Breakfast of Champions...

or at least the pancake-crazy.

To this day, I contend that I am one of the most discerning pancake consumers in the world. I have looked high and low, tasted pancakes in many-a state, and tested a recipe box-full of recipes, all in search of the perfect pancake. And funnily enough, when I would end up being served a chewy, heavy specimen, I would be on the verge of personally offended. Nothing is worse that being served and paying for something you can make better at home.

Indeed, I fancied myself spoiled as I grew up with the pancakes of the Dairy Palace, a local favorite in my hometown. The Dairy Palace, I was convinced, had the best pancakes I'd ever tasted. Unfortunately when I was living in my little town, the Dairy Palace, open 24 hours, only served pancakes from midnight to 11am. As I was not much of a morning person, I found myself visiting the DP with my crew of girlfriends after midnight nearly every weekend! Over the years I had become more and more convinced that I would never find a pancake as good as the ones I was served at the Dairy Palace. I tried. Believe me, I tried.

Finally, thanks to Alton Brown, I may have found it. In addition to producing pancakes that are light and fluffy, this recipe is another time-saver: the dry ingredients can be made in bulk and stored for another morning... or, if you're like me, another late-night pancake craving.

Pancake Mix

6 c all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp sugar

I like to spoon all the ingredients in a large zip-top bag or reusable airtight container for storage and shake to combine.

Pancakes for 2

1 c prepared pancake mix
1 c low-fat buttermilk
1 egg
2 tbsp melted butter

Heat the griddle and put some extra butter aside for greasing the pan. Crack the egg in the buttermilk and whisk briskly. Slowly whisk the melted butter into the buttermilk-egg mixture. Next, combine the liquids with the pancake mix in a medium bowl stirring until just incorporated (and I'm sure we all know not to over-stir batters, as it makes the end product tough/chewy).

Once your griddle is cooking, grease it up and drop a 1/3 cup of the mix on. Now's the time to throw on any fresh fruit and/or goodies: blueberries, strawberries, bananas... or chocolate chips, of course. Just drop the extras on top of the uncooked side of the pancake and press lightly with your finger to submerge it in the batter. After 2 minutes or so, flip and in another 1 or 2 minutes, you can move on to the next batch.

As you may be able to see in my picture above, I don't typically put fruit in my pancakes, I just pile it up on the side. And of course ya gotta have a strip of bacon or two... the saltiness of pork just goes so well with maple syrup.

Please to enjoy!

a Quickie

Not like that! Get your mind outta the gutter. ;-)

Last semester was crazy busy for me. I was deep into data collection for my dissertation as well as planning teaching a research methods course and working part-time at UCLA to qualify for tuition remission. I soon realized that due to my packed schedule I regrettably did not have much time to spend in the kitchen. While this realization was an unfortunate one, it got me thinking about how to prepare quick, easy meals without sacrificing freshness, healthfullness, and deliciousness.

Around the same time a dear friend gave me Nancy Silverton's latest cookbook, A Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals with Ingredients from Jars, Cans, Bags, and Boxes. In the book's introduction, Nancy talks about the guilt she felt when she didn't have time to go all out and cook a huge involved dinner. I could relate. I, like Nancy, thought that anything less than "from scratch" was not good enough to feed my family and me. Luckily, my busy schedule and her cookbook helped me see the error in my thinking. Her theory is simple: one can combine a couple store bought, lightly-processed ingredients with other fresh ingredients and end up with a lovely time-saving meal. I was inspired by two recipes for corn soup in her cookbook, which utilized boxed soup, and I came up with this one of my own.

Roasted Corn and Split Pea Soup with Dungeness Crab.

1 quart boxed corn soup (I like Imagine's Organic Creamy Harvest Corn Soup from Whole Foods. The key is to try out a couple different brands until you find one you like. An additional advantage to this particular brand is it is low in sodium, always something to look for when cooking with processed goods).
1 cup frozen peas
salt and pepper
5-8 oz fresh Dungeness crab meat

Heat the soup in a saucepan and add peas. Once the peas have warmed, use an immersion blender to puree the peas into the soup (if you don't have an immersion blender, a regular blender works just as well, even if a little messier). Season with salt and pepper. Pour the soup into serving bowls and top with the crab meat.

This meal serves 4 and comes together in less than 15 minutes! And better yet it's easy on the wallet, ringing in at about $4 per serving. The flavor of the corn is refreshing; the peas add an interesting depth to the soup; and the crab meat is a simple delicacy that elevates the soup to entree-worthy.

Enjoy and lemme know what you think!

Fish Freaking Tacos!

The most unfortunate thing about my first 3-4 years living in Southern California is that I was blithely unaware of the deliciousness that is fish tacos. Fish tacos were, as legend has it, created just south of the border here. Someone decided to fry up a piece of white fish, stuff it in a tortilla, and top it with cabbage slaw and a decadent white sauce. So, perhaps, the original has evolved as food often does once it crosses our border and becomes somewhat Americanized, but I can't imagine a taco superior to this.

The key is fresh ingredients. I know, I know. You should always work with ingredients that are as fresh as you can find. But here you can definitely tell the difference because so little of this dish is cooked, with exception of the fish of course. And I like to use beer to make my batter for the fish. The carbonation gives the batter a light, crispy texture, reminiscent, I think, of tempura.

Fish Freaking Tacos for 2

For the fish:
1 lb flaky white fish (I love to use halibut, but my wallet does not. So in these penny-pinching times, I've found that tilapia works nicely too.)
1 c flour, packed
1 c or less light beer
2-3 c canola oil
corn tortillas

For the pico de gallo:
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
1/2 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1/4 red onion, diced
cilantro, chopped
juice of 1/2 a lime
salt

For the white sauce:
1/4 c sour cream
2 tbsp light mayo
zest and juice of 1 lime

For the cabbage slaw:
1/4 red cabbage, sliced into ribbons
juice of 1 lime
salt


Heat the canola oil in a deep pot, filling it only about a quarter of the way up. I always end up burning myself here (I'm a bit accident-prone in the kitchen), so please be careful.

In the meantime, toss the cabbage ribbons, lime juice, and salt together and set aside. I like to make the slaw first, because allowing it to marinate in the lime juices softens it a bit and gives it a gorgeous flavor. Then, for the white sauce, combine the sour cream, mayo, lime zest and juice. Refrigerate until ready to use. Next, toss together the chopped tomato, jalapeno, onion, cilantro, lime juice, season with salt, and set aside.

Whisk the flour with salt in a medium bowl. Stir in the beer to combine. The batter should be quite thick. Next, cut the fish fillets into strips about 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide and 3 or 4 inches long. Dip each strip of fish in the batter and coat thoroughly. When the canola oil is ready to go, carefully drop a couple or three strips of battered fish into the oil to cook. It takes only about 4 minutes per batch and I always try to turn the fish at least once. Once neat trick to use when frying (that I saw on television the other day) is to carefully drop in the food away from you, or release the food into the oil toward the back of the pot of oil. That way if the oil splashes, it splashes away from you and not on your delicate arms or clothing.

So, once you've worked through your batches of battered fish, it's time to assemble the taco. In each corn tortilla goes 1 or 2 pieces of fish, depending of how big you cut your strips. Next pour on a spoon-full of the white sauce, and top with pico de gallo, and cabbage slaw. A couple extra squeezes of lime juice here never hurts too. And it's fiesta time!