Raspberry Granola Bake

Excuse the sad, blurry cellphone picture.

I will be making this ALL the time from here on out.

It's maybe my ideal breakfast. It's fruit, it's granola, it's warm, it fills you up, it kind of tastes like dessert for breakfast. YUM! And it is so easy to throw together.

Raspberry Granola Breakfast Bake (Source: Lynn's Kitchen Adventures)
-6 cups granola (Side note: I bought 2 boxes of almond granola because the nutritional information said that it contained nine 2/3 cup servings and I thought I wouldn't have enough. It was only when I got home that I realized that IS, in fact, 6 cups. Math has never been my strong point.)
-1.5 cups milk
-Up to 1/2 cup brown sugar - I didn't add any because my granola was sweet already
-One bag frozen raspberries (three-ish cups frozen fruit - recipe suggests blueberries.)

-The night before you plan to eat this, mix granola, milk, and frozen fruit in a greased 13x9 pan
-Cover and refrigerate
-In the morning, turn on oven to 350
-Cover pan with foil and place into the oven as it is heating
-Bake for 30 minutes covered and 15 minutes uncovered

Tot in the Kitchen: Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes

These pancakes are awesome.

I think buttermilk is the secret ingredient that makes pancakes work, and now that I have cake flour I was able to get a combo that easily made fluffy delicious pancakes.

Bean helped me stir and "dump" ingredients (and "chop" and "chunk," although I'm not thoroughly sure either action was required.) He really wanted to add his cereal to it for a special touch, but I decided that raisin bran might not be my favorite add-in.

He calls pancakes "penkens." So enjoy these penkens!

Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes (Source: The Train to Crazy, originally from RecipeZaar)
-1 cup cake flour
-1 tsp sugar
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 beaten egg
-1 cup buttermilk
-1/4 stick melted butter
-We added fresh blueberries as they cooked

-Mix dry ingredients
-Add wet ingredients and mix until just combined
-Cook on greased griddle over medium/low heat
-Add blueberries before flipping

Note: This recipe is pretty small. We doubled it to get enough to freeze. If you have more than three people in your family I would plan to double it.

I Fought the Freezer and the Freezer Won: Apple Cherry Crisp

The lower freezer drawer and I had a little brawl. It won. My lovely friend Zay has been sending me chest freezer links from Craigslist. And I am VERY tempted given our space constraints in the current freezer and my desire to meal-prep pre-babe.

Anyway, the freezer drama resulted in me throwing out (uuuugh . . . money down the drain!!) a whole set of packs of old frozen meat, and finding several other things that I needed to use, stat. Like a half bag of frozen cherries, which I used for this crisp.

I usually eyeball topping ingredients, but this version is adapted from a real recipe. So I measured! Like a real baker!

The one thing I always do with crisps is to only sweeten and spice the topping. I love that the fruit still retains its taste but is sweetened by the topping ingredients. Also, if I just use apples, I always add nuts to the topping.

Apple Cherry Crisp (topping adapted from Tried-and-True Cooking with Heidi)
-3 apples (I used Pink Lady, which are much better for eating than cooking but were all that I had on hand
-1/2 lb frozen sweet dark cherries
-1 cup flour
-1 cup brown sugar
-1 cup oats
-1 stick melted butter
-Sprinkling of cinnamon

-Preheat overn to 350
Chop apples (I use a hand chopper and don't bother to peel) and mix with cherries in a 2 quart casserole.
-In a medium bowl, mix topping ingredients
-Sprinkle evenly over fruit
-Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes, until golden and bubbly

Note: the original topping recipe called for baking soda and baking powder. I haven't made a crisp with any rising ingredients in the topping, but I'm interested to try to see if it makes a difference

Tot in the Kitchen: Pancakes

We are definitely a breakfast family. We love going out for it, making it, and eating it. The first meal I ever made for Mishke was French Toast (my SIL has me way beat on French toast though and swears it is how she will woo her future spouse.) And I make a pretty mean omelette, because when I spent the summer in Paris my roommate was really homesick for her boyfriend who used to make omelettes all the time, so I had to step up to the plate.

However - I can't make a pancake to save my life. Mix or from scratch, my creations have a place in the NHL. So I didn't have high hopes for anything un-puck-like when I decided to make pancakes with Bean this weekend. The post with the recipe I used raved about how light the pancakes were but I was still skeptical.

Things turned from bad to worse when I realized not only did I not have the cake flour the recipe called for, but I was almost out of All Purpose. So the pancakes had to be mostly wholewheat. I love wholewheat flour, but it's kind of the kiss of death when it comes to airy baked goods.

But I've got to tell you. These somehow came out vaguely fluffy; and I would be willing to bet that, made with cake flour, they would be about as perfect as the name suggests.

I'm a believer . . .

Perfect Pancakes (Source: originally from The Pioneer Woman Cooks, found through Mommy's Kitchen)
-3 cups + 2 tbsp Cake Flour (NOT wholewheat, but if you happen to have to substitute you won't screw it up as epically as you think you might)
-½ tsp Salt
-3 tbsp Baking Powder
-2 tbsp Sugar
-2 cups Milk
-2 eggs
-3 tbsp vanilla (or more if you're heavy handed like me
-1/2 stick of butter

-Find willing toddler
-Have them mix together dry ingredients in large bowl (Bean gleefully yells "dump!" every time we measure something in.)
-Mix milk, eggs, and vanilla in a separate bowl.
-Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, stirring very gently until just combined
-Take bowl away to chagrine of toddler
-Melt butter and add it to the batter, stirring gently to combine.
-Cook on a greased skillet on medium-low until golden brown, adding whatever fun things you like in your pancakes (we did my favorite - bananas and chocolate chips)
-Devour