Fudge Sauce / Determination-Flavored Yogurt

I made this recipe up because of an unfortunate event that has occured in the last few weeks.  Here's the story: several months ago, I went to the store to get some things and discovered yogurt with chocolate on the bottom.  Not fruit.  Not a fruit-based derivative.  Straight up chocolate.  I bought other, more conventional flavors, as well as the chocolate-on-the-bottom with my mind open and my reservations alert and ready.  No need.  It was delicious!  I have, in a back part of my brain, been meaning to go get some more ever since.  However, at some point in the time between when I bought it and when I (recently) returned to that store, the store decided to no longer carry it.  Not that brand.  Not that "style" (oh, yogurt styles...there are now a thousand of them), just that flavor.  I was so upset that I pouted (which, with my strict upbringing, I have only recently learned to do) up at the disappointing and conventional fruit flavors displayed along the top shelf.   And then I put the toe of one foot on the lip of the refrigerator case and hoisted myself to eye level with the yogurts, hoping to find one last chocolate-on-the-bottom hidden in the back.  If my thoughts had been verbalized, they would have gone something like, "I do not care if you have been back there up to and past your expiration date!  Others may not be willing to risk it, but I love you, chocolate-on-the-bottom yogurt!"  After several hopeful seconds of scanning the back of the shelf, I descended from my perch disappointed.  Whether it was the pouting or the climbing, or both, a nearby store patron then chivalrously offered to help me get whatever it was I was trying to get.  Sometimes sharing your feelings with others is healthy!  Especially when people unexpectedly offer to get things off of high shelves for you.

Anyway, I was not one to give up so easy.  I had already, in full public view, climbed on an appliance in the grocery store!  Undeterred, I went home with the idea of recreating the blissfulness of chocolate-on-the-bottom yogurt in my kitchen by basically putting chocolate sauce on the bottom of a reusable cup of yogurt.  And I did.  And this is the chocolate sauce recipe!  I will offer it with some variation options and caveats, since my approach was somewhat unconventional.

Chocolate Sauce for Yogurt

1/2 a Dove bar
2 TB. cocoa powder
2-3 TB. half & half
1-2 tsp. light corn syrup
1-2 tsp. butter

Melt the chocolate over low-medium heat.  Stir in the cocoa powder (it will make a coarse meal).  Add in the butter, which will then melt and help better blend together the cocoa powder and chocolate bar.  Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and stir in the corn syrup and half & half, adding a little more cocoa powder if you want your sauce a little thicker.  Your sauce is done when there are not lumps of cocoa left and the sauce looks smooth and glossy.  Spoon it into a prepared glass jar (a small one-- maybe 4 oz. at the most) and let it cool a couple of minutes before refrigeration.  When you're ready, put 2 spoonfuls of chocolate sauce on the bottom of a reusable container, then fill it to the top with yogurt!  This appears to make about eight 6 oz. yogurt cups-worth of chocolate sauce.

This is how I actually made it, because it's what I had on hand and also because I was too stubborn to break into the half-a-package of legitimate chocolate chips that I also had and hope to use to make a chocolate babka with next week.  It tastes good to me, but if you used probably about 2-3 oz. of semisweet chocolate chips in place of the cocoa powder and Dove bar combo it would probably be creamier, and also more like a milk chocolate sauce than a dark chocolate sauce.

Apple Spice Coffee Cake / The Smoking Foodgun

Apple Spice Coffee Cake

Filling
3 large apples, cored, peeled, and coarsely chopped
juice of 1 orange
1 C. dark brown sugar
2-3 TB. butter
1/4 C. sultana raisins (optional).

Melt the butter in a skillet.  Melt the sugar in the butter.  Dump in the apples and juice.  Let simmer until the apples are fully cooked.  If you want the raisins, add them at the same time that you add the apples.

Batter
1-2/3 C. unbleached all-purpose flour
2/3 C. whole wheat flour
1 pkg. yeast
1/2 C. milk
2 eggs
1/3 C. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cardamom
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 TB. ginger paste -or- 1 tsp. powdered ginger
1/4 C. oil

Mix together the dry ingredients.  Warm the milk.  Add in the yeast and let it proof (1-5 minutes, depending on whether it's regular or quick-rise).  In a separate bowl from the flour, mix together the yeast mixture, the eggs, and the oil.  Beat this into the flour mixture, stirring for about 1 minute or until the dough starts to pull away from the sides slightly.  Let rise in a warm place about 30 minutes to 1 hour (again, depending on your yeast).  Grease and flour a bundt pan and preheat the oven to 350F.  Pour half the batter into the pan.  Pour in the filling.  Top with the remainder of the batter and bake for about 40 minutes.  (You might have to tent the top of the cake for the last 10 minutes or so, depending on how hot your oven runs.  It should be a nice medium brown on top, though.)  Take the cake out after it passes the toothpick test and let it cool for about 15 minutes before attempting to cut it. 

I had apples, so I used apples, but another alternative is to use two or three jars of orange marmalade and skip the whole "making a filling" step.  That would bring out the spices more and be a lot easier.  It is tasty as an apple cake, for sure.
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In my search for a pan while cooking dinner, I discovered the manual to a vintage kitchen appliance I own called "the Foodgun".  I know.  It sounds like it should be illegal in schools and on planes and public property.  In reality, it is a spritz cookie maker and, according to the ambitions of the manufacturer, the most useful tool in our kitchens since the fork.  Have a bunch of cooked unfilled manicotti laying around?  Problem solved!  Use the Foodgun.  Need to turn plain mashed potatoes into a gourmet dish via shooting them out of a motorized canister?  Shabam, the Foodgun gives you "Duchess Potatoes".  Its uses potentially are limited only by the human imagination of things that need to be filled and substances that can be shot into those things.  In addition, the manufacturer provided a helpful "FAQ" section at the back that makes Dr. Dre look like an amateur at spinning.  Example: "Q. Is it dishwasher safe?  A. The motor housing is not immersible, but easily cleans with a damp cloth.  It's possible to put the separate parts in the dishwasher--but not advisable....Besides, they're so easily cleaned with a soak and a wipe that it's hardly worth the time to put them in the dishwasher."  (Emphasis mine.)  Excuse me, but until I have a personal attendant who enjoys applying "a soak and a wipe" to dishwasher-safe items, it is still worth the time for me to put them in the dishwasher.  Furthermore, I cannot imagine the "soak and a wipe" that would be both quick and sufficient to remove a thick, sticky layer of extruded cookie dough from the inside of a plastic barrel.  It would involve much more than that.  Possibly two soaks.  And definitely about a thousand wipes.  Or the dishwasher.  Just come out and say it if it's not dishwasher safe.  There is no such thing as "marginally dishwasher safe", except, apparently, in the minds of the makers of the Foodgun. 

This Foodgun in particular came to me by a circuitous route.  It was originally given to Grandmom as a Christmas or birthday present, and it was something she wanted.  However, it turned out not to be exactly what she thought it was, or something to that effect, so she hung onto it for a while and then regifted it to my mom at her bridal shower.  Remember, this was about thirty years before "regifting" was even a word.  But Grandmom did it!  My mom knew about it and was fine with it.  Eventually she tried it out, and it too wasn't quite what she had in mind.  So, she gave it back to Grandmom, where it sat in the basement for the next 25 years until Grandmom asked me if I wanted to poke around there and see if there was anything I wanted for my first apartment (on approval, of course).  I haven't tried it out yet.  Honestly, I'm kind of afraid to. 

Also, my not using it allows it to last longer and therefore possibly become the most epic regifting since the Ugly Sweater Episode.  In a nutshell, either my Great-aunt Kitty or my Grandmom or possibly their respective Mother-in-law/Mother gave it to one of them.  It was, by both their reports, really ugly.  Yet it was mandatory for whoever got it first to wear it occasionally out of respect for one's elders.  Until somebody got the brilliant idea to "accidentally" lose it at the other one's house.  In a very hidden location.  At first, the finder, whoever it was (Grandmom or Aunt Kitty), thought it was an accident and tried to give it back.  The ugly sweater returned, and the game was on.  Over the course of about 15 years the ugly sweater traded houses multiple times and also went to Myrtle Beach and Upstate Pennsylvania, (in various hands) and also once to Paris, France.  (Grandmom was responsible for that one, sneaking it into a packed suitcase on pretense of using the bathroom at Aunt Kitty's house the day before she left on vacation.)  As you can imagine, over time the methods of sweater delivery had to become more sophisticated.  It got mailed.  It got "Return to Sender"-ed.  It came in the back of a framed picture.  Of course it got given for Christmas along with a more legitimate gift at least once apiece.  It goes without saying that every coat closet in both their respective houses got paid a visit by the ugly sweater, while the deliverer tried to sneak out without having to retrieve it, sometimes with success.  (I remember Grandmom telling me she was so frustrated on one occasion because she had checked every closet multiple times during a visit from Aunt Kitty and Aunt Kitty still managed to sneak the ugly sweater in somehow right before she left.)  So, with my vintage Foodgun approaching its fourth holder and decade, I think I can definitely continue the tradition, if I find just the right victim...er...recipient.

New Recipe in Development

Based on traffic to this post, I have a feeling that some people are trying to find, but are not succeeding at finding, this post, "unintentional innuendos".  There you go.  You're welcome.

I am happy to report that I have a new recipe in development, but it's a baked good so I probably won't have anything concrete to offer until Saturday.  Last week I tried a new recipe more or less exactly as written, and it was disappointing, inaccurate, and not good, which coincidentally are my top three beefs with recipes out of commercially published recipe books.  Sometimes I think the writers' creative process goes something like this: "Hey, I need some more recipes!  I know, x, y, and z sound good together-- I'll just make up a recipe for this and put it in the book without ever trying it out!"  If I had followed the directions to the seed recipe more exactly, I would almost certainly have gotten more fodder for fire-themed blog posts.  However, the recipe had potential, and I intend to weedle that potential out into a finished baked good and post the results here like I did for the Banana Bread experiment which, for the record, resulted in the recipe for a moist, crumby, flavorful Banana Bread.  Anyway, keep your eyes peeled on Saturday for a spicy cake with a fruit filling, if that's what floats your boat.

Breaking Rules and Getting Burned

Today I broke one of my own rules.  I put something other than meat in the oven on the "broil" setting.  Okay, more than one rule.  I also started to smell it burn and thought, "Nah, it hasn't been in there long enough," and let it go for about another minute.  When I took my breakfast bagel out of the oven, one half was black and the other half was black and afire.  However, I did not slam the oven door shut and say "Oh dear!"  Although I was tempted to.  No, I took my bagel halves out of the oven and calmly set another pan on top and then listened to them merrily crackling away underneath until it sounded like it was safe enough to remove them to the sink for a thorough drenching. 

Which just goes to show that the same person who can make cream puffs and roast a turkey can also burn a bagel in the oven.  It's not a lack of knowledge.  It's a lack of will.  Or an excess of will.  Or possibly an excess of the erroneous sensation of knowing better than the laws of nature.   Who can say?  All I know is, you have to be a little bit crazy to get into a kitchen in the first place.  All those knives, the multiple sources of extreme heat and associated burning, not to mention the germs.  I don't know about your moms' kitchens, but my mom liked to defrost meat on the countertop all day and cook it that night after she got home.  Yet nobody died.  Or even got sick!  In the meantime I eat raw salad that leaves dirt in the sink after I wash it and regularly consume things that came out of a chicken's butt.  Which, for the record, is strictly accurate.  FYI, birds do not have a separate reproductive tract and excretory tract.  It all comes out of the same place.  Just chew on that while you're eating your next scrambled egg!  This the kind of information that makes some people be vegans.  But for me, I say "bring it on."  And I cook!  And accidentally burn myself and food items!  It's all good.

Two Kinds of Dinner Tacos / Stubbornness

I bought a package of tortillas intending to make quick, week-day quesadillas for a lunch or dinner.  (Or both!  I've been pretty busy.)  Instead, I realized that I had a serious amount of vegetables in my fridge or from the garden that needed to be cooked before they went bad.  So, I included them in my quesadillas...and then decided I didn't really feel like cheese...and ended up with what I will call "Dinner Tacos", because they are sort of like Mexican Breakfast Tacos except with more dinner-y ingredients.  For those who are unaware, Breakfast Tacos are the original inspiration for McDonald's' "Breakfast Burrito".  Basically, the Breakfast Burrito is the same thing as a breakfast taco.  IE, a tortilla filled with varying combinations of eggs, cheese, potatoes, and breakfast meats like sausage (chorizo) or bacon.  I ended up with two pretty good variations that I'm going to share with you: Summer Squash Dinner Tacos, and Eggs & Hash Dinner Tacos.

Summer Squash Dinner Tacos

3-4 small straight neck or crookneck yellow squash, cut into rounds

1 orange, red, or yellow bell pepper, chopped

1 red onion, chopped Italian style (strips, not cubes)

2 tomatoes, chopped

1/4 tsp. Old Bay seasoning

1/2 tsp. salt

a sprinkling of cayenne pepper (I'm not going to get into the esoterica of the exact meaning of "a dash", so basically, "a small amount that is suitable to your tastes", whatever that means to you.)

a sprinkling of Italian seasoning (I used about 1/2 tsp., but it could do without it)

3-4 tortillas

cooking oil

Summer Squash Dinner Taco filling

Heat the oil in a medium to large skillet over medium heat until sizzling hot.  Toss in the squash first and let them cook until reasonably tender.  (If they are young and fresh, they'll cook fairly quickly, but they still take a little longer than the rest of the ingredients.)  Add in the chopped bell pepper while the squash is still about half done.  When the squash and peppers are cooked, add in the onion and saute until tender (just another minute or so).  Add in the tomatoes last, letting them sizzle and release all those good juices you see in the picture.  (These were tomatoes from my Grandad's garden, and they were primo.)  When all your veggies are all cooked, remove them to a serving dish, juices and all.  Then, either get out a clean skillet or do like I did and use the same one without bothering to clean it-- it really didn't make any difference-- and toss your tortillas in it one at a time and toast them.  Serve your filling wrapped up, taco-style, in your toasted tortillas.  This should amply serve 3-4.

Toasting your tortillas is actually an important step.  A store-bought tortilla that you take the time to toast becomes a slightly crispy delight that the same tortilla straight out of the refrigerator cannot match.  It's a little tricky, so let me break it down. 

How to Toast a Tortilla

Step 1: Heat a dry skillet or electric griddle to medium heat

Step 2: Toss your tortillas on there, giving yourself enough room to flip them over.

Step 3: Let them toast on one side until small air pockets start to swell into medium air pockets on the side of the tortilla you can see (the top).

Step 4: Flip the tortilla.  You'll know you let it toast long enough on the backside if the top now has golden-browned round circles (the bottoms of the air pockets you saw). 

Step 5: Let the tortilla toast on the other side until the air pockets start to form again-- or-- the tortilla sort of swells up a little in one large air pocket.  Toasting the other side happens pretty quickly-- in a few seconds or so-- and you really can't go wrong.  A properly toasted-on-one-side tortilla is better than a burnt tortilla.  Unless you're in the "burnt marshmallows in my smores" camp (which I am) in which case a slightly burnt tortilla is okay.

Eggs and Hash Dinner Tacos

2 eggs

1 potato

1 large carrot or 2 small carrots

cooking oil

1/4 tsp. paprika

salt to taste

1-2 tortillas

Chop your potatoes into small cubes.  Do the same for your carrots.  Heat your oil over medium heat until a drop of water tossed into the pan sizzles.  Put the carrots and potatoes in the pan and cook them until they are both tender, letting them rest for the first few minutes of cooking them (meaning not stirring them around), and then stirring them to cook all sides evenly about 2-3 more times at intervals.  Add in a little more oil, then the salt and paprika, allowing the spice to sizzle and toast in the oil.  Stir everything around to coat the potatoes and carrots with the spices, then spreading them in an even layer on the bottom of the skillet.  Now, crack both your eggs on top of the hash, muddling them around a little bit to break the yolks and allow the whites to run down into the crevices between the individual pieces of potato and carrot.  Cook a little while longer, until the egg whites are set and the egg yolks are beginning to set.  (Or however long until the eggs are cooked the way you like them.)  Push the entire contents of the pan onto a plate, then use the skillet to toast a tortilla or two by the method described above.  Eat up!

_________

Just for the record, I wasn't always a good cook.  However, my desire for household thrift has remained unchanged, if not increased.  Put those two together: bad cook + cheap cook.  Fortunately, no one but myself has ever been subjected to my experiments in Home Economics.  Much like the aforementioned lab experiments, things did not always go according to plan.

Example the First: Weeds from the Yard

At some point in my older childhood, someone or some book somewhere told me people could eat things that commonly grew in the yard.  Much like the 1=0 situation (I am my mother's daughter), my eventual action on this piece of knowledge was delayed, possibly for God's increased entertainment.  The end result, however, was that my mom told me to go cook dinner and came in to find a large bowl of weeds from yard sitting on the dinner table.  Uncooked.  Unchopped.  Unwashed.  Roots still on.  I took my information literally!  This did not go down well with my mother.  I think we ate spaghetti instead accompanied by a side of lecture.

Example the Second: Dorm Hotdogs

This example could also be subtitled "that summer where I got diarrhea at least once a week."  I was living on loans, and it was the beginning of a summer term.  Being as I mentioned before, thrifty, I felt that it was perfectly reasonable to make use of an unopened package of hotdogs that undoubtedly had been left by a previous inmate at the end of the spring semester.  I believe I recall observing them over the course of a couple of weeks (at least) in order to make perfectly sure I was not stealing someone else's hotdogs.  Anyway, I eventually put them in something-- I can't remember what-- and ate them.  The success was short-lived.  See the alternate subtitle.  Undeterred by my experiences, I went on to do the same thing with a half-package of ground beef that I had personally bought and wanted to finish up.  Repeat of the same experience.  After a while, my gastric adventures became the source of much conversation among my suitemates.  I'm not sure why I was so stubborn about eating half-spoiled food.  All I know is that I was stubborn!  I still am.  But I no longer intentionally eat rotten food.

 

Oven-Roasted Potatoes, Ketchup Variations / Fire, Fire, Fire

Something I learned in the American-Style Chop Suey Incident is that Italian Seasoning makes things better.  Typically I am not a big promoter of spice blends, because personally I like to be able to add what I want to add in the quantities that I want to add them in, rather than have my dish's flavor dictated by Knorr or McKormick.  However, I have added Italian Seasoning to my short list of exceptions.  It's good for making a dish somehow zippier.  Just to be clear, it doesn't make it taste more Italian, at least not in my opinion, but it's still good.  I especially recommend it on roasted potatoes, like in the recipe below, and in sautees and sauces that you want to be indefinably meatier without actually adding any meat.

Oven-Roasted Potatoes

3-4 medium potatoes, washed but not peeled
enough Italian Seasoning to generously sprinkle over the potatoes
salt to taste
oil of your choice

Preheat the oven to 425F.  Chop your potatoes thusly: cut them in fourths longways (ie hold them up on one long side and slice off each end, then slice the remaining middle in half).  You should now have four slabs of potato about the size of a deck of cards each.  (The ends will probably be smaller.)  Take each slab and slice it into 3-4 strips, then turn the cut slab as a whole shortways and cut the strips into 1 to 1-1/2 inch chunks.  Put your chunks in a glass baking dish and drizzle them with the oil.  Then sprinkle on your salt and Italian Seasoning.  Bake them in the oven with a tinfoil lid for about 45 minutes, or until they are tender in the middle.  If you like them crispy on the outside, take the tinfoil off for the last 15 minutes or so.  If you like your potatoes softer but not crispy, leave the tinfoil on the whole time.

Additionally: Interesting Things to Do With Ketchup

Mix 1/4 C. ketchup with: 1/2 tsp. curry powder
                                       : 2-3 TB. honey
                                       : 2-3 TB. soy sauce
                                       : 1 tsp. Korean BBQ sauce 
_________

An interesting note: oil in the oven can catch on fire.  Surprisingly, so can many other things, especially if the oven is on too hot.  Do not turn on the oven too hot.  "Too hot" is defined as anything besides broiling meat put in on the "broil" setting, or 100 degrees or more higher than the stated cooking temperature.  Do not leave things in the oven too long.  "Too long" is defined as at least 15 minutes after you first smelled something starting to burn and though "Oh, I should go do something about that," and then promptly forgot about it. 

Follow proper procedure for kitchen fires if something in your oven catches fire.  "Proper procedure" is NOT defined as opening the oven door, having flames shoot out, saying "OH DEAR!" and slamming the oven door shut.  I promise none of these happened to me while preparing the Oven-Roasted Potatoes.  But that is as far as I am willing to commit in the promise-making department.

It might also possibly be true that I once told my lab partner that I almost set my last lab partner on fire and then immediately got a beaker vacuum-sealed to my hand.  Both of my lab partners developed a fine sense of hyperalertness.  But they didn't trade lab partners!  Even lab partner number one, who not only almost got set on fire as a general concept, but who almost got his genitals set on fire in specific.  Moral of the story: do not try to light your Bunsen burner unless you are absolutely certain which tap is the gas tap.

Roasted Asparagus / Vladimir Lenin in a Can

I'm almost embarrassed to post this recipe, because it's barely a recipe to start with.  But, I guess I should take heart because I've seen recipes for and been subjected to many a dish made with loving hands that essentially involved dumping various premade items (the infamous Cream of Mushroom soup, for example) into a casserole and then baking it until it was all hot and bubbly.  Because, you know, I like my poison hot and bubbly.  Okay, that was a little extreme!  Those dishes are not poisonous unless you have some kind of allergy, but they definitely are not my favorite.  Anyway, returning to the Roasted Asparagus.  It's delicious, but also super-easy.  So easy that when you're savoring every mouthful you think "That was it?"  That, my friends, is the joy of much of Italian cooking-- it relies on the quality and character of the ingredients to shine on their own with little intervention on the cook's part.  Translate: a lot of it is easy to prepare!  Without further ado:

Roasted Asparagus

1-2 bunches of fresh asparagus (I always buy one and wish I had bought two!)
salt to taste
oil of your choice.  I know, this is where I should be touting Extra Virgin Olive Oil at $49.99 per 3 liter can.  But let's be honest: canola oil tastes just fine, and is also cheaper than the aforementioned liquid gold.

Preheat the oven to about 400-425F.  Wash your asparagus and trim off the ends-- I'm not sure what the official rule is for asparagus, but I cut off the white part.  I'm not super-picky, so I don't mind if my asparagus is a little tough, especially if it's later in the season and I'm feeling grateful for having asparagus at all!  Put your asparagus in a single layer (this is important) in as large a dish as you need to accomplish that.  Drizzle it with your oil, and sprinkle it with salt.  Put the dish in the oven and roast it for about 10-12 minutes, or until your asparagus is a little wrinkly-looking and is nice and floppy.  That's the best way I can describe it.  You can make your jokes to yourself about floppy asparagus, but that's how it's supposed to be.  Floppy.  Anyway, at this point take your dish out of the oven and resist the temptation to try and eat the floppy asparagus right away, because it needs to cool or it will burn your mouth.  After about 5 minutes it should be okay.  This is the best way I've ever had asparagus!  If you've done it just right the stems will be tender-al dente and the tops will be ever so slightly crispy.
________ 

My aunt told me about her discovery of asparagus, which was just a few years ago.  The way she cooks it now is very similar, only on the stovetop.  Before then she had avoided it because all she'd ever known was the canned asparagus they had when she was growing up.  If you think properly cooked fresh asparagus is floppy, you should see canned asparagus!  It's like the exhumed embalmed cadaver of asparagus-- the Lenin of asparagus, if you will.  It somehow has retained all of the qualities that could be considered offensive about fresh asparagus and also amplified them, and yet also become in other ways totally unlike fresh asparagus.  In a nutshell, it smells like rotten eggs, tastes like pease porridge in the pot nine days old, and has the texture of newborn poop.  Additionally it is a lurid neon green in some form of travesty against the natural asparagus, much like botox on a ninety-year-old heavy drinker.  In conclusion, please do not ever eat canned asparagus.  Thank goodness for fresh asparagus!  It is so delicious and so easy to prepare!

Independence Pancakes / On Being American

These pancakes are free of animal products! So I guess that makes them cruelty-free, too. They are also cholesterol-free, and, if you leave out the oil and add more almond milk, fat-free. Leave out the white sugar and they're sugar-free. Besides all that, the batter is an excellent consistency for adding patriotic-themed fruit. Here's a tip, BTW: Pour your pancake batter into the hot pan, spread it around a little with the spoon you used to put it in there, and then put your fruit pieces in one at a time until you've got a nice pizza-pie effect going on. Let the pancake cook like normal, then flip it. Shazaam, each pancake has the perfect amount of fruit and is also cooked to perfection on both sides. Grandmom taught me that trick.

Independence Pancakes

1 C. applesauce
1/4 C. oil + extra for frying the pancakes
1 C. whole wheat flour
1 C. white all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 TB. white sugar (optional)
1/3-1/2 C. almond milk as needed for consistency (it should be a thick but pourable batter)

Whisk together your dry ingredients.  Add in your wet ingredients one at a time, putting in the almond milk last.  Let rest a couple of minutes.  (The batter actually will stay good in the refrigerator with a piece of plastic wrap covering the surface for over a week, so you can do that too if you don't want to make all 12 or so pancakes at once.)  In the meantime, heat about 2 tsp. of oil in a fry pan over medium heat until a drop of water tossed in sizzles and pops.  Drop in about 1/4 C. batter per pancake, spacing them out adequately so you have room to turn them.  Put in the fruit (or other additions) now if you want to have them in your pancakes.  Let the pancakes cook until they have dry bubbles around the edges and wet bubbles popping up in the center.  Then flip them, and let them cook until the pancakes rise and are firm and not squishy when you stroke them with the spatula.  (That's the best way I can describe it.)  If you're uncertain and you don't care how your pancakes look, use the sharp edge of the spatula to make a small cut in the center of your pancakes-- when they're done the middle will look cakey and shouldn't be gooey or wet-looking at all.  You know your stove temperature is right when your pancakes are a nice golden brown on both sides and they're done in the middle.  If your stove is too hot, they'll be burned on the outside and gooey inside.  Too cold and they'll be lightly tanned on the outside and tough on the inside.  Anyway, once your pancakes are definitively done, remove them to a serving plate and eat them as soon as possible, with whatever toppings you prefer.  I like the traditional maple syrup and butter combo, but pancakes are almost always tasty with applesauce on top, and sometimes sour cream.  And who knows what else.
________

The other day, I went to visit my cousin who's about to enter seminary.  We had a great visit, we talked about all kinds of things, and I learned something about my family: we are all rebels.

Only in my family would becoming a minister be a rebellious act, but it was.  If my cousin had, for example, decided to go to a state college in pursuit of a bachelor's degree, he would be unexceptional for us.  If he discovered while there that he was incredibly talented at, say, engineering, everyone would be applauding him right now.  But instead, he decided to become a priest.  A priest!  A Catholic priest!  If he had announced that he wanted to grow antlers and run away to the forest he would have been met with less resistance. 

But he didn't want to grow antlers, he wanted to be a Catholic priest.  And so he faced the flack, the flat-out, no-holds-barred, intrafamily gossiping, the subtle hints that his sexual libido would eventually grow into a One-Eyed, One-Horned, Giant Purple People Eater with dire consequences if he continued on his chosen path. 

And that's what I mean when I say, "We are all rebels."  My mom loves business.  What did I do?  I got a fine arts degree.  Her mom was a housewife, member of the garden club, and proud supporter of the DAR.  What did my mom do?  Become the manager two steps down from the CEO of any company she works at.  It's like some sort of Call of the Wild.  Tell one of us what we should do and...hey, what are you doing?  What?  WHAT?!  Yes, that person is now doing the exact opposite. 

So, in the spirit of the upcoming Independence Day holiday, I have to mention that this uncontrollable personality trait may have been shared by the gentlemen who felt it would be appropriate to throw a whole boatload of very expensive tea in the ocean and set the boat on fire.  Let freedom ring!  And I love you, James!  I'm so glad that you're my cousin.