Best Pancakes, a wolf spider and the croup

Yep. Jack’s home sick with croup and a wicked fever. He wasn’t very hungry until after the Motrin kicked in. I decided to make the most wicked pancakes ever. Want the recipe?

Jack: Mom, these are the best pancakes ever! Well, I haven’t tried them yet but when I do I know they’ll be the best.

me: Nice.

Here’s the Pancake recipe (I’ve posted it before… But what the heck.)

Mix dry ingredients…
– 1 cup flour
– 1 teaspoon baking powder
– 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
– 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Then add wet:
– 1 + 1/3 cup milk (any kind…)
– 1 beaten egg
– 2 tablespoons melted butter
– 1/2 teaspoon real vanilla

Mix only until blended and largest lumps are gone. Use a pretty hot griddle. I set mine for 350 and flip them when the bubbles rise to the top. Yum!

So…we finished eating pancakes and sat on the couch to watch Star Wars. Episode 4. Again.

I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was black and moving quickly. I jumped back and realized it was one of the wolf spiders that lived in our Christmas tree. I had forgotten about them. I had found a few dead ones after I stopped watering the tree and thought they were all gone. This one landed on the table and literally turned to look at me and then backed slowly away. Yeesh.

Okay I’m gonna get back to the boy with the fever and the 59th episode of Good Luck Charlie.

10 Reasons Why We Like Pancakes

me: Pancakes for breakfast! Now tell me 10 reasons why we like to eat them for breakfast.

Jack: I want eggs for breakfast.

me: Sigh…

 

So I went ahead and made Jack “Grandpa Eggs”, which is just soft-boiled eggs cut up over toast. 4 and a half minutes of boiling, as Jack always reminds me. But since I had mentioned pancakes, I wanted some all to myself. Maybe I would have an egg with it. Or two.

I always hated hated hated my pancake recipe. I used a few cookbooks and they were all pretty much the same. I made sure to NOT over mix the batter, because lumps mean light and fluffy. My pancakes were always dry. Then I thought of Smitten Kitchen. Of course she had to have the best recipe in town. And she did. In my opinion. She adapted from the Martha Stewart cookbook, which also in my opinion has some great recipes.

Here’s the recipe.

Mix dry in one bowl, mix wet in another, then combine and VERY SLIGHTLY MIX KEEPING THE LUMPS. I add the milk to the bowl first, THEN the melted butter, then the eggs, so that the hot butter doesn’t scramble the eggs. Or you can let it cool down. But I’m usually in a freaken hurry when I want pancakes.

And here’s what mine looked like.

Not that pretty, but you will not care at all when you taste them. No need to put a pat of butter on top because they are buttery enough. And wait until you pull the leftovers out of the fridge. Seriously good with any kind of fruit preserve on top. Cold. Rolled up. Eaten while standing in front of the open fridge looking for the next snack.