Mariannes Motifs

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

My little guy had a Preschool assignment to bring in a favorite family recipe.  I asked him what his favorite thing was that I cook for him and he said Mac and Cheese and Hot Dogs.  ::: sigh :::  So I came up with Chocolate Chip Pancakes because I know that he loves them.

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Adam’s Chocolate Chip Pancakes

 

4 TBSP Butter, melted in microwave

1 ½ C Milk

2 Eggs

2 Cups Flour

4 tsp baking powder

3 TBSP Sugar

½ tsp salt (optional)

Chocolate chips as desired

 

The secret to tender fluffy pancakes is to melt the butter and then add it to the cold milk.  It forms little clumps and helps to leaven the griddle cakes.

 

Beat milk, melted butter, and eggs in bowl.  Add dry ingredients and stir until mixed.  You may have to add a little bit extra milk if it looks too thick.   The mixture will be lumpy, that’s fine – don’t over mix.  Just mix until all the flour is all wet.

 

Heat griddle and drop pancakes onto the griddle.   Sprinkle some chocolate chips over the pancakes, and flip when you see the bubbles popping.  Brown the other side, and serve.

 

* If you use self rising flour, omit the baking powder. 

Cheapest Price on K-Cups Still Available

Many of my readers have taken advantage of Amazon's fantastic low price on K-Cups.  Get the pack of 50 with subscribe and save and they are .32 cents  piece! (I did the subscribe and save with re-order in 6 months which will give me plenty of time to run out)  The most popular to order has been the Donut Shop K-Cups from Deidrich.  This is a mellow coffee, perfect for your breakfast cup.  It is is copy of Dunkin Donuts coffee, which anyone who knows, knows is one of the best cups of coffee around. 

Donut Shop K-Cups for Keurig .32 cents a piece

I save so much money by making my coffee at home and I can get it to taste just like a creamy Dunkin Donuts cup of coffee by adding organic half and half, and organic sugar.  Yummy.   Even with buying a small container of good fresh half and half, and organic sugar, it still comes out so much cheaper than cruising through Dunkin' Donuts.  The half and half has a really long shelf life in the fridge, too.  For some reason it goes bad so much slower than regular milk so I can use it for weeks.

And the Keurig brewer is so fantastic - I never have to clean it or deal with any wet grounds, measuring or what to do with the rest of a pot of coffee.  I am the only one who drinks it in the house, so the one cup is so perfect for me.  Did you see the totally cute small size brewer they have out now?  Perfect for your desk at work or dorm room.

Something Different for Your Keurig - White Cocoa K-Cups and Canarino

I wrote earlier about the lowest price K Cups on sale for the Keurig brewer, using Amazon's subscribe and save I bought Gloria Jean's Hazelnut K-Cups for .32 a piece with free shipping.

But what to do if you are looking for something really new and different to brew in your machine and have on hand for guests.  (Isn't it fun to be able to offer guests a variety of coffees and teas in a beautiful carousel?)

Here are two options I have not seen before: White Hot Chocolate K-Cups and Italian Canarino.  Apparently Canarino is a lemon beverage used in Italy for sore stomachs.  People say it tastes good with sugar or honey when you have a cold as well.  White Chocolate sounds so good - I would mix it with coffee for a White Chocolate Mocha.

And if you just want to try a bunch of different K-cups try the Timothy's World K-Cups Variety Pack which contains 2 each of:

-Parisian Nights extra bold
-Italian Blend
-Kona Blend
-Breakfast Blend
-Decaf Colombian
-Colombian Dorado
-Rainforest Expresso extra bold
-Hazelnut
-Chai Tea
-English Breakfast Tea
-Chinese Green Tea
-Italian Hot Lemon Beverage (Canarino)

For those looking up and not sure how to spell: Kurig, Keurig, Kuerig, K-Cup, k cup, coffee pod

Twecipe - Micro Recipies in 140 characters or less

Tweet your recpipes!  Here is a list of abbreviations for tweeting "Twecipes" from the Lunch Box Bunch.

Twecipe Measuring Lingo:
One cup = 1C
1 1/2 cups = 1.5C
1/2 cup = .5C
1 Tbsp = 1T
2 1/2 Tbsp = 2.5T
1 tsp = 1t
2 1/2 tsp. = 2.5t
1 liter = 1L
sprinkle = sprnkl
dash of salt and pepper = dshS&P

Here's my example for Crock pot baked potatoes.

Crock pot baked potatoes. Poke pots,wrap in foil. Fill crockpt w/

6-12 pots. Cook on Low 8-10 hrs or High 2 1/2-4 hours. Don't add water!

Keurig K-Cups on Sale - 32 cents and free shipping

This may be the cheapest deal on K-Cups for the Keurig brewer.  If you do the subscribe and save you get 50 K-Cups for $15.91.  That is about .32 cents a cup for awesome

K-Cups for Keurig Brewers Pack of  50 for $18.72  Save even more with "subscribe and save."  Price drops to $15.91 with free shipping.  Can be canceled.

K-Cups on Sale

There are 5 varieties available with this deal, including

• Coffee People Jet Fuel
• Coffee People Donut Shop
• Coffeee People Wake Up Call
• Gloria Jean's Hazelnut (my personal favorite)
• Coffee People Black Tiger. (The Black Tiger is a bit more)

I want to also add Kurig, Kuerig, Coffee Pods, k Cups - in case someone does not know how to spell Keurig!

Crockpot Butter Chicken

Today's dinner is Indian Butter Chicken made in the crock pot.  I had a jar of Patak's Butter Chicken simmering sauce.  Made a pot of basmati rice, and cooked some southern style green beans.  I decided that since the meal was so easy (Defrost chicken, put in crock pot, pour sauce over, turn on) I could afford to take some time with the green beans.  So I chopped some onion and then cooked the green beans in sauteed onion and added a chicken bullion cube.

I also baked up some frozen Nan I had in the freezer.  Yummy.  The Butter Chicken came out fantastic - even 5 year old Ben liked it.  Adam didn't try it but he loves rice and green beans so he was happy.  Definite thumbs up and something I will make again.

Now that dinner is done early, we can sit out on the deck, enjoy our patio furniture and watch the birds and squirrels.

The kids are actually watching a movie tonight - Valiant.  They seem to be into it, which is more than I expected from a movie about a pigeon.  It probably has to do with the Lick'em sticks candy they got as a reward.

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Extremely Lazy Peach Cobbler

I just made my first ever peach cobbler.    I accidentally created my own recipe after I mistook a 1/3 cup measure for a 1/2 cup measure.  It came out completely perfect. 

I baked it in the ugly Pyrex green daisy bowl that failed to sell on Ebay.  I figure - if I am stuck with the thing I might as well get some use out of it.

Extremely Lazy Peach Cobbler

Preheat oven to 350

2/3 cup self rising flour (or 2/3 cup flour plus 2 tsp baking powder)
1/3 cup sugar, plus 1/4 cup for topping
2/3 cup milk
1 stick butter
1 can peach pie filling
Pinch Pumpkin pie spice

Melt butter in bottom of Pyrex bowl or 9x9 casserole.  Spoon pie filling into melted butter.

Mix flour and sugar in bowl and add milk.  Gently pour over peach filling.

Top with 1/4 cup of sugar and sprinkle with pumpkin pie spice mix (or cinnamon). 

Bake for 50 minutes at 350 degrees.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

For some reason I have been craving biscuits and sausage gravy this week.  I think it started when Jin accidentally bought me White Lily Self Rising flour.  I normally get all purpose flour but hey I can work with whatever.

On the package it clearly states that it is the best for biscuits and I guess that got into my subconscious.  Kroger has some sausage patties on sale for $2.50 cents so I went for it.

First I made some simple drop biscuits.  (Lazy - no rolling for me)  I melted the butter and then when it cooled, poured it in the milk.  I actually added some vinager to the milk to make it like buttermilk.   Basically it was 5 TBS butter, 1 cut of milk, and 2 cups of self rising flour.  Added one pinch of baking powder, and a bit of salt.  Mix, drop and bake at 400 degrees.

The for the sausage gravy I cooked up the sausage.  It was not very greasy at all, so I didn't remove any grease.  I crumbled up 2 of the sausages to flavor the gravy and put the rest aside.  The gravy was accomplished by making a roux out of the sausage grease and the butter, then adding milk and stirring until it was thickened.   Flavor with salt and pepper.

This is one of those meals where you need to take a diet pill, or cholesterol pill while you eat it.  Not exactly full of nutritional goodness.  Just greasy, starchy Southern yum.  Or as my niece would say in "LOLCAT" - nom nom.

Birthday Cake

I told the kids it was my birthday when I took them to camp and they were all like "Oh good, you get birthday cake."  So I decided to make myself some cake.

However, I needed something extremely easy because I am like that, you know.  Just the entire concept of baking cake is amazing to me, I don't need to push my luck with a complex recipe.

This one - Simple White Cake looked like it fit the bill.  6 ingredients, if you count the fact that I had self rising flour that hubby bought by mistake so I didn't need to add the baking powder.

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk

I made them into cupcakes - I actually had balloon cupcake cups from some time I thought I was brave enough to bake for the kids.

Thinking that something this simple deserves icing, I found a simple buttercream recipe - Almost Professional Buttercream.  The cupcakes are in the oven and I am going to start on the frosting now.  Will post a pic later.

Best Chili Ever

I made chili tonight and it came out so totally yummy, I had to write down what I put in it for posterity.  And so I remember next time.

Best Chili Ever - Turkey Ancho Black Bean Chili

 

1 pound ground turkey

1 small onion

1 big clove garlic

“brown bag” chili mix – about 1.5 TBSP  (I don’t use the whole bag at once cause the kids like stuff mild)

Ancho chlili powder – 1TBSP

1 can Bush’s chili beans (mild)

1 can Ro-Tel Mexican diced tomatoes mild

1 can black beans.  (rinse the black beans well in water before putting in the chili otherwise they make everything black.)

1 squirt of ketchup   (imparts a certain "je ne sais quoi"

 

 

Chop onion and garlic and sauté lightly in some olive oil.  Add ground turkey and cook through. 

 

Dump in all the other ingredients.  Cook up for 15 minutes or so to thicken the sauce.  Enjoy.