down to 1 1/4 cups, about 15-20 minutes. (I needed 25 minutes.) Remove from heat and let cool completely. (To speed up this process, I transferred the mixture to a large bowl and spread the applesauce up the sides of the bowl to thin it out so it can cool more quickly.)

Preheat oven to 375F. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray.

Once the applesauce has cooled, transfer it to large bowl if you haven't already. Stir in bran, buttermilk, egg, honey, ginger, and vanilla. Let sit for 10 minutes.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, flaxseed, baking soda, salt, allspice, and 1/4 cup oats. Stir into bran mixture.

Spoon the batter into prepared tins, filling them to the brim. Sprinkle oats over muffins.

Bake approximately 20 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool completely in pan on wire racks.

* Next time, I want to try another fruit instead of dates. I spied some dried strawberries at the grocery store, so I might try those. Or perhaps dried cherries, cranberries, or currants.

** I didn't have flaxseed (ground or otherwise) and without a future need for it, it was just too expensive to buy. Instead, I just substituted flour for the flaxseed to keep the consistency the same.

A Saturday Morning Lesson

This past week, in the dozens of pancake recipes for Pancake Tuesday (Mardi Gras), I stumbled across a recipe for blueberry buttermilk pancakes that looked delicious. Hubby loves blueberries and I knew he had previously enjoyed some bluberry pancakes at I-Hop once upon a time. So, with recipe in hand, I decided to treat my sweetie to pancakes... completely forgetting that he is the one who makes the pancakes in our house.

After whipping up my batter and plopping my first ladleful of into my skillet, I realized why he always makes the pancakes. The sad truth is, my friends, that no one taught Mama Sarah how to make pancakes. I vaguely knew the "once it sets and bubbles around the edges, it's time to flip" rule, but after that, nadda. So my treat for hubby turned into a shy (and somewhat heartbroken) request that he help me with breakfast.

It actually ended up being a great way to start a glorious Saturday. Hubby passing down to me the lessons he learned from his granny. Me, trying to find ways to validate my presence in the kitchen. Pancakes seem like such a simple thing, but they aren't. I've decided I shall make pancakes EVERY Saturday until I have perfected the skill.

Now, please note: part of my difficulty with the pancakes was that they weren't cooking all the way through, even though they were golden. We determined the blueberries might be affecting the cooking process. We removed the blueberries from the process (I made a blueberry syrup), yet the pancakes were still goopy. We decided it was a problem with the batter. I consulted a few cookbooks and the ratios seemed off. So there's that. I felt a little better....