Peanut Butter Pancakes

I am a pancake connoisseur. It’s true, I have a badge to prove it (just don’t ask to see it!) Like some people are expert wine sommeliers, or perhaps they are professional perfume makers, I am a specialist when it comes to pancakes. Let’s not get confused, I’m not saying that I make the world’s best pancakes. No. What I’m saying is, I’m really good at eating pancakes.

I can say that I’ve had a fair number of pancakes in my life. I’m a big fan of the harvest pancakes at IHOP, and that the pancakes from the Pancake Café in Madison are amazing. An oven-baked apple pancake is the perfect breakfast to share with someone else and oatmeal pancakes are super filling. The type of pancake that I’ve yet to have an amazing one is the peanut butter pancake.

I’ve gone on a search to find a good peanut butter pancake. It is very hard to get this flavor just right. I’ve had all kinds, from the taste-less to the over-powering. The sad flat peanut butter pancake, riddled with too much fat and the worst, a regular pancake with peanut butter chips, ugh. I thought it was hopeless, so I started experimenting on my own.

I discovered one very important thing, using real peanut butter makes the pancakes too heavy. This is perhaps why the Pancake House in Amherst went with peanut butter chips. But how do you get peanut butter without all the fat? The answer is PB2. Made by Bell Plantation, PB2 is made by pressing peanuts to remove all the oil, and grinding them into a powder. I love it in shakes and decided this was just what I needed to make my own delicious pancakes.

Sure enough, PB2 came through. I was rewarded with peanutty, fluffy, tasty pancakes. Adapting my tried and true pancake recipe to accommodate the additional dry ingredients was easy and resulted in something I am happy to share with you. If you don’t have PB2 (it’s sold in specialty stores and online) you can use regular peanut butter (I’m talking Jif, not fancy natural PB), just cut down on the butter/oil you use. Serve it up with some of that blackberry jam that you made last week (thin it out with a little water on the stovetop) and enjoy. Mmmm, PB&J for breakfast.

Fusilli with Walnut Pesto

I don’t know about where you are, but here on the East Coast it’s been hot. Equatorial hot. I’m talking ninety-five degree, two thousand percent humidity hot. My one mile walk to work in the morning (and I leave the house at 7am) leaves me a sweaty mess by the time I get to work. Luckily my workplace is over air-conditioned and pleasant.

When it comes to making dinner in this type of oppressive heat I like to do as little as possible. Since I never turn on the air conditioning (because I like it hot) I try not to turn on the oven that much during the summer (because I don’t like it that hot). What I cook this time of the year leans toward easy, quick and with as little preparation as possible.

Pesto is a great choice for those hot summer nights. All you have to do is boil up some pasta and grind together some other ingredients in the food processor. This meal can be thrown together in fifteen minutes, which is a good thing after you’ve walked the mile home and are now really tired and sweaty.

Or maybe you can find someone nice to make this for you? Print out the recipe and leave it in a conspicuous place. Perhaps someone will feel bad for you when you melt into the floor.

Don't you wish you had a salt pig as cute as this!??!!

Chilled Asparagus Salad

Boulder, Colorado is many things. It is crazy beautiful (I have included pictures as proof). There are too many things to do. The weather is fantastic year-round. It is the gateway to the Rockies. Boulder has so much going for it.

The one thing that Boulder has going against it? Boulder is very far from Home. I can tell you exactly how far it is… Two full days in a car, driving through endless corn fields, then endless nothingness (aka Nebraska. Sorry Nebraska, you know you’re empty). Buffalo, New York to Boulder, Colorado is a twenty-four hour drive, through seven states, gaining thousands of feet in altitude. If you want to fly back home to Buffalo it takes at least five hours. Along the way you lose two hours by way of the time zone change.

It is because of this distance that I took very few trips home during my time there. And because of this, I am so glad for the friends that I made in Colorado. The people of Colorado are unbelievably friendly, kind people. My friends in the west are exactly that.

Last Christmas I found myself an orphan. Staying in Colorado for the holidays to work, dog watch and teach a ridiculous number of group X classes. My fabulous Colorado friends would not hear of me spending the holiday by myself. I cannot thank them enough for their kindness of inviting me into the fold with their family.

What a fantastic Christmas dinner! Craziness, happiness, good food and good conversation. From this dinner I learned several things. 1. I have very little in common with a republican from Montana :) 2. I betray my nerdiness by stating that I’ve seen all of the Star Trek movies. (It’s true. And I’ve had several conversations about what the titles of all of them are.) 3. Jello is still delicious and 4. Even eight-year-olds like this asparagus dish.

My many thanks and lots of love goes to my friends in Colorado. I also send you this recipe, enjoy.