WW Applesauce Pancakes

 

 There is my little guy trying to cut his own pancakes.  They grow so fast. At least no one grows out of pancakes... unlike monster pajamas. 

Whole Wheat Applesauce Pancakes With Caramel Sauce

Yeah, I went there, and I added blue stripes.  For the pancake recipe I used the one in the Nick Jr. recipe page.  For that recipe go here: Whole Wheat Applesauce Pancakes

The next step I took was to separate a small amount of pancake batter, dye it blue with food colouring, and stick it in a squeeze bottle. (A small bag with the corner snipped would work too)

I add 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of frozen chopped apples to the batter for added fruit.  Blueberries and chocolate chips always work too, or anything really goes.  In fact, I do not have apple pie spice, so I used pumpkin pie spice instead.  I am a rebel like that.

Put the batter on the hot, buttery frying pan (butter or margarine always make better pancakes then oil. Use lots and have a crispy outer crust with fluffy insides), then squeeze out your coloured lines on the pancake before it cooks. (you can try patterns if you are brave, but my flowers didn't turn out, so I suggest zig-zags just for the colour splash)

Top the pancakes with caramel sauce.  I just used the smucker's caramel sauce I had in the fridge from when I made that caramel buttercream icing for my son's banana birthday cake.

Enjoy!

(I am pretty sure he did)

Star-filled Egg in a Basket lunch

My little dude loves stars.  So one lunch I raced over and made him this lunch, and it didn't even take that long.  I took my star cookie cutters out, then took the larger one and cut a hole in the bread.

 The little guy ate the bread star while I cooked.  Then I sprayed the pan with some cooking spray, preheated it, placed the bread on the pan, and cracked an egg in the middle.  I sprinkled some roasted red pepper spice on it because my guy likes spiced up food, but it would look better plain.

Cook until star looks opaque and flip if desired (I did to make sure the egg was cooked through, no runny egg stains in my kid's clothes) or cook sunny side up, but keep an eye on the bread if you do so it doesn't burn.  

Et voila! I cut another bread star for the plate, along with some small stars out of cheese slices, and placed the cheese on a dollop of marinara sauce I had left over from a pizza dipping sauce.

Blueberry Syrup

One of my first ever posts here was about my favorite homemade pancakes, and the theme of pancakes and waffles comes up occasionally in this blog... which made the fact that I ran out of maple syrup (practically a Canadian standard) even more sad. 

The budget is tight lately and I have been heavily using web couponing, half-priced and reduced price items to fill the gap, and needless to say, with money low, maple syrup is one of the luxuries that went first. 

However, all is not lost.  I have a bounty of on sale frozen blueberries in my freezer, and since I don't want to give up my pancakes any time soon... I have patched a good blueberry syrup recipe out of two different ones I found in web searches.  It's probably healthier for me and the little guy anyways...

Blueberry Syrup

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of frozen blueberries

3 tablespoons of organic cane sugar (or honey, maple syrup, xylitol or reg. sugar)

1/2 cup of orange juice

1 tablespoon of cornstarch (can be omitted if you prefer)

 Directions:

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, mix 1 1/2 cups blueberries, sugar and 1/4 cup orange juice. Bring to a boil while stirring and mashing in the blueberries.   
in a small bowl, mix the remaining orange juice and cornstarch, and stir that into the blueberry mixture. 
Keep stirring until thickened, and serve warm.  Store unused tightly wrapped in the fridge.  Use your own judgement, but I wouldn't keep it more than a week just to be safe.  This recipe could probably be canned to keep it longer or give as a gift to friends and family with some homemade pancake mix.


Original recipes:


Blueberry Syrup - Food Network 
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/blueberry-syrup-recipe/index.html

Blueberry Waffles with Fast Blueberry Sauce - Allrecipes
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/blueberry-waffles-with-fast-blueberry-sauce/Detail.aspx

Orange Creamsicles... drinkables

 Lately I have been thinking about foods and drinks that use flavors from other foods and drinks, and somehow this led to a small creamsicle smoothie obsession.  Here are my smooth results.

Orange Creamsicle Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 cup of orange juice

4 scoops of vanilla frozen yogurt or vanilla ice cream 

(may I suggest natural vanilla bean ice cream)

Instructions:

Combine the orange juice and frozen yogurt or ice cream in a blender, magic bullet or food processor. 

Blend until creamy.  

Breakfast-worthy Orange Creamsicle Smoothie

Ingredients: 

1 11 oz. can mandarin oranges in juice 

1/2 cup frozen pineapple chunks 

1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

1 Tbsp. honey

1 cup vanilla soy milk

1/2 cup ice

 

Instructions:

 Open can of oranges and drain. Place in a zip-top plastic bag and freeze the night before.  Place the frozen oranges and pineapple chunks in the bottom of a blender, magic bullet, or food processor.  Puree until the mixture reaches the texture of a milkshake. Add more ice, if desired.

Easy Boozed-up Creamsicle

Ingredients:

2 oz Smirnoff® Vanilla Twist vodka

8 oz orange crush

Instructions:

Pour the vanilla vodka into a collins glass with ice. Add orange crush til it tastes good. Serve.

 

 

 

'The Best' Creamsicle Recipe (boozed-up)

Ingredients:

 

tablespoons Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur

   tablespoons Galliano liqueur

   1/2 cups partially frozen diced oranges

   1/2 cup vanilla ice cream

 

Instructions:

Place all the ingredients in a blender and pulse until the ingredients are mostly blended. Continue mixing until the mixture is smooth.

Recipes and ideas for recipes came from these links:
http://kidscooking.about.com/od/beverages/r/orangedreamsmo.htm
http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink12155.html
http://www.dvo.com/recipe_pages/smoothies/Creamsicle.html

Chow for the Chubster: using up infant cereal

Although I have not had any infant cereal in the house for quite a while, I thought I would look into recipes that use it up, as it tends to get wasted and well, babies don't really like it.  There are many ways to get iron into your baby, but infant cereal is an easy way, so why not have some fun with it if you have it.

 Always supervise children when eating any finger foods

BABY OATMEAL CEREAL COOKIES
2 c. flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 1/2-3 c. baby oatmeal cereal
2 eggs
1 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. oil
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix eggs, sugars, oil and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Bake at 350 degrees about 15 minutes.

 You can use the infant cereal to thicken your smoothies, for you or the baby.  Added vitamins never hurt a smoothie.

The plainer varieties can be used in meatloaf and meatballs instead of bread crumbs.  It's best to buy plain anyways, because a few spoons of baby food or applesauce tastes much better for baby anyways, and adds real fruit in the mix, instead of fake powdered fruit.  On the same note, you could use it to top macaroni and cheese casseroles, and you could use the fruity ones with a bit of butter and brown sugar to top your muffin recipes.

Dip chicken strips in plain yogurt and then roll or shake in plain cereal and bake them.  Makes a good chicken finger for toddlers.

Teething Biscuit Recipes - Egg-less Baby Cereal Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 cup dry infant rice cereal with bananas (or other flavored or
unflavored infant cereal)
3 tablespoons cooking oil
ice water

Directions:
Preheat oven 425F
Mix flour and cereal.
Gradually stir in oil. Mix a little ice water at a time (start with 1/4 cup) until dough begins to form a ball and pull away from the bowl.
Roll out to the thickness of a cracker on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.
Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet 10-12 min. or until lightly brown. Cool completely.

Store in an airtight container. (you may want to try 1/2 plain and 1/2 flavored baby cereal as the taste when using full flavored baby cereal is very strong.)

Orange and date muffins

250 ml pure orange juice
1/2 cup of finely chopped dates
1 egg(you can us 2 egg yolk only if there are egg allergies in family)
3tbs canola oil
3tbs honey(you can use sugar instead)
1 cup flour
2 cups fortified baby cereal(I found rice made the dough tougher, so I prefered oatmeal)
2tsp baking powder
2ml of salt

-mix wet ingredients together
-mix all dry in a seperate bowl, then pour wet mixture with dry until just blended.
-in greased muffin tins, add then bake at 200C(400F) for about 15 mins.
should make about 24 muffins. They can be kept for 4 days in the fridge or up to 3months in the freezer.

If you find the mixture to dry, you can add a bit more liquid.

Cereal Pancakes

1 egg
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp oil
3/4 cup dry infant cereal
1/4 cup flour
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda.

In a med bowl, beat egg; add rest of ingredients and mix. Pour 1/2 cup batter onto hot, greased skillet for each pancake. Turn pancakes as soon as they are puffed and full of bubbles. Cook other side until golden brown. Makes 6-9 pancakes.

Baby Cereal Cookies

1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 cups infant cereal
3 TBsp whole milk.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet or spray with nonstick spray. Lightly cream molasses and butter. Mix in egg and vanilla. In a seperate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and cereal. Add to the butter mixture. Blend. Add milk. Drop on the cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake 10-12 minutes.

 There.  No more waste.  The recipes I found mostly on the internet in various forums, and there are plenty more if you 'Google' or 'Swagbucks' them.

Candied Bacon (Father's day idea)

Would probably go great on top of the Ultimate pumpkin waffles .

I spied this recipe in Canadian Family magazine and thought about the meat-ivore in my life, my loving husband.  I don't eat bacon, but I can already hear the drool forming in the corners of the mouths of most meat-loving men, and probably the women too, over this interesting treat for a special breakfast.

Ingredients:

12 slices of bacon
1/4 cup of brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Place bacon on a foil-lined baking sheet with edges (like a jelly roll pan)  Sprinkle a spoonful of sugar over each strip of bacon and press it so that it adheres to the entire slice.  Bake for 13 - 15 minutes or until bacon is crisp and mahogany-coloured.  Watch carefully in the last few minutes because bacon can go from underdone to overdone very quickly.

There you go.  Bacon lovers rejoice.  Non-bacon lovers like myself be happy for the happiness of the bacon recievers, shake it off and go look up a tasty falafel recipe... mmmm, falafel... maybe later...

Drool Fodder: Ultimate Pumpkin Waffles

I will start by saying I need a waffle iron.  I want this recipe, want it badly.  I am thinking about getting the waffle iron just for this recipe alone, plus for all you people looking for a good father's day breakfast idea, I think this recipe will do, and maybe put candied bacon on top.  I have that recipe in a magazine, I will post it soon.  I don't eat bacon, but my mega-carnivore husband will probably love it to death.

Anyways, back to the drool worthy recipe at hand...   found at this webpage: http://pumpkinwaffles.wordpress.com/ultimate-pumpkin-waffle-recipe/
(they actually have pumpkin waffles in the webpage name lol, this person is really really serious about these waffles) 

This website is so devoted I am not even going to attempt to write the recipe on my page.  You will have to see for yourself, especially because the directions are fairly detailed and the pictures are very food-pretty.  I recommend at least drooling over this recipe for a few minutes before moving on to your bland frozen waffle substitutes.

Freeze ahead breakfast burritos

I really want to start eating a proper breakfast, but I have trouble getting up in the morning as is, then I have to feed the baby and 3 days a week we go straight to the chiropractors in the morning, so time is not on my side as they would say. 

I plan to try out this recipe, it looks good and may be the solution to my breakfast problems.  They do say that eggs provide energy and can keep you satisfied until the next meal, and eating two eggs a day for breakfast is supposed to help with weight loss. I am not on a 'diet' but after having a baby it would be nice to loose a few pounds so I am fairly interested in food that helps my weight but still tastes good.

By the way... who are 'they' and why are they always telling us what to eat??  Oh well, this looks good anyways.  I put my own spin on the recipe of course, so make your own changes too if you are brave.

You can vary the additions to this recipe for breakfast burritos. Add onions or frozen hash brown potatoes, omit the salsa, try using different types of cheese or flavored tortillas. The possibilities are endless!




Ingredients:

12 eggs

2 Tbsp. butter

1/2 cup chunky salsa

1 can or 1-2 cups chopped mushrooms

A cup or two of  'loose' veggies if you have them on hand, like onions, peppers, etc... the more veggies the healthier and better, sauteed or cooked and chopped.

1 tablespoon roasted red pepper dried spice (or your favorite spices, montreal chicken spice is good in everything too, even pasta sauce)

2 cups Cheddar or Pepper Jack cheese

24 flour tortillas

Preparation:

In large skillet, melt butter. Beat eggs and spice in large bowl and add to skillet. Cook eggs in butter, stirring frequently, until scrambled and set. Add cooked veggies and salsa to egg mixture and mix gently.

Warm tortillas as directed on package. Place about 1/2 cup egg and veggie mixture onto each tortilla and sprinkle with some cheese. Roll up each tortilla to make burritos, folding in the ends and rolling up. Place on parchment paper lined cookie sheets and freeze until solid. Then wrap individually and package in zip-lock freezer bags.


When you're ready to eat, unwrap the burritos, wrap loosely in microwave safe paper towel and heat in the microwave on high power for 1-3 minutes until hot and cheese is melted.


You can also thaw burritos in the refrigerator overnight, then wrap each in foil and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until hot. The thawed burritos can also be deep fried for 3-5 minutes until golden brown and crisp.

makes 24 burritos roughly.


original recipe found here:  http://busycooks.about.com/od/breakfastmaindishes/r/freezerburrito.htm

My Favorite Pancakes

This is the recipe I adapted years ago to my tastes in pancake fair.  My husband loves them because they taste more like a waffle than a pancake.  He normally hates pancakes, so I take it as a compliment.  Enjoy.

My favorite Pancakes
_________________
Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups flour
3 teaspoons (tsp) baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. sugar (preferably cane sugar)
2 tbsp. ground flax seed
1 egg
1 1/4 cups milk
3 tbsp. melted butter or veg. oil (I use extra virgin olive oil)
1/4 tsp. vanilla ( I add a bit more, about a cap full)
Margarine or butter for frying
Directions:
Mix dry ingredients. In separate bowl, beat egg, add milk. Make well in centre of dry ingredients; slowly add egg-milk mixture. Add melted butter or oil. Stir quickly till just mixed and batter is still lumpy in appearance. Drop batter onto hot pan or griddle (on my electric stove the best tempurature is about 6 or med. high) to desired size of pancake. Cook until bubbles form on top and golden brown on bottom, then flip and brown on other side.
You can add a couple of handfuls of chocolate chips to this, or fruit and or nuts if you want a variation. My husband says it tastes more like waffles than pancakes, but that is what we like about them. This is a variation of the five roses cook book pancake recipe, over time I have just adjusted it to my tastes ;)