PLACE

The Best-Ever Pancake Recipe: Lofty Buttermilk Pancakes | The Kitchn

Lofty Buttermilk Pancakes

Makes 18 to 20 3-inch pancakes. Serves 4 to 6

2 1/2 cups flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 large eggs, separated

2 cups buttermilk

1/2 cup milk

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Canola or peanut oil for frying

Heat the oven to 225°F and prepare a large baking sheet by setting a cooling rack inside. Place both in the oven.

Whisk the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in a large bowl. In a separate smaller bowl, whisk the egg yolks, buttermilk, and milk. Add the melted, cooled butter and whisk until well combined.

Pour the yolk and milk mixture into the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until barely combined. Add the egg whites and stir just until a thick batter is formed. Set aside for 5 minutes.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, film with 1/2 teaspoon of neutral oil such as canola or peanut oil. After about 30 seconds, when the oil shimmers but is not smoking, lower the heat to medium-low and use a soup spoon to drop in heaping spoonfuls of pancake batter.

The batter will spread into a pancake about 3 inches wide. Cook for about 2 1/2 minutes. (If the pancake scorches or the oil smokes, lower the heat.) When the bubbles that form on the edges of the pancakes look dry and airy, use a thin spatula to gently lift one side and peek underneath. If the pancake is golden brown, flip and cook on the other side for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes, or until the bottom of the pancake is golden brown.

Remove from the skillet to the baking sheet in the oven. Scrape any stray crumbs or scraps out of the skillet, add a little more oil, and continue to cook the remaining batter.

Serve as soon as possible, with butter and warm maple syrup.

Recipe Note:

If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can use plain yogurt instead. Just use about 2/3 cup and thin it with some milk until it reaches the 1 cup mark. You can also quickly make a buttermilk substitute by mixing 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or white vinegar with 2 cups of milk.

via The Best-Ever Pancake Recipe: Lofty Buttermilk Pancakes | The Kitchn .

No Young Person Should Feel Unloved or Unwanted Because the World Needs You

Words for Teenagers

I found this on Facebook and I love it! This is what I wish I could say to every young person from the age of about 10 up to the age where they understand and believe these words are about themselves. People may be 90 and still need to hear and understand these words. Teenagers may be those this was directed to because they are at a time of life where they don’t have a set purpose yet like children to look after, a house to pay for, or a job to show up for everyday. These are the burdens, challenges which scare us and yet give us a purpose and direction – something we have to do each day.

Young people can be in a middle ground which can be an oasis or no man’s land. (Look up no man’s land if you haven’t heard that phrase before). Just because you don’t have a purpose yet does not mean you are not needed and can not find yourself a unique purpose and direction each day. Choose something and do it. Choose something wisely, something which will make your world a better place, something which will make you happy and feel accomplished. Little things mean a lot so you don’t have to reach far to find something valuable to do.

The world loves you, especially you, our teenagers who have so much to give, so much life and so much greatness yet to come.

This post dedicated to Zack (my favourite teenager of them all).

Canadian Patriotic Butter Tarts

Found this recipe online but the link was broken to the source site. Tracked it down with the Wayback Machine. Patriotic-Pies

These picnic-ready, personalized pies are a fun food take-away for your guests (now say that 10 times quickly).

You’ll Need

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1/4¼ cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup raisins or pecans

1 pie crust, rolled to ½” thickness

8 – 125ml jam jars, washed and buttered

Prep and Cook

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Combine the butter and sugar and place in a medium saucepan set over medium heat. Add the vanilla and raisins or pecans, and cook until the butter has melted. (This is the filling.)

Beat the eggs and whisk into the sugar mixture, cooking over medium heat for 5-6 minutes or until the mixtures thickens and can coat the back of a spoon. Be very careful not to overcook the filling.

Roll out the piecrust and cut circles of dough with the mouth of the jam jar—2 per jar. Press one into the bottom of the buttered jar, top with filling and cover with the second piece of dough.

Cut a steam vent (small slit) into the top piece of dough, and place all of the pies on a large baking sheet.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before placing the lid on the jar.

Decorate with the O Canada Patriotic Pie label and baker’s twine or ribbon.

via Patriotic Pies – SavvyMom.ca .

Keep Your Poinsettia After Christmas

poinsettias It is possible to keep your poinsettia alive into the Spring season when it can flower again for Christmas holidays the next year.

Of course, flower is the wrong word when dealing with poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima, from the spurge plant family). They don’t have flower petals. Those red leaves are called bracts. The red leaves are just more leaves on the planet but they turn red as they grow from the top. The actual ‘flower’ is that knobby looking part in the centre of the plant. This is why poinsettias are propagated through grafting in commercial nurseries.

I’ve never tried growing one from seed either. I just do my best to keep my live plants going from year to year. I did have one which I kept for several years. It finally caught a white fungus during one of my moves from place to place. It couldn’t be saved that year.

The plant needs 12 hours of daylight followed by 12 hours of darkness in order to bloom – get the leaves to turn red. With some fussing, you can induce your poinsettia to bloom red again after the holiday season when the leaves usually begin to drop off and leave you with a pretty bare and barren looking plant.

How to Get Your Poinsettia to Grow Again

Prune the plant. Take off the red leaves, if there are any left. After the last of the frost is gone from outside, take it out for some fresh air. Don’t rush to get it out there. The poinsettia is not hardy for being out in the northern climate. They are native to Central America and Mexico.

You can leave the poinsettia outside all Summer. It will grow and look much healthier than it has since Christmas. Bring the poinsettia indoors in the Autumn. It really does not want to catch a chill outside. Bring it in before the first frost. Place the poinsettia in a room which you can give it darkness (complete and uninterrupted) after sunset. The plant needs those long, dark periods for at least two months if you want to get the red leaves developing in time for Christmas. Any light during this stage will set it back.

If you only have dim light, not full dark, try putting a cardboard box over the poinsettia for those 12 hours of full dark it needs. Another idea, put a tomato cage in the plant pot and cover it with a cloth/ fabric tablecloth to block out the light. Don’t use plastic, or anything else which will cut off the air as well as the light. Don’t forget to uncover the plant at dawn so it can also get the full 12 hours of light it needs. We tend to have longer nights than days in the Autumn so it will need all the daylight you can give it too, the balance of light and darkness.

Keep the poinsettia on the dry side when it comes to watering. Set the pot on a few pebbles, marbles, beads, something which will make sure it is getting good drainage rather than holding excess water inside the pot. I also pot them with a few rocks at the bottom of the pot if I give them a new container, other than the one they came in from the store. The poinsettia likes moist soil but it does not like to be sitting in water or have water poured over it. The best thing is to let it be just a bit dry and then give it a soak in a bucket (or some other container) of water. Then take it out to drain out any extra water before you put it back where you have it growing.

Poinsettia Growing Links

Prompt for December 6 | Project Reverb

Blowing Out the Candles: You’re another year older!  How did you celebrate the passage of another year?  Did it turn out the way you had hoped?

via Prompt for December 6 | Project Reverb .

As it happens, I’m not another year older yet. I’m not rushing to be 49 a day before I officially get there.

I’ve got a bottle of caramel whiskey which I found during a trip to Sudbury earlier this year. (My nephew, Zack, is attending university and living up there now). I’m going to enjoy a couple of shots of that and have a day of doing whatever comes along.

As it turns out, my birthday is also the day a friend of Zack’s is arriving here from the US. So I will have company at some point.

If things were different…. I would have loved to take off on the VIA Rail train for at least a month. It would be lovely to travel again. I’d even stay at a couple of hotels rather than skimping on pennies and staying at hostels all the way. There is something nice about waking up alone in a hotel on nice, crisp sheets. The day feels so fresh and untouched when you are in a different place, physically and mentally.

You Thought it was Just Baby Shaking…

I read this whole thing in email. I don’t know how or why it was sent to me. I don’t have children. But, as I was reading it I had the thought… why don’t car manufacturers just have a setting which keeps the car from overheating inside? They have many other safety features for children/ parents. It would also save all those pets left in cars.

There are all sorts of stories that are almost identical to Brenda’s, all over the world. They are all incidents in which tired, busy or overwhelmed parents simply forgot to take their kid to a babysitter, or into the house after being out, and they were left to die in hot cars.

Each year in the US, about 37 babies and toddlers die when they are accidentally left strapped in car safety seats or become trapped in vehicles that rapidly heat up.
Since 1998, there have been at least 570 documented cases of heatstroke deaths of children in vehicles.

It has become my mission to speak the message of being a “conscious” parent. I now appear in articles, blogs and the like discussing top tips for mums to slow down and stop being “rushing women”.

Here are some of my top tips to prevent accidents like this:

Never leave a child unattended in a vehicle.
If you see a child unattended in a hot vehicle, call 000.
Be sure all occupants leave the vehicle when unloading. Don’t overlook sleeping babies.
Always lock your car and ensure children do not have access to keys or remote entry devices. If a child is missing, always check a pool first, then the car, including the trunk.
Keep a stuffed animal in the car seat and when the child is in the seat, place the stuffed animal in the front seat with the driver. Or, place your purse or briefcase in the back seat so that you will have to look in the back to retrieve it, thereby seeing your child.
Make “look before you leave” a routine whenever you get out of the car. I see some stores has a sign on its entrance that reminds shoppers to be sure that they have all their children out of the car before they go in the store.
Have a plan that your childcare provider will call you if your child does not show up to daycare