Archive for Memories
Tried & True: Giada’s Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes
Posted by: | CommentsPancakes and I don’t really get along, primarily due to an incident at St. Helwigs in the first grade. We had pancakes every. single. Wednesday and, ever since then if I even saw pancakes, I’d run in the other direction. Thankfully my parents only had me there at the school for a year but you can only imagine how horrid they must have been to form such an aversion to all things pancake. I would try pancakes occasionally after but still it would conjure the memories from the first grade and I just couldn’t eat another bite.
Now that I’ve disclosed history of my hatred of all things pancake (except for my Bampa’s fritters) you can tell that it takes a heck of a recipe for me to add it to Tried & True, right?
Well, I have to thank Everyday Italian for this amazing Blueberry Ricotta Pancake recipe . It’s light, full of flavor, simple and the homemade syrup takes it to a whole new level. You might want to try this on a lazy weekend morning – it will be a hit.
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Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes
Recipe courtesy of Giada de Laurentiis, FoodNetwork.com
Ingredients
- 2 cups water
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I also added a splash to the syrup)
- 2 cups pancake and waffle mix
- 1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese (I went with fat free and couldn’t taste the difference)
- 2/3 cup frozen blueberries (I used fresh and, quite frankly, it worked out much better)
- Melted butter
Directions
- For the Syrup
- Stir 1/3 cup of water, sugar and a dash of vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in the honey.
- Set aside and keep the honey syrup warm.
-For the Pancakes
- Using a rubber spatula, stir the remaining 1 2/3 cups of water and vanilla in a large bowl.
- Add the pancake mix and stir just until moistened but still lumpy.
- Stir in the ricotta into the pancake mixture, then stir gently to incorporate the ricotta but maintain a lumpy batter.
- Fold in the blueberries.
- Heat a griddle over medium heat.
- Brush with the melted butter.
- Working in batches, spoon 1/4 cup of batter onto the griddle for each pancake.
- Cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side.
- Serve with the honey syrup.
Memories of Cooking…
Posted by: | CommentsI will have to say that it’s been a super stressful week so tonight I decided to chill out and make something so basic for dinner – a hamburger. However, I wanted to doctor it up the way I like (arugula, spicy ketchup, a touch of ff mayo, ciabatta bread and some bleu cheese & provolone).
While I was cooking, I noticed that the wine fridge has been rather neglected of late. I can’t remember the last time I opened a bottle of wine in this house (perhaps at my last dinner party – 5 months ago?!?!?!) so I grabbed a bottle of my favorite, Beaujolais, and cracked it open. I poured myself a healthy glass, put that by the stove and went back to playing on my goal of a perfect burger for dinner.
Then the memory hit me. My grandfather did the SAME thing when he would cook – except he would have a beer mug full of his favorite beer, cold and frosty.
Sometimes, its things like that which remind me – I am my grandfather’s granddaughter.
