I have some serious blog posting to catch up on. April and May have been silly busy months for me. Business travel kept me away from home for 3 1/2 of the last 4 weeks. Then I came home with a nasty cold, but I also came home with photos and some thoughts on French Food (look forward to hearing about “meat butter” Also known in more educated and proper circles as Pate … but more on that later)
As a quick hello I wanted to write a quick post on pancakes. In my world I always seem to struggle with the simple “no fail” dishes and sail through complex preparatoins (no molecular gastronomy in my world). When I met my husband I made the now famous “I’m gonna get me a man meat crusted pork chops” on our first real date — he’s never left my side since. But shortly there after he made a humble request — meatloaf!!!!!!! cue the horror music. Tried as I might I could not produce a meatloaf they were either bricks, grease balls, raw or just plain awful. I’ve since mastered the meatloaf.
Pancakes were another reason for me to panic. I abhor mixes, they all taste like a mix. So I kept trying recipies in search of the perfect fluffy buttermilk pancakes. I never found it. But I did find the perfect Sour Cream Pancake recipe from the Barefoot Contessa. I’ve made this recipe several times, trying to put the mashed banana directly into the pancakes always results in burnt banana stuck to the bottom of my griddle (not my favorite pre-coffee event) So I gave up. I also upped the sugar to 1/4 cup and dropped the salt to 1 tsp. It’s a panCAKE — it should be sweet.
I also employed some advice from Alton Brown which is some of the best kitchen advice I’ve ever received — walk away! After you whisk the dry ingredients together and stir in the wet, walk away. Now is the time to start heating the pan. If you don’t give the baking soda some time to do it’s job you’re going to get flat disks instead of light airy pancakes that will amaze friends and neighbors. The batter is ready for cooking when you see bubbles rising in the bowl.
I’m off to catch up on my other blogging I owe you, but I wanted to say hi.
