Sunday....

Like many New Yorkers, I love brunch. However, unlike many New Yorkers, I have a husband who pretty much refuses to leave the house on the weekends before 2pm on pain of death (barring some work-related crisis). To get him to wake up at a reasonable hour, shower, put clothes on and leave the house (all before eating) would be nothing short of a miracle. So how to have brunch?

Make it at home!

This morning, after flipping through the smitten kitchen website (I love love love that website), I decided to make Edna Mae's Sour Cream Pancakes (and also some bacon). I decided on this recipe for a few reasons: the total cooking time was about ten minutes, I had some sour cream in my fridge and I'm down to about 3 Tbs of butter so I can't bake anything and I've been itching (ITCHING!) to cook.

So here ya go: make your own brunch. It rocks. Plus, whoever lives in the house with you will totally love you (unless you refuse to share).


Note: I halved the recipe because I only had half a cup of sour cream and it fed Zack and me perfectly well. The full recipe is below.

7 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/ 2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream (I used reduced fat sour cream and it was totally fine)
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Butter
Maple syrup

Stir the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. Add the sour cream in on top and stir it together. Whisk the eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl (normally I would just dump it all in the same bowl, but I didn't want to screw up the consistency of the batter) and stir them into the sour cream mixture. Don't overmix.

Melt about a tablespoon of butter in your skillet or griddle and pour the batter in, a scant 1/4 cup at a time. Cook for about 2 minutes on the first side, or until bubbles appear all over the surface, flipping them carefully and cooking for about a minute on the other side. Repeat with remaining batter.

Stack up about three of them and put a lot of maple syrup on top. Serve with bacon and watch your husband plotz.

What's better than hockey on a Sunday morning?

I'm pretty sure the answer to that is: pancakes.

My hockey game was canceled today, so Zack and I woke up and made pancakes (well, I made them and he played computer games. But he was there). They were easy, delicious and made from things I already had in my fridge. No freakin' Bisquick for me.

Ruth's Pancakes - from the Gourmet Cookbook (RIP Gourmet)

note: I halved the recipe because I didn't have enough butter. This is the original recipe.

1 cup whole milk (oh and I actually used buttermilk because I was out of milk in general - but that worked just fine)
2 large eggs
3 tbsp plus 1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
1 cup flour
4 tsp. baking powder
4 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt

Whisk together milk, eggs and t tbsp. vegetable oil in medium bowl, then whisk in butter. Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in another medium bowl. Whisk in egg mixture until just combined.

Heat a nonstick pan over moderate heat and add 1/2 tsp oil until it's not but not smoking. 1/3 cup batter = one pancake, so slap about three down and flip when bubbles appear on surface (about 2 minutes). Flip and cook for another minute, then serve with maple syrup.

We ate them before I took any pictures. But they were really good. And now I'm not as sad about hockey being canceled. Win-win.