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Saturday, January 17, 2009

More baking, reading, cold trees

This weekend's baking experiment was a German Apple Pancake. This is the first time I've attempted a recipe for this dish.I was really pleased with it once I got it out of the cast iron skillet it was cooked/baked in. The edges of the pancake were nice and crisp. The apples were warm, soft and a perfect mixture of sweet and tart. See your pretty green plate Nancy?

When I first took it from the oven I wasn't overly impressed. It didn't look like the finished photos from any resource I could find. It was lumpy, pale and ugly. Thank goodness this top turns into the bottom when it hits the breakfast table.
There are numerous recipes out there and this was from my America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Sorry, this recipe isn't availabe on the America's Test Kitchen website unless you subscribe. (Hint: the cookbook is available at Amazon.com and Costco, both for about $20.) I've had this prepared several different ways and prefer the more break-like pancake to the versions where the pancake is mostly eggs and the finished dish almost like quiche.

The kids really enjoyed it, especially the sprinkling of powdered sugar. Rick thought it was more dessert-ish than breakfast-y. Tatum, who rarely eats fruit, gobbled this one up completely.
After breakfast we took a quick trip to the library, where we all checked out some great reading. I'm going to re-read George Orwell's Animal Farm. Tatum once again loaded up on Nancy Drew mysteries. Keeli found a book about eating vegetables and Rikard decided to read Hank the Cowdog.
We then took a nice drive into the country to look at houses. We need to land somewhere sooner or later, we may as well look. We found these trees, south of the city where the snow still lays in thick blankets across the ground.
The fog had lifted a bit earlier inthe afternoon. The frost covered the trees, making the landscapes seem almost black and white. I'm sure there is some sort of field or crop under all that snow, but it is still deep enough in most places that aren't city streets to cover quite a bit.

3 comments:

Conni said...

I loved "Hank the Cowdog" books when my kids were young!! If you can find them on tape, they are read by the author, and are a real hoot!

Anonymous said...

Yumm...looks good! I want to try this recipe for banana cake at: http://honeyandjam.blogspot.com/2009/01/banana-carmel-cake.html. Now to go exercise!

Penny said...

Oh wow that pancake looks sooo good!
Hank the Cowdog is very popular with my library customers. The audiobooks go out as much as the books do.