Dear Mom and Dad-

Last Friday night 4 of your granddaughters, 1 grandson and 1 of your OTHER daughters sleptover. It was a delightful evening consisting of some delicious appetizers- such as Brontosaurus stew, Polar Bear Pancakes and Triceratops Soup. mmmmmm.

And thirst quenching beverages. We ended the evening with a Barbie movie and popcorn.

Saturday morning began with Elmo & Cookie Monster waffles. I had finished up a bottle of syrup 2 days before on my french toast and just assumed there was more in the storage room. But there was none to be found. Luckily I remembered a recipe I copied down this summer after having waffles at my friend Martha's house. So while I made the waffles, Kristi made the syrups and all feasted and enjoyed.

Apparently your granddaughters have requested that their mothers make the syrup for them so I promised I would share the recipe. Hopefully you will have an opportunity to try it in the Philippines. If not, I promise to make it for you upon your return.

It isn't healthy. But it is delicious.

Cinnamon Syrup (makes a BIG batch so you will likely want to half it)

1 cup corn syrup
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup evaporated milk

Heat everything except milk in saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Then add milk.

*when you reheat syrup- don't bring to a boil.


I hadn't tried this next one before but Martha told me it was delightful so I copied it down as well. And boy, am I glad I did. So scrumptious.

Buttermilk Syrup

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon light corn syrup

Combine all ingredients in saucepan. Melt butter and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add:

1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla


Love-
your waffle-eating-everyday-until-the-syrup-is-gone daughter

p.s. these syrups would be a FABULOUS way to celebrate the upcoming Pancake Day- February 16th.

Dorm Food.

Living in a dorm for 3 weeks is an interesting experience. Especially when you only have a mini fridge and microwave (and have to share a bathroom and showers with 9 other ladies). My friend/roomie Rachel and I decided to do a lot of experimenting with her sandwich maker. or Snack Master as she likes to call it.

Here is what we made-

Pizza Sandwiches. Pretty tasty. Put sauce, cheese and desired toppings (we enjoyed ham and pineapple) on a piece of bread. Top with another piece of bread... and enjoy.


Have you seen that infomercial for the GT Express 101? She makes something called Stuffed Soup so we decided to give it a try too. You mix stuffing, chicken and cream of chicken soup. It was pretty messy as you can see... But it was tasty.


We were pretty good at making breakfast... We made eggs which were probably my favorite. I don't know that I will make eggs in a frying pan ever again.


This is when we made eggs the first time. The next few times we added cheese and ham. Mmmmm.

We also made pancakes. Rachel loves sausages so we added them to her side.

Here is the final product... So yummy. Not sure if I will ever make pancakes in a frying pan ever again either.

Here is Rachel enjoying the goods.

We made cupcakes. I saw this mix a couple months ago and knew it would be perfect for our dorm living. And it was. While they don't look like cupcakes they sure tasted like them. Especially with yummy cream cheese frosting.

My battery died so I didn't have a chance to take pictures of everything we made. Other breakfast foods included muffins. And other desserts like brownies and cookies.

We made breakfast for our class one morning. It was so fun feeding 10 people a meal of muffins, pancakes, sausages, and eggs all made in a sandwich maker.

Now I need to go purchase one for myself.

Did you eat pancakes today?

I sure hope so! I wanted to try something new in addition to the traditional pancake. So I made

German Apple Pancakes from Martha Stewart

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter (plus more for tin)
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter-melted
5 Tablespoons granulated sugar (plus more for tin)
2 Granny Smith apples (about 1 pound)
1/4 cup light-brown sugar
1 Tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 450◦.
Butter inside each muffin cup of a 6-cup jumbo muffin tin; coat with granulated sugar.
Peel, core, and slice apples into 12 wedges, then cut wedges into 3 pieces.
In a medium bowl, toss apples with brown sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon.
Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add apples and saute, turning occasionally, until caramelized (10 - 12 minutes). Remove pan from stove; let cool 5 minutes. Divide caramelized apples among prepared muffin cups. Set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, salt, sugar, melted butter, eggs, and milk; process for 3 minutes.
Pour batter over apples.

Transfer tin to oven; reduce heat to 400◦.
Bake until pancakes puff up, about 15 minutes.

Remove tin from oven; invert onto a flat work surface.
Dust with confectioners' sugar; serve immediately.

Oh my. They are tasty. I highly recommend this recipe. They aren't too healthy though. You could maybe do whole wheat flour and less sugar. 5 Tablespoons seemed like a LOT of sugar. So I only put in 4. Try them. Today. mmmmm.

The other day I was in the grocery store with no real purpose (I had some time to kill during my lunch break). As I roamed the aisles I found some fun products that I had never seen before. One of which was-

Caramel spread*?!?! It says it is great on toast & hot rolls. Pancakes were not mentioned but I gave it a try.

All I can say is Be still my soul. I don't think I will put syrup on my pancakes again. So yummy. I don't know how different it is from the caramel you put on ice cream or dip apples in. But it is gooey. And delicious. And can be drizzled on the German Apple Pancakes. Hello!

*There are so many products out there that I have never discovered before. My goal is to try 2 new-fangled foods a month. And share my thoughts with you. Stay tuned to see what I try next!

I tried it.

And it works!

After finding out you can make hash browns in a waffle maker, I HAD to try it.

Hash browns have always been a struggle for me. I am too impatient and stir them too much, which makes them gluey.

So the waffle maker is perfect.

You put them in.

Close it.

And let them cook- both sides at the same time.

It does take awhile so you do need to be patient- but there is no stirring involved!



Love it.

I was tempted to try to cook an egg in there, too... but didn't.

One day I might have to though.

p.s. Don't forget tomorrow is Pancake Tuesday!! So put away your waffle makers until Wednesday... and make some yummy pancakes.

Did you know?

(I am sure you do know... but I will share anyways!)

French Toast can be made in a Waffle Maker.

It cooks both sides at the same time.

Why should waffles get all the fun of having indents for your syrup and Elmo & Cookie Monster on them!! Or Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty,the state of Texas or (my personal favorite) a keyboard. (Apparently it isn't real, but incredibly awesome!)

While googling "waffle irons" I found something about making hashbrowns in a waffle iron. Genius. I am going to try it.

What have YOU made in a waffle iron?

Cookies for Breakfast??!!

yup. That is right. Cookies for Breakfast.

I was babysitting my niece & nephews the other night... and while they were sleeping I perused the Disney Magic Kitchen Cookbook they got from the library.

Of course the

Don't Forget Breakfast Cookies caught my eye.

1/2 cup butter-softened

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour (I didn't have WHITE whole wheat flour... so I used 1 1/4 cups of whole wheat and 1/2 cup white flour).

3 cups multigrain cereal flakes with blueberries (I couldn't find just blueberries, but I did find this. And it worked perfectly!)

Beat butter for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar and baking soda.

Beat until mixed. Add eggs. Add flour and beat until mixed.

Stir in cereal.

Place 1/4 cup of dough on greased cookie sheet. (Or a fabulous Silpat!)

Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.

Let sit on pan for 1 minute.

Remove and cool on cooling rack.

Makes 12 cookies (I only got 9??)

Delicious AND Nutritious AND so easy. Well I don't know how nutritous. But they have cereal in them, so they have to be healthy. Right?

Pancake Tuesday 2008

Growing up, my family celebrated Pancake Tuesday every year. I thought it was just a day to celebrate the glorious pancake. Then I googled it and learned so much.

For centuries, the English have celebrated Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent, with merriment and antics and, especially, great quantities of pancakes. In fact, the fried flat cakes became so i important to the holiday that is has also been called Pancake Day, or Pancake Tuesday.

Long ago, strict Christian Lenten rules prohibited the eating of all dairy products, so keen housewives made pancakes to use up their supplies of eggs, milk, butter and other fats. They could be easily made and cooked in a skillet or on a griddle. Families ate stacks of them, and pancakes were popular with all classes.

Thank goodness for google and thank goodness for pancakes. On my drive home this fine Pancake Tuesday evening, I was dreaming about what I would put on my pancakes. I stopped at the grocery store and purchased bananas and strawberries. They quickly became a part of my Pancake Tuesday dream. I do enjoy peanut butter and syrup on my pancakes and thought maybe I would add a little banana. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO yummy. Try it.

On my next pancake I put Nutella and strawberries. Not as tasty as the first but still delightful. (for some reason it tastes better on toast). Maybe adding syrup would make it truly amazing.

I am tired. And MUST go to bed now. May you all have sweet Pancake Tuesday dreams.
Goodnight!

Oh Happy Day!

So there I am.... walking up and down the aisle of Safeway. Earlier this evening I really wanted to go to bed. But then I remembered that Safeway was having a really good sale on cereal and grapes. So instead of getting in my jammies, I get into my car. I grab a flyer incase there is some other deal I am missing out of. What? No grape deal? No cereal on sale? This couldn't be! I look- the sale ended YESTERDAY! Sheesh. No worries though. I managed to spend some money. I bought LOTS of fruit for my quest to eat healthy... and some chocolate milk for my nephew (and maybe sister and brother-in-law) if it is still around when they arrive on Saturday. And a few other things. As I was checking out I thought to myself "I better check out the cereal aisle JUST IN CASE." You never know what you might find. So there I go with my cart full of paid & bagged groceries. Nope- no big deals... but wait a second. Doth my eyes deceive me? No they doth not!

I thought these were gone... for good. I hadn't seen them in ages. And they were on sale. 2 for $6. Not a GREAT deal. But for my long lost loves- a GOOD deal. I only bought 2. I really wanted to buy 20. Just in case they are no longer being made and they just found a crate of them in the back and decided to put them out. Maybe I should go back. I love them so much, I bought each member in my family a box of them for Christmas. I don't think they loved them as much as I do. I am trying to resist eating a bowl of it right now. I wonder what it would taste like with chocolate milk?

Yummy in my tummy

A friend from school had a sleepover. Her husband is in Bagdad for 4 weeks and so she wanted to do something to keep her from going crazy- he works for the security of diplomats or something like that! So she invited a few teachers over for a girls night in. It was really fun to just eat and chat. I volunteered to make breakfast as I had a recipe I REALLY wanted to try. I had it at a visiting teaching brunch and have been dreaming of it since. It is called Creme Brulee French Toast. Yummy. Well I doubled the recipe as I didn't know how much would be needed. Well 2 of the girls didn't sleep over and everyone just had one piece- so I have a 9x13 pan left. Yikes. The problem is- it is delicious- not nutritious. There is supposed to be a storm coming again this week- Tuesday & Wednesday- so talk of 2 snow days. So perhaps I will have a snowday breakfast and invite some fellow teachers. If we can get out of our homes and parking lots. Ha ha! We did get a snow day last Wednesday. The news said we got 1.7 inches of snow. Interesting since Western NY has gotten like 5 feet of snow and are apparently still going to school. Virginians = pansies. Anyways- make the Creme Brulee frenchtoast. It is delightful. But have people to share it with otherwise you WILL eat it all.
p.s. I just didn't put in the Grand Marnier in as I am not sure what it is- but I assume it is some sort of alcohol. And the challah bread is a jewish bread that I only heard of when I came to Virginia. Other recipes I have seen said to use French Bread!! Let me know what you think!