Saturdays in the Hawth

Pamcakes!, originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

One of the little joys I get out of life on the weekends is breakfast with my wonderful wife. Saturday mornings have been traditionally reserved for the two of us to get some relaxation in after the long week and before the madness of the coming weekend, usually, but the last month has been ridiculous. Traveling, overtime, and other commitments have really stolen this treasure from us lately, so it was with great pleasure that I determined this weekend would be a return to this pseudo-tradition.

In honor of this, I decided to try something a little different. There's several things I've learned about making breakfast since we started doing this, one of which was making an almost perfect egg and also how to slow sautée some buttery potatoes. A golden fleece, if you will, of mine was always to make a batch of pancakes from scratch. I resolved to do this, with gusto, and set out to the supermarket after work on Friday with recipe in hand.

Pancakes themselves are a bit of a trick in that they can be both sweet and savory, depending on your ingredients. Without the right proportions, they go from tender blankets to cinder blocks. My favorites tend toward the sweet and fluffy side, especially pancakes laced with bananas and nuts of some sort. In this sense, the banana and pecan recipe I found was right up my alley. The first one I slapped on the griddle was a little smaller than I like, so I decided to ladle in heaping spoonfuls of batter each time, which presented its own new set of logistical nightmares. Between that first fluffy devil and the last pillowy monstrosity, there were many mutants, but after a while, I got the hang of it as much as I could and this photo is the end result. I often remark that this is a far cry from the first failed omelet I've ever made, but I chalk it up to determination. Well, determination and hunger.

At any rate, here's the recipe on the Food Network website, courtesy of Mr. Tyler Florence. I didn't go as far as to make the maple butter, but perhaps that's best saved for another time and place.

Bon Appetit.