Cornmeal Pancakes

These pancakes look perfect. They are golden and photographed beautifully, but they were heavy and not delicious. Here is a link to the recipe I used, but if anyone has one that is tasty, I'd love to try my hand at another batch.

Day Three: Oven Pancakes...

Growing up these were my special occasion pancakes. Mom would make these German Oven Pancakes for my birthday and they've always been one of my favorites with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.  Nom, nom, nom...






For about two servings of Oven Pancakes
pre-heat oven to 450

Place 2 tablespoons of butter in a pie plate and set in the oven while you beat together

3 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk


Once the butter is melted, pour the batter in the center of the plate and bake in oven for 15-20 minutes. Sprinkle with powered sugar and enjoy immediately!

Cake Batter Pancakes?

I saw this recipe on Tracey's Culinary Adventures and thought, hmm, Cake Batter Pancakes, a little redundant, but worth a shot. She used sprinkles in her version and thinks she'll use chocolate next time. I have my own adjustments as well.

I loved the smell of the batter (cake mix, mmmm) but the taste didn't transfer so much. I probably should have cooked them less. The middle was moist and and delicious but the edges were a bit tough. Next time I'll use frosting, probably cream cheese, and not the gel frosting and sanding sugar I had in the cupboard.  Still, worth trying and I will probably attempt these again with a few adaptations.



Cake Batter Pancakes

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup yellow cake mix
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt

Combine dry ingredients and then add wet...

2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 cups milk
sprinkles

It's Pancake Week!

 Never heard of it (but this can't be a bad thing) so I'm waking up a little earlier than usual this week in order to celebrate a few of my favorite pancake recipes and try some new ones too.

First up, my standard recipe, Maine Pancakes: a little lemon juice apparently makes a lot of difference.

I halved the recipe this morning for just David and I but here is the full one:

2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
3 tbsp sugar

combine dry ingredients

In another bowl

2 eggs well beaten
1 3/4 cups milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup melted butter

stir together wet, add dry and voila!
I did this recipe first (the one Mom used to make back in the day) to help set the bar for pancakes to come. Happy Pancake Week!

Best Foods Ever!

Mmmm. Chocolate chip cookies.

It's been so many meals since I last posted about food and since my most trafficked blog was about food trucks you would think that I would have returned to the topic sooner but it's taken a while. Last February both of my blogs were about food (cookies and hot dogs) so here are three more tasty food lists!

Top foods I make at home and don't get tired of:
(recipes available upon request)

Mexico City: mole and margaritas...

beef stew served over rice
chocolate chip cookies
turkey chili with David's cornbread

Mexican meals I could eat every day of the week:
Mexico City's chicken mole
Poquito Mas's chicken maschiladas
Chipotle's barbacoa burrito

Favorite prepared grocery store foods:
Whole Foods' old fashioned chicken salad (with sourdough baguette from La Brea Bakery and Midnight Moon cheese)
Tuscan Tomato Bisque from Vons/Pavillions/Safeway
Baked Cheddar Cheese Ruffles
Haagan Dazs coffee ice cream

Try them all. They come highly recommended.
Have any favorites I've missed?
Nom nom nom nom nom.

Snow Day!

Bend had a snow day today. Thought I'd share this excerpt from Through Eyes Like Mine because I miss those snow days real bad.

I

 wake up and it's still dark outside. I don't need to look out the window to know it snowed last night. From my cocoon of warm blankets, I hear a car pass by the house. Cars sound totally different driving down roads covered in snow. They move in near silence or with the hum of chains on their tires. My alarm goes off and I reach into the cold room to turn it off. I don't want to get up. Maybe enough snow fell to cancel school. The excitement of this possibility wakes me up completely. 

I hold my breath and jump from the warmth of bed into the cold of my bedroom. I sprint downstairs to stand by the woodstove in the living room. Mom makes breakfast in the kitchen and outside snow continues to fall. It was snowing last night when I went to bed and it still hasn't stopped. A clean white blanket covers the grass and the houses wear a thick layer of marshmallow fluff. Tree branches droop with the snow's weight making them look old and weary. From a glance at the fence posts it looks like at least eight inches have fallen. 

Mom carries a teakettle into the living room. She sets it on top of the woodstove and several water droplets dance on the iron top before hissing into steam. "No school today, Nori. Snow day."

"Yes," I say and smile.

So, how are your book sales going?

Today at the end of a long day at my second job (teaching), one of my colleagues asked about my first job (writing). "So, how's your book selling?"

I told him things were going okay, but that it was hard to know. This is what I've thought about since then:  well, I haven't cracked any best-seller's lists, after toying with sales rankings in the thousands on Amazon in December I've fallen to the hundreds of thousands in February. But my dad, he's practically sold 100 copies on his own. You can now find my book in real life places (Between the Covers in Bend, the Nikkei Legacy Center in Portland) and buy it or order is from bookstores like Powell's. So I don't really know how sales are going. I wish there was a magic formula to stimulate the book, some tipping point when sales would accelerate and I wouldn't know every person who has read or ordered the book. As of right now though, my goal of 10,000 copies seems impossible, but maybe I won't feel that way in another three months. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

So, I've arranged a bunch or words in a particular order and put it between two covers. Any takers?