Making time for pancakes

We had such a nice day today. It was beautiful, sunny, and a pleasant temperature that isn’t cold but still makes me appreciate a sweater. My response to the sun and blue sky was enough to make me wonder if I have a bit of seasonal affective disorder. Maybe not, but I felt like my favorite flower, the daffodil, poking its head out and blooming after a long, dark winter. At any rate, today was perfect–story time at the library and lunch out with the nice family down the street, watching Harriet the Spy with Tulip while Smiley Face napped, a walk during which we pretended to be spying on spring complete with binoculars and a notebook, and best of all, breakfast for dinner.

While I got started cooking, the kids played quietly at the kitchen table before a quick trip out with their daddy to pick up our fresh milk for the week. We’ve had the kid version of a table top Zen sand box for a long time, and we have always pulled it out when we needed a little time to cook. It works best if it disappears for a while before its miraculous rediscovery. Unfortunately, now that I have two kids who are interested in playing with it, there is usually a bit of disagreement about who plays with what. I suppose I could buy another, but we don’t really need two taking up space in the already crowded craft nook. Instead, we’ve been using a casserole dish, rice, rocks from our rock collection, and small cars and trucks that we already have around as an extra. They share the tiny shovel and rake from the original sand box with minimal bickering. Smiley Face loves the imposter so much that he cried when dinner was ready and the rice tray had to go even though dinner included pancakes. That’s what I call a distraction!

After everyone was happy again, we had one of our favorite dinners. Who has time to make a big breakfast with any regularity? I know we don’t, particularly since our kids wake up starving frequently before the sun is even up. I’m in no shape to do much more than hand the kids bananas and make myself coffee at that point, so every once in a while we cook a lovely breakfast for dinner. I think the family’s favorite part is the bacon from a local farmer, but since that’s fairly hard to replicate without getting to know Farmer Dave of River Ridge Farm, which you should definitely do so that you can try all of his delicious offerings, I’ll share the the recipe for my favorite part, the whole wheat pancakes.

•  1 cup whole wheat (the more freshly ground the better)
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 milk (buttermilk if you have it)
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 mashed banana
• 

Related posts

• Updating my favorite scone recipe (1)
• My husband, the bread baker's apprentice (0)
• Happy Valentine's Day! (0)
• Lemon Grass (0)
• Ballet and Scones (4)