Sunday, February 9, 2014

Gluten-free Pancakes ~ Delicious Too!



     We absolutely adore pancakes at my house. Pancakes were a staple breakfast at my house raising 4 children and a husband who is my favorite eater to cook for; he has a great zest for eating!  I have a terrific butermilk pancake recipe as well as rcipes for crepes and traditional pancakes. I have added blueberries and banana slices to my pancakes and I have become known in my youngest son's circke of friends as the Chocolate pancake Mom. 

     So it seems fitting that I look for pancakes recipes in cookbooks and on Pinterest on a regular basis. I started experimenting with some of them and tweeked a few of them to come up with the following recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients: 

6 egg whites (large eggs)
1 1/4 cup instant oatmeal, dry
1 1/4 cup small curd cottage cheese of your choice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/16 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons sugar

     Start by adding the egg whites to your blender and blend on high until they start to thicken. 


     Now add the cottage cheese, oatmeal, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. Blend on high until very well mixed. 

     

     Fry your pancakes on a hot skillet or griddle with a little butter. Add the batter when the pan is fairly hot and if you sprinkle a few drops of water on it the drops sizzle. Turn the pancakes over when the edges are loose from the pan and bubbles appear through out the batter. 

     

     Enjoy!  


Sunday, February 2, 2014

Coffee Syrup

What to do with leftover coffee?  Make coffee syrup!  My first attempt came out pretty darn delicious and I am sure I will experiment with variations of it in the future. I took a cup of left over fresh brewed hazelnut coffee and added it to a heavy bottomed sauce pan. To this I added a teaspoon of vanilla extract, a cup of white cane sugar and a quarter cup of light corn syrup just for the heck of it. I had the stove set on medium (electric ceramic stove top) and continuously stirred it until all the sugar was dissolved. I sprinkled in some cream of tarter (not sure why, it just sounded fun) and added about another cup of cane sugar and continued to stir it on a very light boil for about ten minutes. After removing the pan from the stove and letting it cool for 30 minutes I poured it into a used and cleaned syrup bottle. 

It is great over ice cream and added to a fresh cup of hot coffee. I want to try it in Italian Cream Sodas which I will post about when I get some heavy cream and Club Soda. Another thought is to take a slice of pound cake, put it on your serving plate, add sliced fresh raspberries and/or strawberries, top with whipped cream then drizzle it with the coffee syrup. Until next time, happy cooking ~ happy tummies!