pancakes make everything better

the bean kicked off 2012 with a rare cold.  poor baby.  she woke up with a snuffalupagusy nose and just went downhill from there.  by the time i got her out of bed and dressed for the day, she had super rosy cheeks and sad little sickypoo eyes.

sucks, huh?  first me on christmas eve, and then the bean on new year's day.  sheesh.  but she's seriously the most cheerful sick kid i know - she still played happily and stayed her happy, upbeat self.  pretty awesome.

so i decided to bust out something fun for breakfast - the chocolate chip pancake mix i'd gotten in my stocking.

no, i'm not going to bore you with the process of making pancakes.  but i will dazzle you with my makeup-less face and the ove glove i got for christmas from brother wan.

and what's breakfast without my favorite pork product?

unfortunately, this cold is sticking around a lot longer than i'd hoped.  she had to skip school and dance class yesterday to avoid spreading her sicky germs to all of her friends.  boo.  please send lots of happy, healthy vibes so she can go and play with her buddies tomorrow, yeah?

cake for breakfast!

happy national pancake day!  yes, i'm serious.  it's for real.  you can even get free pancakes at IHOP today.  go get you some.

so my obsession with my new favorite blog is probably getting pretty annoying, huh?  i'm really sorry.  it really is chock-full of fabulous recipes that have been a huge help for me.  i've been stuck in a total rut dinner-wise, and having a whole slew of new ideas is making for a house full of happy bellies.  this means that you'll be subjected to more posts filled with yummy grub.

i decided to make something fun for sunday breakfast, and enlisted the bean's help.  she was only too happy to be my sous chef as we giggled and chattered in the kitchen that morning.

and what, you ask, was on the menu?

cake batter pancakes.  with a vanilla glaze and sprinkles.  super duper fun, right?

the bean was excited to help scoop the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, crack the eggs into the flour mountain, and stir it all together with a whisk.

even more fun was tossing the rainbow-colored sprinkles into the batter, along with mixing in a bit of blue food coloring to make it extra awesome.  she didn't even mind when she got a little splotch of batter on her hand (she's usually kind of finicky about getting messy - "can i have a wipe, please?"), and happily licked it right off.  i made an attempt to stop her, since there were raw eggs in the batter, but she was too quick for me.  i figure one tiny splatter won't give her salmonella.  don't call CPS on my ass.

although she so enthusiastically stirred that batter that the sprinkles might have melted.  oh, well.

i got to bust out my double-burner nonstick griddle.  yay!

of course, she got to enjoy the first pancake.

looks good, yes?

i think her most favorite part was getting to lick the whisk i used to make the glaze.

another success!  these were super delicious, and the teen enjoyed hers too when she finally rolled out of bed.  probably super duper unhealthy, but hey - i don't make breakfast like that very often.

is it ever NOT about food?

yesterday was a lovely, rainy, lazy day. although i did manage to shower and get dressed and stuff fairly early, and then the bean helped me vacuum and mop the floors. that was pretty much the extent of our productivity yesterday. never even set foot outta the house. heh.

well, wait. i did actually test out a new chocolate chip cookie recipe. and it was a good one!

all these years that i've been baking, i've always had to plan ahead - setting the butter out to soften for hours before i could get started. little did i know that there were recipes out there that used melted butter instead! yeah, yeah, this sounds lame as hell, but i was excited. and since we were all out of cookies (quelle horreur!), i got to work.

it was so weird to work with gooey, liquidy butter vs. soft, creamy butter.

but it mixed up rather nicely. and i found that i was all out of semisweet chips, but had a box of baking chocolate bars. so i just busted out my knife and chopped it up.

a lot of the melted butter recipes i perused recommended chilling the dough for at least 10 minutes after mixing. some even suggested chilling for 12 or more hours! but i'm impatient. so 15 minutes later, i pulled the bowl out of the fridge and started scoopin'.

my oven is a piece of crap. i think i've mentioned it before. but i experimented and played with it and kept an eye on the thermometer i bought to hang from one of the racks, and finally figured it out: if i set it for about 75 degrees higher than the required temperature, it works perfectly. yay! and so after 11 minutes, i pulled out the first tray of cookies.

strangely, they smelled slightly of nutella. there's no nuts in these (i don't like them in cookies or brownies, with the exception of macadamia nuts), and my jar of nutella was unopened in the pantry. and when i took a bite of my test cookie, it even tasted a little nutella-ish. not a bad thing, obviously, since i adore the stuff, but still...weird. oh, well. the hub didn't seem to notice or mind as he chowed down on those cookies after dinner.

speaking of dinner, the leftovers went over pretty well. i had some steak from the weekend stashed in the fridge, and i'd only saved the chunks that were done pretty rare. i popped 'em in the oven, sauteed some portabella mushrooms, chopped up some cooked bacon (of course) and a tomato, tossed it all with a bag of romaine and a tablespoonful each of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, added a bit of salt and pepper, and sliced the steak on top of the plated salads. i served it with some rolls, and it was pretty darn good.

the hub had to skedaddle earlier than usual this morning, so the bean and i were up early too. i decided to make breakfast for both of us, and as i scrambled an egg for her, i mixed up some batter for german pancakes.

i love IHOP. more specifically, i love IHOP's german pancakes - thin, delicate, eggy pancakes folded in fourths, served with an ridiculously large dollop of whipped butter and lemon slices. i usually slather the hot cakes with some of that butter, set aside the other 3/4 of it, and squeeze some lemon juice on top. so yummy!

so the other day, i decided to google for recipes in an effort to clone my favorite pancakes. and after looking about a million and two different sites, i finally found one. for some reason, i couldn't bookmark it, so i just copied and pasted the recipe.

my little nonstick omelet pan was perfect for making them:

as i poured, flipped, and folded, i cut up the first pancake and gave it to the bean. she liked it so much, she took the rest of the pancake right off of the plate. but then she got a little confused.

took a bite...

and realized it was just as good as the cut-up pieces on her tray. whee!

here's mine:

are you, like, SO totally over my cooking adventures yet? i hope not, because it's fun as hell. oh, and if you want to make your own german pancakes, here's the recipe. my apologies to the original author - i wiped out my browser history yesterday, so i can't even get back to the page i c&p'd it from. but hey, thanks.

4 eggs, well beaten
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup melted butter
4 tablespoons sugar
1 cup milk

mix eggs, sugar, butter, & milk; add flour. cook on greased griddle. make the pancakes small. they will be thin & delicate. can also add a drop or 2 of vanilla for extra flavor (confession: i never measure vanilla extract in anything i make. i just pour till it looks good). fold in fourths, smear top with butter and serve with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and lemon slices.

dee-licious.