Its no accident…
As an extroverted and want-to-be creative dad, I love Saturday and Sunday morning breakfasts. Its then I have the time to make some breakfast for my family. Is it a big deal? I really enjoy it. It takes me back to the Saturday mornings when my dad used to make pancakes for us. I don’t know if you can remember this far back. In the old days you used to make pancakes with some flour, eggs, vegetable, oil, milk and so on. Nowadays you just measure the mix, add the water and stir it together.
Today was pancakes with some blueberries whipped in. That’s the part I dig, making it up each day. I just look in the refrigerator and see what we have to mix with. I figure, if I am taking the time to make the breakfast, why not make it as special as you can for everyone? Its like a motto I used as a manager by famed basketball great Bill Russell, “ The game is scheduled, we are all here, we might as well play to win!”
My resume of pancake breakfasts include, Blueberry pancakes, strawberry pancakes, banana, blueberry- banana (which my neighbors got out of bed for)and so on. The secret ingredient to my pancakes however is the vanilla extract. Every batch starts with enough of a dose of vanilla extract to get you loopy. Well not that much. The vanilla acts like the canvas for the pancakes; the vehicle for the other ingredients to ride on board with. Plus, it fills the house with the good vanilla smell where you don’t ever have to call everyone to the table. It gets you that, “It smells good” compliment every time. Nothing wrong for fishing for complements on a bleary-eyed Saturday morning, is there?
When I was in high school, I had a friend’s mother that would take the entertaining one step further. She would make the syrup fancy. She would take regular syrup (already one of the top five condiments known to mankind) and warm it up. Next, she would add some real butter to it. (Sniff) Can you imagine what that mighta smelled like? Or she could make fruit flavored syrup by adding some extra fruit (see pancake recipes above) to the warming syrup, mash the fruit a bit and let the heat just bleed the flavors out of the fruit. So good! Can you imagine having a stack of steaming pancakes topped with warm maple syrup while you are looking at snow outside?
I enjoy doing all this for my clan and seeing there smiling faces. If the smiles are ample enough I might even clean the dishes too. ~ well hide most of them in the dishwasher. I enjoy the entertaining aspect and its one reason why my IDEAL career would be owning and operating a Bed & Breakfast. I enjoy the entertaining! I enjoy the creative cooking ( I was a Restaurant Manager in a past life). I enjoy meeting new people and getting to know them. ~ Be aware of that last passion, if you ever get an email from me! Combined with my fondness for writing, the emails can get quite ‘chatty’.
And if anyone in my B&B, whether here at home at my fantasy resort, had a preferred breakfast, I’d try to make it too. ..cause I want to try it! Have I told you how I love to eat yet?
Its Dylan’s nap time. Part of the whole ‘nap time’ process is getting her to go to the potty before she lays down, so she doesn’t have to wear her pull-ups while she naps. She usually enjoys doing it so she can prove what a big girl she is. Today however, she stayed sitting in the middle of the hallway. She was kneeling down over one of her dolls, just waiting there.
I urged, “Come on Dylan, its time for your nap!”
She looks up and hands me “Belle”, one of her new Disney Princesses. “Belle” was evidently propped atop one of our little tooth-brushing rinse cups. Dylan looks up, wipes the hair away from her face, smiles and says, “Belle had to go potty too!” It seems Belle was going to take a nap with Dylan…and Dylan didn’t want to get blamed for something, in case Belle had an accident. 
OUR LIFE IN 3D 
Your welcome:) I can talk about food for days, lol. I think I might just add little cooking posts to my page with my work (been slowly working on a cookbook) and others once a week. I will start it next Friday and make Friday all about food. See you just inspire me to work on my blog a bit more and didn’t even know it, lol. I am so lazy with blogging I need to find the balance of the internet and life.
Thanks! I will try the fibrous pancakes. I agree about the eggs… I really only add them to make a fluffier pancake or use the whites only to add a bit more protein (I’m a protein junkie). Syrup though. My pancakes sit half submerged in syrup. I just let the right amount drip off before I shovel the pancakes in. I guess I’m a syrup junkie too. Thanks for stopping by and adding to the food chat!
Those pancake looks so good. I am catching up reading blogs eating on my salad. Looking at your pancake I just want to take one layer of it from my screen:) I love pancakes. The weekend is normally pancake, waffle, or bagel breakfast with egg, bacon, or ham. Since the new year we have been counting calories and we cut down on the amount of many things we typically eat by weighing and ofcourse smaller portion. We laugh because we compare what we use to eat and now eat and how full we get still eating the same thing just a little less. Weird how the mind is at times.
Have you ever tried a fibrous pancake? I bake and cook a lot. Many things I make out of scratch and out of my own head. One day when you have time play around and try one. A fibrous Pancake is Musli cereal mix with water, flour, and baking powder. I rarely use eggs in my food, only separately if I am making poach, omlette, or scramble eggs. Eggs are not needed and you really can not taste the difference with egg or without when making pancake. To top of my fibrous pancake I use 1TBS of syrup. It is truly enough. I use to squeeze the bottle until my pancakes were saturated not any more.
I think the way breakfast became a ‘guy’ thing is it is what it has evolved into with guys making you breakfast in bed so often.
Our two year old landed a fiberglass plate in the vicinity of the kitty dish last night. It shattered into hundreds of pieces, literally sharper than glass. I tried to pick a tiny piece up, it pierced my skin and I bleed all over the kitchen floor and the bathroom counter…while the diner was finishing in the oven. Congrats on your gang being better shots than mine!
Of course, I cleaned up the egg pan, LOL. All I ask is that everyone makes sure their dishes land in the vicinity of the kitchen sink, then I can wash them later.
We do the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls also. I definitely think breakfast cooking is a guy thing…maybe because most of the women I know don’t eat breakfast? I’ll grab fruit on the way out the door, but that’s about it. On the occasions when we do a full breakfast, it’s on the weekends with holidays or no plans so we don’t eat until 9 or 10 am.
The scratch pancakes were the best but I was surprised how well the ‘add water and stir’ brands , er, stacked up. They weren’t bad (and I’m so lazy) and then you can just doctor them up with the vanilla or fruit or even an extra egg for some fluffiness. I know you are a Saturday morning Hero at your house too!
MMMMmmmm, you are making me hungry! Thanks for stopping in! What time is breakfast at your house? I can bring the syrup!
We have what my kids refer to as “pancake day” every Saturday. If this were to be miseed there would be a mutiny in my house. I make them from scratch, though, but have never used vanilla. That sounds like something I need to try.
Too cute! I love hearing about your family 🙂
On a side note: One of my favorite things in the entire world are my aunts buttermilk blueberry pancakes made from scratch with lots of warm maple sirup. Heaven on a fork!
I like them with any thing as long as I can get a puddle of syrup. Blueberry and Banana might be my favorite but you need both fresh ingredients in the house and that is rare. Maybe the most fun way now is with the fresh blueberries. The berries get warm, the kids eat them and soon their little teeth and mouth are blue. Its all fun and games until they get the blueberries in their Sunday dresses. Then dad’s in the doghouse. Thanks!
My Dad and I were responsible for the sunday morning tradition of making pancakes. It was something I always looked forward to. He would get up early and make the batter so it had time to sit, then I would make the pancakes a few hours later. My favourite way to have them is with maple syrup and sliced fruit! What’s your favourite version?
So who cleaned up the scrambled eggs? We love the cinnamon rolls too. They are our current Sunday favorite, the Pillsbury ones in a tube. Mom makes them as its my day to sleep in. I see your hubs makes the pancakes. Are the pancakes a guy thing do you think? I never really thought about that before? ~ I dump the fruit in there as mom likes to eat healthy. Thanks for stopping by!
Enjoy those lazy Saturday and Sunday mornings! In a few years, you’ll have to be up and out the door….soccer, softball, dance, or something else will be calling. I had to leave at 7:30 am today to take Oldest for the district GATE testing. He made his own scrambled eggs as I was in the shower.
I like your idea of adding something to the pancake mix. Usually, pancakes are made by the Hubs or Oldest since they are breakfast people and the rest of us are not really…awake enough to eat in the morning. I do cinnamon rolls on holidays and I know the kids look forward to that, but that’s about it for my contribution to breakfast.