It's that time of year again!  That pesky little leprechaun runs all over our house in search of gold!  Little does he know there is NO GOLD in this house! He always leaves a little mess behind, but since I caught him a few years back and told him to STOP making a mess or I will OFF him, he has obliged!  Now he only turns things green in our house leaving only the slightest of hints that he has been here!  Some of the things he turns green around here are: the toilet bowl water, milk, water, my EYELASHES, mashed potatoes, eggs, and our pancakes!

St. Patty's Day CAKE Pancakes
1 1/2 cups cake flour 
1 cup white cake mix
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Heat griddle to 400 degrees.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl until combined well. Turn your back for 2 seconds to get a drink of coffee, turn back and the Leprechaun will have turned your batter green.  It is the craziest thing!

Just like any other pancake cook until tiny bubbles start to pop, then flip!  Cook for 45 seconds to 1 minute more AND....

Serve! 

Heaven on an English muffin! Can't you just feel your arteries clogging?  This is (another) one of our favorite breakfast meals!  Toasted English muffin, fried bacon, egg fried in bacon grease, and a slice of cheese.  What more could you ask for?

This is one of those post that I feel a little silly writing, but you never know who needs a new idea.  Maybe there is someone out there that needs a reminder about Cheesy Ham and Eggs.  Who knows?  Anyhow, they are simple and quick - perfect for that morning when you are rushing out the door.

What you will need: 
6 eggs
1/4 cup milk (your choose your poison, skim, 1%, 2%, whole, cream, whatever...)
Grated cheese, my kids like cheddar
1/2 cup diced ham
Pam spray

Put eggs and milk in a bowl and whisk until eggs are completely scrambled. (I like adding milk to our eggs, this gives them a softer texture.)

Heat skillet over medium heat, spray skillet with Pam and pour eggs into skillet. Sprinkle ham and cheese on top of eggs.  

Cook for about 1 minute, then mix eggs, ham and cheese constantly until eggs are cooked.  This should take about 3-5 minutes and eggs should be light and fluffy. 

Serve with toast & fruit!

I feel kind of silly posting this recipe, but my friend Deniz has been asking for it, (for months..) so I feel I must deliver.  Breakfast tacos are SIMPLE!  Seriously simple.  Just cook up some sausage, bacon, chorizo, ham or really just about any meat you want.  This day I was making tacos for about 20 people and I only made sausage and bacon breakfast tacos.

Fry up some taters....I keep it simple, chop potatoes up pretty small, toss them in a skillet with about 2TBL vegetable oil and season with salt and pepper.  Cook until tender crisp!  (I do NOT peel my potatoes first - leave those skins on!)

Once you have your meat and potatoes ready scramble up some eggs!  When making breakfast tacos I always add a little milk to my scrambled eggs to make them fluff up a little!

Once everything is ready heat your flour tortillas thoroughly in a dry skillet flipping once.  Once your tortillas are ready load them up with eggs, meat of choice (you can use more than one!) and cheese.  I typically use sharp cheddar, but feel free to use your favorite cheese.  Roll them up ~ wrap in aluminum foil (if you are not eating right away) and  toss into a roasting pan set to low or in the oven set on low to keep warm until you are ready to serve!  

And last but not least DON'T FORGET THE SALSA!!! In my opinion this is one of the most important steps....Make sure you have some super yummy salsa to top off your tacos with!  A bad salsa just makes your taco bad!  If you want to make my salsa just click here!

So, there you have it.  Nice and easy.  You can always buy salsa if you choose (I wouldn't, but to each their own!  ;)
And the good thing about feeding these to a crowd, you can always precook the meat and potatoes and just heat them up the next morning.

We had an amazing weekend, but truth be told, I am WAY TOO tired to write about it tonight.  Instead I'm going to leave you with this awesome Mixed Berry Spoon Cake recipe.  Enjoy!  I promise to write a little more tomorrow.  

 

FILLING:
4 pints strawberries, hulled and quartered
2 pints blackberries
2 pints raspberries
1 ½  TBL crystallized ginger (http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeyscrystallizedginger.html)
 ¾ plus 2 TBL sugar
2 TBL cornstarch
Mix all ingredients and let stand for 10 minutes.

BATTER:
1 ½ cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp lemon zest
1 ½ TSP baking powder
2 eggs
½ cup milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 ½ sticks salted butter - melted 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  In a medium bowl mix together all dry ingredients.  In a small bowl mix together the eggs, milk and vanilla. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredient and mix together until evenly moistened (I can’t help but think of a friend ‘Nickie’ when I say the word moist! Hehehe) – then add the melted butter and mix till smooth.  

Spread the filling a 13x9 inch baking dish (or into three 8 inch rounds like I did – I was giving 2 away and keeping one).  Spoon the batter over the top leaving small gaps. Bake for 1 hour – the fruit should be bubbling. Let cool for as long as you can stand it, and then serve – it is yummy by itself or served with vanilla ice cream or homemade whip cream!  (Fine, buy Cool Whip – I won’t judge ;o)

This recipe is very versatile...you can change up the berries to your liking. If you fancy blueberries, throw them in....don't like raspberries, leave 'em out.  The choices are endless.....

***Recipe adapted from Food & Wine "Our Best New Classics"

Good night all....

I ♥ fresh blueberries...

I ♥ fresh blueberries and I ♥ fresh muffins.....

I ♥ fresh blueberry muffins!!!

And you will to with this super easy blueberry muffin recipe!  I've shared it before (over at Six in Seoul), but really felt like you guys needed a reminder. ♥

For Muffins:
1 1/2 cups  flour
¾ cup  sugar
½ tsp  salt
2 tsp baking  powder
1/3 cup vegetable  oil
1 egg
1/3 cup  milk
1 cup fresh blueberries 

For Crumb Topping:
½ cup sugar
1/3 cup  flour
¼ cup butter  cubed
1 ½ tsp ground  cinnamon
Mix all together.

1. Preheat oven to  400.  Spray muffin pan with Pam.
2. Combine flour,sugar, salt and baking  powder.
3. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup  measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup.
4. Mix this with flour mixture.
5. Fold in blueberries.
6. Fill muffin cups right  to the top,(This will make about 9-10  muffins) 
7. Sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
8. Bake for 20-22  minutes.

This pancake recipe is very basic.  Feel free to add extracts to it to change the flavor a little, add berries or nuts for a little extra oomph, OH, and how about some chocolate chips if you are feeling a little sweet!  The options are endless with these yummy pancakes!  These pancakes are much different than "our favorite pancakes" but we try to spread the love around when it comes to pancakes!

2 eggs
5 TBL butter
1 cup mil
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 TBL sugar
4 tsp baking powder

Beat eggs in bowl.  Melt butter in microwave.  Add milk and butter to eggs, mix well. 
Put flour, sugar and baking powder in a large bowl, mix well.  Pour egg mixture into the flour mixture and stir only until the dry ingredients are well moistened, don't over mix.

Heat griddle to 350.  Drop 1/4 cup batter for each pancake onto griddle.  Cook until bubbles appear (like shown below).

Turn over and cook another 30-45 seconds.  Serve pancakes hot with a little butter, maple syrup or some yummy honey butter! 

Breakfast is a big deal in our house.  We eat it every day.  I cook it almost every day.  Cereal is a rare treat; if you can call Multi-Grain Cheerio's a treat, which my kids do especially since we have found the joy of honey drizzled directly on the Cheerios.   Most mornings I cook a hot breakfast for the kids (Hubby is weird, he likes his Cheerios...go figure) and since I found this new/old cookbook "The Breakfast Book" by Marion Cunningham, (Thanks Lara!)  mornings around here are even better!  On Sunday I opened the cookbook to page 125 - Baked German Pancake.  I have never been to Germany and have never eaten a "REAL" baked German pancake so I have NO IDEA if this is anywhere close to what you would get in Germany, but what I do know is that my kids DEVOURED this pancake 'in just 1 minute' (that is what Girl said anyway).  The kids were savages and ask for a second and then a third.  These are super easy to make - I ended up making THREE of these bad boys AND they ask for them for breakfast again today - typically my kids complain if they have the same thing for breakfast two days in a row (true story).  Boy 2 made the statement "I'm going to ask for this for my next birthday, in 350 something days!"  You know it has to be good if he is already planning almost a year out! 

The recipe:

3 eggs, room temperature
½ cup milk
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
2 TBL butter – melted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter on 12-inch skillet (with ovenproof handles).

Break eggs into a mixing bowl and beat until thoroughly mixed.  Add the milk and blend well.

Slowly sift the flour and salt into the egg/milk mixture while whisking to blend.  Add melted butter and mix briskly- batter should be smooth. 

Pour batter into pan:

Bake for 22 minutes

Now the recipe says to drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  We sprinkled with powdered sugar, but left the lemon juice off.  Instead we used warm maple syrup and melted honey butter!  YUMMY!

I've written about these pancakes before over at Six in Seoul.  They are so good that I don't want anyone to miss out on them.  I mean when my kids are asking for these pancakes on their birthday, the one day out of the year when you can eat ANYTHING you want for breakfast in our house (and I mean anything) - I think that in itself is worthy of a second post.   (And it's not like they don't get these pancakes at least once a month!)

These pancakes are so light and fluffy they practically melt in your mouth!

4 eggs
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
¾ cup flour
2 cups sour cream
3 TBL sugar

Put eggs in a mixing bowl and stir until well blended.

Add all ingredients & mix well.

Heat griddle until it is nice and hot…I set mine at 400.  I make these pancakes pretty small - (my kids like to 'dip' them in the syrup) dropping about 1/8th of a cup of pancake mix onto the griddle at a time.

When a few bubbles appear on the top of the pancakes, turn them over and cook briefly.

Serve with warm maple syrup ~ YUM!