Banana Pancakes...yum!

This weekend brought a bit of rain to San Francisco so I thought it would be really nice to make pancakes for breakfast one morning and just chill at home with Sean. The Jack Johnson song 'Banana Pancakes' inspired me to make my pancakes just a little more special for our cozy morning in.
When I was a kid my Dad would always make us pancakes using a buttermilk pancake mix. However, buttermilk pancakes aren't that healthy...add on some Aunt Jemima syrup and you have a meal that has tons of sugar and isn't very healthy. I searched online for different "healthy pancake" recipes and found a good one at All Recipes. Their whole-wheat pancake recipe uses blueberries so I just replaced that ingredient with bananas (I also replaced the artificial sweetener they use with brown sugar so that it's healthier)!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk, plus more if necessary
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  
• 1 banana, diced
  

Directions:

1. Mix the flour and baking powder in one bowl. In another bowl beat the egg, milk, salt and brown sugar together. Then, add in the flour and baking powder mixture. Stir until everything is mixed really well together. Add the diced banana and stir some more to make sure the batter is mixed.
   
2. Heat a skillet to medium heat, then coat it lightly with butter (or cooking spray) so the pancakes don't stick. Pour about 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan for each pancake (or less if you want smaller pancakes). Cook until you see little bubbles coming up on the top of the pancake (about 1 1/2 minutes), then flip the pancake and keep cooking until the pancakes are a nice golden brown.
3. Eat and enjoy!

My camera wasn't working so I didn't take a picture of our delicious pancakes but this is kind of what they looked like;
(I found this photo at AllRecipes.com)

The one thing I was worried about before making these pancakes was that I wasn't sure I would know when the pancakes had cooked thoroughly. Sean gave me some good advice and told me to keep an eye on the color of the pancakes, as well as the edges of the pancakes. He said as long as the pancakes are a nice golden color and the edges aren't gooey they have cooked all the way through. I had such a great time making pancakes, and an even better time eating them! I think that breakfast is by far my favorite meal to cook for (so far)!

Popcorn!

Since the boyfriend and I moved in together we've begun a semi-regular routine of watching a movie every night to unwind from our day at work. Sean (the boyfriend) is a man of the silver screen and has taught me tons about films and the movie industry. Most nights we end up drinking wine and snacking while watching our flick of choice. These snacks usually consist of ice cream, cheese and crackers, or popcorn. For my first recipe for this blog I thought that I should try to spice up one of these favorite snacks! Searching other food blogs uncovered a plethora of interesting munchies that I'm yearning to try. However, one original corn snack just popped out at me (no pun intended)! Spicy Cinnamon-Sugar Popcorn...sounds exciting, right? That's what I thought. I was a bit scared starting out. The ingredients call for hot chile oil, sugar, cinnamon and salt! I know Sean loved the idea of spicy popcorn, but spicy AND sweet? I was scared.

This recipe was created by Aida Mollenkamp and Regan Burns...I found it over at Chow.

This is what it is supposed to look like....











Here are the ingredients:
4 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup popcorn kernels
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon hot chile oil (they recommend KA-ME)

Instructions:
1. In a small bowl, stir together the sugar, salt and ground cinnamon.
2. Start popping! You're supposed to use an air-popper, but I'm a poor college student...so I popped the popcorn kernels the old-fashioned way in a pot on my stove.
3. As the popcorn is popping mix together the chile oil and melted butter in a small bowl.
4. Once the popcorn has fully popped drizzle the oil mixture over your popcorn and alternate doing so with sprinkling cinnamon on top.
5. Toss the popcorn around until everything is evenly distributed.
6. Toss in a bowl and ENJOY!

This is how mine turned out...Our popcorn was really quite tasty! I recommend it to anyone who is getting bored with the standard movie-style popcorn and wants to kick it up a notch. Sean said he would have preferred a little more hot chile oil, while I would have liked it to have been a tad sweeter. In this case I suggest putting the popcorn in two bowls so you can each have your say in how sweet or spicy the popcorn is. I loved this recipe and I hope you enjoy trying it at home!

I'm Learning

I'm really excited about this blog and all of the great things that will hopefully come of it. I recently moved in with my boyfriend of three years and everything is going great...except that I'm feeling slightly less feminine. You see, my boyfriend can cook...he can cook really well. I, on the other hand, have yet to successfully prepare rice. And so, my goal is to learn how to cook. I have some great friends that will be helping me out, and my boyfriend is excited about getting a break from being a slave to the stove. My goal is that within a couple of months I will be a cooking machine! I want to be able to whip up something much more delicious than PB&J. So, I hope you enjoy joining me on my cooking journey. I can guarantee that there will be some really funny stories and some tasty recipes. (As you can see in the photo below I am a pro at S'mores...at least I'm off to a start!)

Blogs I'm Stalking

Since this is my first blog ever it's probably a good idea that I look at other blogs frequently to get an idea of what this is all about. While searching the net I found a couple of sites that I loved right away. Since my blog is going to be focused on food and eating I found some nice blogs with similar subjects.
The first food blog that I stumbled upon was Clotilde Dusoulier's Chocolate & Zucchini . It's a great blog written by this really cute French girl. I like it because she writes about great things she's cooking as well as fun experiences she has. The format of the blog is pretty simple but she spices it up with beautiful photos of the meals she creates. This blog also inspires me because she posts new ideas and recipes she has, which resulted in her blog getting made into a book! How cool is that?
The next blog I've been getting a lot of ideas from is Chow, which seems like a super-blog. They have everything from blogs to videos about cooking. They even have a section for cooking gear! I like this site because unlike most cooking blogs they feature both food recipes AND drink recipes! The layout seems pretty complicated...they must have a team of tech-savvy people working for them. I like the bright colors and it is easy to navigate. They also have some really clever writers.
Another blog I'm reading is delicious:days. It's a food blog from a couple that lives in Munich. What I like most about their blog is that they have absolutely beautiful photos of the food they make! I don't know what kind of camera they're using but the pictures look as though they came straight from a food magazine! I also really like their layout. They make it super easy to navigate around the blog and find different recipes they've posted.
Overall I've noticed that each of these blogs make you feel like you've been invited into a really warm kitchen. I like that people are sharing their ideas for food and connecting over recipes. I'm looking forward to learning how to cook so that I can try some of their dishes!