Saturday, December 13, 2008

Forcing Pancakes?


Q: how do you know when your child is picky?
A: when you have to force pancakes.

My little carnivore, the younger one, would happily survive on bacon, salami and hamburgers. For sweets she likes chocolate and sorbet and that's about it. Muffins? No. Cookies? Well, if she must. Pie? Don't make her throw up and never mention it again. Pancakes? Gross and anyway she is HUNGRY!

This morning we didn't have much to eat. No cured pork products, and not even enough eggs to scramble for everyone. Hey, guys, how about pancakes?

The whining that ensued was such that there were two time outs and a five minute banishment from the kitchen, just in the course of mixing up the batter and frying the pancakes.

She ate two silver-dollars, under great duress.

Part of me thinks it's weird that I am forcing my kid to eat an indulgent American breakfast of refined carbohydrates that when she gets older she will try to forget she ever knew.

The other part is just annoyed.

But I do have to notice that my husband, who is lean and whose almost-spartan food instincts I try to emulate, eats pancakes with the air of a good sport. He'll eat them if I make them, he'll sometimes take seconds if I offer, but he would never request pancakes or order them in a restaurant, or think lustfully about them. Or fry up the remaining batter and have pancakes for lunch, two hours after having them for breakfast.

So maybe it's genetic, and I should be thankful that our daughter got his carb-instincts and not mine.

Anyway, this is my favorite pancake recipe, adapted slightly from the hippie classic, The Tassajara Recipe Book.

Buttermilk Pancakes
(If you have real buttermilk, great; otherwise just use milk. I sometimes use the powdered buttermilk, but I don't find it makes anywhere near the difference that real buttermilk does)

(And if I have buckwheat I'll swap some of it for some of the www flour , but that is probably one reason my kids don't care for pancakes, even though it's been years since I pushed anything really hardcore on them, like those wheat germ and flax numbers, I swear! What's not to like about a little quarter-cup of buckwheat?)

1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg, beaten
1 cup buttermilk or milk
3 tablespoons melted butter

1. Melt your butter and set aside to cool.
2. Sift the dry ingredients together.
3. Mix the wet.
4. Combine.
5. Fry on a griddle. (I use bacon fat, which really puts it over the top. Yum!)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The best pancake recipe I've ever made is waffles.
Really, though, the best one is from a cooks illustrated Nov/Dec 2006. The article is "multigrain pancakes worth eating". I think the healthy AND delicious thing is hard to hit. In rebellion my husband will often try and sneak in some gross premixed cakes if I don't watch my back.

Kitchen Kid said...

Perhaps she needs a little Batter Blaster... jk!! check it out:
http://growingupgourmet.blogspot.com/2008/12/point-blast-and-cook.html

Larissa said...

That is some nasty stuff.