Posts tagged ‘recipes’

I know there are families out there who get all excited about Valentine’s Day. Some people get little gifts for their kids and go out on dates and stuff, but we’re always a little more subdued about it. I guess it’s because my birthday is a couple weeks after it, and then our wedding anniversary is another few weeks after that. How much can I expect my family to celebrate their love for me in one month, you know? And does anyone but Mom really want their family’s affection overtly celebrated?

But on Saturday I was making breakfast for the family with my go-to pancake recipe and accidentally made one heart shaped and the kids were ecstatic. So I made the rest of them heart shaped too and felt like I’d been more festive about Valentine’s Day than ever before. I might even do it again closer to the day, just to make it count.

Go-to Heart Pancakes (makes enough for 2 adults)

1 Cup whole wheat, or whole wheat white flour (more for consistency if necessary)

1/2 cup quick oats

1/2 T baking powder

2 T brown sugar

1/2 t salt

1 cup milk

1/8 oil

1 large egg, beaten

Directions:

Mix dry ingredients in a large pyrex mixing bowl with spout. Make a well in the center and add wet ingredients. Mix it all together until just mixed through. Add more flour 2T at a time to thicken it if needed so that the batter is a little thicker than standard pancakes.

On a hot griddle pour out batter into heart shapes by starting in the upper left corner and pouring a line of batter, getting narrower towards the bottom. Repeat from the right hand side, meeting the batter in the middle. Flip once. Eat with, and love your family.

It’s tomato time! I grew “lemon boy” and “ruffled yellow” tomatoes this year to change up my usual early girl, cherry tomatoes and romas. The harvest has been quite prolific, actually quite a bit more than I can use in just salads and sandwiches. Rather than freezing them, I decided to try to use them fresh as often as possible, and that’s how I started making my Simple Salsa.

It’s very mild, since I am always sharing it with the girls, but you can easily add a jalepeno or other hot pepper variety if you like some fire in your salsa.

The recipe is as follows:

Simple Salsa

about 6 tomatoes diced

2 small red onions diced very small

2 green peppers diced

1 clove garlic minced

1 T sugar

2 tsp salt

1 tsp cumin

black pepper to taste

Stir all ingredients together, let it set a bit for the flavors to blend together. I’ve had it 5 minutes after making it and it is great. It is even better if you can manage to wait until the next day. We can rarely wait that long!