Tidbit Thursday - Mastering Your Mornings

I don't get morning people.  Never have, never will.

My daughter is a morning person.  I hope this will have no bearing on the future of our mother-daughter relationship.

I am willing to do almost anything that will cut down the amount of time I have to be up in the morning before my children turn into hungry, ravenous wolves.

Leaving out the milk and cereal is problematic.  Sure, you can sweep up cereal.  But have you tried cleaning up sour spilled milk?  Or the upchuck that is likely to result from the milk having sat out all night in the middle of the summer?

I knew a guy who used to go so far as to pour milk on his boxed cereal, cover it in plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge until morning, but that would test the limits of even Chex, I would think.

My grandparents used to entirely set the table the evening before to cut down on morning activities.

The authorities frown on allowing 5 year olds to use the stove unsupervised, so bacon and eggs are clearly out.

Ditto with sharp knives, even grapefruit knives.

They leave me no choice but to roll my sorry self out of bed in the morning and feed the little rascals.  At least the kitchen is also where the coffee maker is stored.

I am not a huge fan of toaster pastries, pre-fab pancakes, or frozen waffles.  Our budget is really, really not a fan.  Solution?  Make them myself. 

It takes almost no extra effort and very little extra time to make extra French toast, waffles, or pancakes, while you are already at it. 

You can even use your handy dandy panini press!

The one on the right may or may not be the victim of a child-based distraction.  Let them cool on a plate in as close to a single layer as is practical.

To keep them from sticking to one another inside the zip top bag, put them in one layer at a time and freeze them, before adding another layer.  This will actually give the other pieces more time to fully cool and even dry out a bit, since they may have steamed from being at the bottom of the pile.

I suppose you could use wax or parchment paper between the layers, but that's a whole other step.

Then you'll need one or both of these. 

In your toaster oven, preheat to 400 F and cook for 5-10 minutes, depending on how many you cram in there.
*Sidenote:  I keep my toaster oven tray covered in foil.  Cuts down on clean up.  That and I have never quite figured out how to adequately clean that little thing.

If you have a frozen pastry setting on your toaster, fantastic!  If you have a toaster that is not equipped with such advanced technology, set it to a higher than normal toast.

This trick works with pancakes as well.  For re-heating those, I would recommend sticking with a toaster oven, as the pancakes tend to flop over and get stuck in the regular toaster.

And that's it.  My ultra-secret technique for making mornings a little easier.

What kinds of tips and tricks do you use? 1. 2.

Tidbit Thursday - Mastering Your Mornings

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Pancakes - it's what for Supper

Today is Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, and International Women's Day, all rolled into one.

In honour of such, and because I love it when someone else decides what's for supper, we made pancakes tonight.  With sausage, apple sauce, and maple syrup, of course.  Can't have an unbalanced, nutritionally deficient meal now, can we?

Please note the considerably more legible script here.  That is because my mother wrote this recipe out for me herself.  She was a nurse, back in the day.  I have no idea if that's why her handwriting is so much more soothing to read than mine, but some excuse is better than none.

Crack out your best multi-colour, nesting, melamine bowls.  The ones you bought but should have waited a few more days to purchase because then you could have gotten a set with lids at another store for less money.  Yah, you know the ones.

Pick a bowl, any bowl, and melt 3 tablespoons of butter into it.  Note the precise measuring techniques being employed here.

Three eggs.  This time, use exactly three eggs.  It's important.

Leave the whites in one bowl and pop the yolks into the melted butter.  If you look hyper-critically at this mixture, you will see some bits of yolk in here, too.  Despite dire warnings to the contrary, I do actually manage to get egg whites to beat up, even if there is some yolk in them.

Throw your tablespoon or so of sugar in with the eggs and butter and give it a good wisk.

Let your orange manicured four year old put one tablespoon of baking soda into the wrong bowl.  It should really be in the bowl with its other dry friends.  The Pancake Police haven't caught me yet.  If they ask, you've never heard of me.

There we go, this will make the Pancake Police happy.  A nice green bowl to match the nice green measuring spoons.  And not a wet ingredient in sight.  A considerable amount of orange nail polish is also missing, but that was long before we started this, so I'm not actually worried about finding it in this baking endeavour.

Here are the beautiful, funky green measuring spoons.  I picked these up at a Michael's craft store a couple of summers ago.  In that cheapie aisle they have.  You're surprised to find I'd shop in that aisle, I know.  Here they are, pictured right before they are swiped by the one year old, thus forcing you to eyeball your salt measurement.

Not that I probably wouldn't have done that anyways.

Here are all the ingredients, sitting together for a happy little pre-pancake picture (say that three times fast!)

OK, so technically the recipe calls for adding the buttermilk and egg/butter mixture alternately and then wisking it up.  That is far too much to keep straight around here, especially after 4 pm.  I just dump it all in.

See?  All so very nice.  The kids have done a fine job mixing this up.  If you don't have buttermilk to add, do not despair.  Regular milk with 1-2 tablespoons of white vinegar added to it and left for a minute or so will accomplish the same thing.

Here are the helpers, especially proud of themselves.

And last, but not least, whip up the egg whites.  I mean, really beat them.  You want them to stand up on their own and be counted!

Like this.  This could double as wallpaper paste.  Or hair glue for Sid Vicious.

Then plop it in and fold the two mixtures together gently.  The goal is to break down as little of the egg white as possible.

Then cook'em up.  A nice hot griddle, about 350F if yours has a handy dandy dial like that.  If you are going to add fruit or chocolate chips, I'd sprinkling them here.  Make sure you use fresh or thawed fruit, otherwise it will still be frozen and the batter immediately around the fruit will be gooey and undercooked.  Ewww.

These pancakes are thick and will require a little manual spreading on the griddle.

These store and freeze very well.  Freeze them individually, or on a single layer, and then transfer them to a zip top bag.  I pop mine in a toaster oven at 400 F for 5-10 minutes, depending on how many I am baking, and bingo!  Mom of the year has a hot breakfast ready for her kids on a school day!

You can change the flour and texture of these pretty dramatically by substituting some of the all purpose flour for whole wheat flour.  I would only do 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup, however, as it will give you an extremely dense pancake.  It will result in a very nutty-flavoured and hearty cake.

This recipe doubles and triples very nicely.  The batter will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, although it will become more fluid.

And there you have it.  Light, fluffy pancakes and a whole lot of dishes to wash. 1. 2.

Pancakes - it's what for Supper

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