1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat germ, any flavor
1 T white sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt (optional)
1 1/2 cups fat-free milk
1/4 cup egg substitute or 1 egg, lightly beaten
2 T vegetable oil
1/2 cup reduced-calorie pancake syrup
2 cups fresh blueberries, raspberries or blackberries
Additional wheat germ (optional)

Heat nonstick skillet or griddle over medium heat or electric griddle to 375 degree heat. Skillet is ready when drops of water sizzle, then evaporate.

For pancakes, combine first 4 ingredients and salt, if desired, in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, combine milk, egg substitute, and oil. Mix milk mixture into dry ingredients just until moistened. Batter may have small lumps, which will disappear during cooking.

Pour about 1/4 cup batter for each pancake onto skillet. Turn and cook other side when tops of pancakes bubble and edges appear cooked. Turn only once.

Combine syrup and fruit in small saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat; serve fruit mixture over pancakes. Sprinkle pancakes with more wheat germ, if desired.

4 Servings.


I actually used heavy whipping cream instead of milk. Jeremy said the pancakes were very fluffy and yummy. I had only raspberries and blueberries, for the syrup. The sides were only bacon and fried potatoes.

For my next trick, I decided to take a crack at making flan. Well, I actually started it at the same time as the bread, but whatever. The basic recipe for flan is pretty simple. I used the recipe I found at Allrecipes here I mixed up the flan according to the instructions, differing only in that I added a couple more eggs to the mix to increase the density and mixed up all the ingredients in a blender instead of by hand. I also added a couple tablespoons of orange juice to the sugar as it was melting, which I saw suggested somewhere or other else.

I cooked the whole thing in a water bath to try to make sure it was cooked through more evenly. Important lesson I learned for the future: Add the water to the second pan after putting it in the oven. Also, trying to remove a pan full of sloshing, boiling hot water from an oven temporarily grants one superhuman concentration and dexterity. I forgot to cover the pan with aluminum foil when I put it in the oven, which is why I think the top (which became the bottom) turned out all brown like this.

Everything turned out fairly well, though the final product took a little coaxing to get out of the pan. It all looks like it should and tastes pretty good, so I'm ruling this a success.


I'd also like to take a moment to point out that I now possess the three most recent posts on the blog, and to chide the rest of you for dropping the ball so very badly. It's not like I'm going completely overboard, two of those posts are a week apart.

I decided to do a little cooking today, so I took a crack at this recipe I found here.

• 1 1/8 cups cola
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 cups flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast

Basically just dumped the ingredients in my bread machine and hit go. Used the IBC Black Cherry Cola we had sitting around, same brand Jeremy used for his barbecue sauce last week that he hasn't posted. The resulting dough had a nice pink color to it that ensured that no matter what angle I took a picture from it looked like a giant wad of chewed gum.


I was pleased to see that the color didn't fade at all during the cooking process, though it thankfully lost the gum resemblance. The finished product is...interesting. The black cherry flavor doesn't come through nearly as much as I would have liked. The recipe can be used with basically any soda, so a type with a more intense flavor might help that, or maybe you could cook some down into a syrup to add with the rest of it to intensify things. Other than that the texture is okay, and it doesn't seem overly crumbly.


Stay tuned for flan sometime later tonight.

I told Jeremy I would post this sometime last week, so here we go. I whipped up this barbecue sauce for the near disastrous barbecue event on Saturday. I started with the recipe I found at this link:
http://bbq.about.com/od/barbecuesaucerecipes/r/bl50722a.htm

I decided it didn't look like it had enough heat, so I replaced the bell pepper in the recipe with a finely diced whole serrano, veins and seeds removed. The end product had a weird, smoky sort of flavor that some people seemed to like even if I found it a little odd.

Overall I think it turned out alright, confirming my latent, untapped cooking genius. My future career path as a saucier now looks bright indeed.

Yay!

Side Note: It turns out it's hard to take a picture of a liquid inside a highly reflective glass jar? Who knew?

I finally figured out something I could post on here! This is just something I like to do from time to time when there's leftover hash browns. I don't have any exact measurements for any of the ingredients I add (just to let you know, ahead of time). Here's how I do it:

1. Heat up the hashbrowns. Since it's the frozen kind that I use, best to heat it up for about 3-4 minutes (in the microwave). Once it's done, you take it out, and then you
   
2. Add the cheese. That, and if you want salt & pepper. Then, you mix it up. Next, you
3. Add the ranch. Like I said before, there's no measurement for this. Once you've added the ranch, mix it up. Next,
   
4. Add the hot sauce. Personally, I prefer the Tapatio brand. Again no measurement for this. Don't mix it up yet! Heat it up again for another 40 or so seconds. After that mix it up.

As far as the ranch and hot sauce is concerned, you just have to play it by................taste (in order to get the right balance between the two)! This is how I do it. That's it for now...