Not Much of a Story But . . . Highlights

Isn't it just like me setting up low expectations? They prevent disappointment.

Anyways, first dish up is the buttermilk pancakes I made for last Sunday breakfast. They're from the same Epicurious recipe as before. Once again they were pretty good. These ones have pineapple on the side and marmalade and butter on them. Mmmmm, butter. I'm starting to not like them too sweet. . . the pineapple was almost too sweet. Anyways, this took care of the pancake craving.On Monday, I made banana muffins using the Low Fat Banana Bread recipe on Epicurious. This used up some of the leftover buttermilk and 3 super-ripe bananas. I pretty much followed the recipe except I didn't flour the tins, I used about half brown sugar, I added a teaspoon or so of cinnamon, and I used slightly less sugar than called for. Of course, the other change is that I baked it as muffins rather than a loaf. I don't own a loaf pan. Anyways, it made a dozen muffins that baked up in about 22 minutes. Here's how pretty they looked:
The muffins got an excellent rise and had good texture for low fat, I think. My only beef is that they are too sweet for my taste, 3/4 of a cup of sugar is a freaking lot. Next time i would use less than half a cup and probably all brown sugar. I froze many of the muffins for later. We'll see how they hold up. I'm crossing my fingers.

This week I also ate my first Fuyu persimmon, that I know of. When I bought it, the lady asked what kind of tomato it was. That was a little funny. Anyways, it had mild, fragrant, firm almost crunchy orange flesh. It wasn't a particularly sweet fruit. It was subtle, really. I didn't think too much of it while I was eating it, but I kinda want another one. Only problem is that they're pricey and I don't want to eat ones from China and it's hard to tell which are. The sign said California. . . I hope that's true. I think it cost $1.50 and that's the cheapest I've seen.

Finally, my dinner tonight based on Quinoa and Creczenza with Sauteed Mushrooms in Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking. I had to add a bit of rice 'cause I ran out of quinoa. I enjoyed the crimini mushrooms. The fried egg was my addition 'cause the girl needs protein. I didn't have Creczenza, a type of cheese I've never seen, so I used some grated provolone and asiago. Aside from the mushrooms with chili flakes, it was mild and needed more pepper. Of course that's my fault. The texture of quinoa was a pleasure as always in this dish. Here's a photo of my creation.
I also stirred in a little parsley for colour and flavour. The book this is from is pretty inspiring even if some ingredients are. . . out there.

And this is how you synthsize breakfast for lunch: AKA Buttermilk Pancakes

So, for my first entry I'll tell you about making pancakes instead of studying. Pancakes are one of my many, many favourite foods. I have strange memories of myself as a child trying to eat at least ten pancakes at breakfast on the weekends. I think my dad made them really small when I was younger. As I got older I got confused as to why I couldn't eat as many as I did when I was younger. Was it possible that my breakfast eating capacity--really an enormous capacity--was shrinking while I grew? I think that's quite impossible.



Anyways, now that I live on my own I rarely make complex breakfasts like pancakes for breakfast. Usually, I upgrade them to lunch. Yesterday I decided that I wanted pancakes for lunch. I hadn't eaten them since a breakfast at the High Level Diner almost two months ago. Those pancakes were okay....but oddly tough. I ate them all anyway. The Amateur Gourmet once raved about buttermilk pancakes using this recipe from Epicurious. I always liked buttermilk pancakes from restaurants but had never bought and used buttermilk myself. So I decide that I would go to Safeway and actually buy some buttermilk to make pancakes.



Later, I stirred together the ingredients for half the recipe with a fork--no whisk for me. I dropped the batter into my beloved frying pan and the cooking pancakes looked like this:
















I accidentally undercooked the first batch, but don't they look good with some random accouterments:















As I side note, I'm usually more fond of ham than bacon.....unlike my roommate.

The second round of pancakes were cooked to a more perfect consistency. They look lovely in close-up:

These pancakes were really soft and puffy and delicious. You should make them. They're super easy, as long as you let them brown up enough that they're not raw in the the middle. And buying buttermilk is worth it for the pancakes. I was curious about it so I tasted it plain and it was like drinking the juice in cottage cheese, very odd. And that is the story of my synthesis of a pancake breakfast....or lunch.