The perfect pancake

I've made many a pancake in the last 10 years or so since Eric and I have been married, but I never felt any of them were worthy of making again until I came up with this recipe. You can use all regular flour if you don't have whole wheat, but don't try to make it with regular milk or with milk and vinegar (normally a good way to substitute for Buttermilk). It just doesn't work, believe me I've tried and they were not good. 

This recipe makes a lot of pancakes. Enough to feed my entire family and have leftovers to freeze for later. It's hard to say exactly how many since everyone makes different sizes. My best guess would be about 35 4" pancakes. Hope that helps. The Perfect Pancake:  

2 cups all purpose flour 

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour)
1/4 c. sugar 

4 tsp. baking powder 

1 tsp. baking soda 

1/2 tsp. salt 

2 eggs 

4 cups buttermilk 

1/3 cup canola oil 

In an extra large bowl whisk together your dry ingredients. At this point, you can add up to a 1/4 cup of flax seed meal if you want to sneak in a little extra nutrition. Make a well in the center and add your eggs. Beat the eggs lightly with your whisk. Then add the buttermilk and oil. Stir with a spatula until just mixed and still lumpy. Heat your griddle to Medium heat and oil if necessary. Drop by about 1/4 cup batter at a time. This is where you can add some blueberries, bananas or chocolate chips if you desire. Warning: the light in the oven hood does not make for great photos! I just poke them down into the batter as the first side cooks. You'll want to flip them as you see the sides begin to dry a little. Perfect! Whatever is left over I freeze for individual breakfasts. I lay all the pancakes in a single layer on my cooling rack, but you could just as easily use a cookie sheet and then I stick it in the freezer for a couple hours so they are individually frozen. Everybody has a different appetite at breakfast so this way everyone can choose how many they want. I then just put them into a big freezer bag or a plastic container. To reheat, just stack (they heat better that way) as many as you would like on a microwave safe plate and heat at 30 second intervals on high until heated through. "Num, Num, Num delicioso!", as Josiah puts it. 

Visit Kitchen Tip Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday, and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday & Tackle it Tuesday for more great recipes and kitchen ideas.

Desperation dinner aka Cheeseburger casserole

Do you have a meal that everyone likes, is really easy and you almost always have everything on hand? We do and it's the ever so tasty Cheeseburger casserole. I actually had not made it in a long time since I started meal planning and haven't really needed to have a desperation dinner (because I so have it all together these days....uhh...yeah, right?). I decided to put it in the menu plan last week and it reminded me how tasty...and easy it is, so I thought you might like to know how to make it as well. Here's how it goes:  

Cheeseburger casserole  

1lb ground beef  

1 medium onion, chopped  

1 28oz can diced tomatoes (or crushed if you prefer to not have tomato "chunks" that the kids might want to pick out)  

1Tbsp Worcestershire sauce  

1 tsp dried oregano  

1/2 tsp garlic powder  

salt & pepper to taste  

12 oz med-wide egg noodles  

2 cups shredded cheese (cheddar or we like the mexican blend) 

Brown ground beef in a skillet and drain off any fat. Add beef back to the skillet with onion and cook on medium-high until onion is translucent. Add tomatoes, Worcestershire, oregano, garlic powder, salt & pepper. Stir well. Here's mine...pre-stirring. Bring to a boil, lower heat to med-low and let simmer uncovered stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, cook egg noodles according to package directions. Here's where you can choose to either just serve from the skillet or get fancy and put it in a baking dish and bake it for a little while. I actually do mine start to finish in a dutch oven so I only use one dish.  

The "get it on the table in 5 minutes" way: Add your cooked noodles to the meat mixture and stir well. Add 1 cup of cheese and stir well. Cover the top with the remaining 1 cup of cheese, put lid on skillet and let sit on LOW heat for about 5 minutes or until cheese is all melty. 

 

The "fancy smancy-I've got all the time in the world" way: In a greased 9x13 baking dish combine the meat mixture, the cooked noodles and 1 cup of cheese. Top with the remaining 1 cup of cheese. Stick it in a 350 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Here's mine with the egg noodles added....I love egg noodles. They are yummy just with a little butter on them, don't ya think? Here it is all stirred up with the cheese added and ready for the oven. And voila! Here it is all ready to be scarfed down by my family. We like cheese, probably too much, so we had this with cheesy garlic biscuits and green beans. Yummy! I love any dish that everyone will eat (without complaining) and I almost always have the ingredients. Hope you enjoy! Visit Kitchen Tip Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday, and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday for more great recipes and kitchen ideas.

Sweet whole wheat goodness

I really like the idea of using whole wheat flour in my baking since it's much more nutritious than white flour. I also like the idea of using "unbleached" flour....who wants their flour bleached? eww! Anyway, I've found that Bob's red mill Whole Wheat pastry flour is great for use in pastries (hence the name) like cookies, muffins, pancakes, quick bread etc., but could never find a whole wheat flour that I liked for bread and roll making. Most made the bread much too heavy and just not very tasty. I have managed to make a decent roll before with white flour (the best, my husband says), but always came up short in my whole wheat roll endevors. Not any more! I have found, thanks to Laura over at Heavenly Homemakers (she grinds her own...seriously), that Whole Wheat flour made from hard white wheat is much softer and lighter in texture, but has the same nutritional value as that made from red wheat. Once I learned this I went searching and let me tell you, this stuff is hard to find! Sure, I could order it online, but I find that to be a hassle and I certainly don't want to pay shipping charges. I finally found some and it is made here in Kansas so it's local and I love that. It is Hudson Cream whole wheat flour and I found it at Price Chopper. It is so much lighter and softer than regular whole wheat flour and doesn't weigh down your dough. I'm so thankful to have finally found a better alternative than regular old processed white four and it still tastes great! visit Laura's Gratituesday, Kitchen tip Tuesday and Talk about it Tuesday