No Pancake Photos

It was Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) yesterday.  Even though our family really didn't observe Lent in any formal way, we did take part in the Pancake Day tradition.  As kids, we were just over-the-moon excited to be able to have pancakes for supper.  What could be better than pancakes for supper?! 

My mother used to wrap nickels, quarters, dimes and pennies in tin foil and put them in the pancake batter.  We would search for the wrapped pieces in our pancakes, always hoping for the 'big' ones (knowing they'd be quarters)!  I haven't continued with that part of the tradition with our pancake day.  Probably because I know I'd still want to wash the money before wrapping it, and I'd want to wash it a lot... and that's all more work than I want to have right now.  Yet, now that our girls know about mom's and dad's 'money-in-the-pancake' tradition growing up, they might soon be expecting the same.  Nope, I'm holding my ground on this one!

Anyway, last night was indeed pancakes for supper, but good heavens, I made a royal botch of it!  I don't know what went wrong.  I wasn't really minding exact measurements when mixing the batter, and then one of the girls also mixed the batter, and by the time the ladle hit the skillet, those lil' cakes were in trouble.  The result was a bunch of flat and sticky pancakes.  I managed to salvage the 2nd half of the batch, and also had some veg burgers and home fries in the oven, so supper wasn't a total wash.  But, it was mighty frustrating!  And, rather stressful since the baby was also hungry, and the eldest needed to eat and get out to a power skating session. The girls didn't mind. They still scarfed down the lot, saying "mom, the sticky pancakes are still pretty good".  Yeah, I guess if doused with maple syrup, ha! Lesson learned: With baking, it's not wise to 'wing it' (unless of course I'm immersed in recipe testing, and even then I map out a formula). 

So, no, I don't have any pictures to share from our pancake night.  Instead, I thought I'd show you this one.  Kamut spaghetti in a Gluten-Free White Sauce (new recipe), topped off with some roasted marinated cremini mushrooms.  This white sauce is rather easy to make, and doesn't use earth balance.  Not because I'm 'anti-EB' (we quite love the stuff for breads, potatoes, toast, etc), but because I often want to give you the option of not using it in a recipe, in case you have food allergies, or just don't want to use a more processed product.

Did you observe pancake day?  If so, I hope yours were a delicious, fluffy success!

There are virtually no nutrients in animal-based foods that are not better provided by plants.  "Principle #3", The China Study.