Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Cinnamon Butter

I really really need a new camera. My little point and shoot is just not doing it anymore. The flash is not working correctly anymore and I need better pictures of my food. Sorry for the crappy shots today.

These pancakes were more like dessert than breakfast. They were SO GOOD. Next time I will use less chocolate chips though. Still insanely good.

I topped them with Cinnamon Butter (recipe below) and Maple Syrup.
Enjoy!


Chocolate Chip Pancakes
Adapted recipe & photos by Kelly @ somethingdifferentfordinner.blogspot.com
Original recipe by Paula Deen on Food Network

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 large eggs, separated
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted plus 4 tablespoons, divided
• 1/2 cup miniature semi-sweet chocolate morsels
• Maple syrup, for serving

 

Directions:

Preheat griddle on medium low heat.


In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

wet ingredients, mixed

In a small bowl, combine milk, egg yolks, and 3 tablespoons melted butter; add to flour mixture, whisking until smooth.


In a small bowl, beat egg whites at medium-high speed with an electric mixer until stiff.




Egg whites, nice and stiff, and the pancake mix


Gently fold into batter. Gently fold in chocolate morsels.


Melt 2 tablespoons butter on hot griddle. Ladle about 1/4-cup batter for each pancake onto hot griddle.

Cook pancakes for 2 to 3 minutes, or until tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked.

Turn and cook the other side. Repeat procedure with remaining 2 tablespoons butter and remaining batter.

Cinnamon Butter:

1/2 stick of sweet cream butter, softened
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon sugar

With an electric mixer, cream these ingredient together on medium speed, until well mixed.

That's it. This butter is also really good to keep on hand in the refrigerator for toast, on top of oatmeal, etc. whatever you what.  Thanks for checking in! Have a good Monday.

Pizza Ala' Lori

The kids wanted pizza. As usual. So, I decided to try my hand at it. My good friend Lori, of No More Sweat Pants, had a great pizza dough recipe, on her blog here, and below.  Super good, the girls loved it and really easy. Thanks Lori.

I topped my pizza with:

1 twelve oz. jar of store bough pizza sauce

1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

1/2 Colby jack cheese

from my spice rack: Pizza Seasoning

Original recipe, my good friend Lori, No More Sweat Pants

Adapted recipe & photos by Something Different For Dinner.



No-Rise, No-Yeast Pizza Dough Recipe

 

2 Cups Flour (I use a mixture of white and wheat flour)

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

2/3 cups Water (I had to use a little bit more.)

Mix flour, salt, baking powder.  

Add 2/3 cups of water.  If needed add 1 TBS more at a time until the dough is mixed.

Knead on floured surface until spreadable and workable; about 2 minutes.

Place on greased pizza pan or large cookie sheet.

Spread oil on crust (I use olive oil) put whatever sauce, cheese, and toppings you want.

Bake at 425°F for about 20 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Biscuits and Fruit Salad

Biscuit Sandwichs:

chopped cooked bacon

sliced colby jack cheese

1 fried egg or scrambled, seasoned with thyme, salt & pepper

on a biscuit, pretty easy and self explanitory

Fruit Salad:

sliced banana

blueberries

raspberries

green grapes

sliced strawberries

slices of Cuties California Mandarins

Peanut Butter Cookies

Didn't take pictures of dinner, it was late when we got to it.

We had slow cooked pork shoulder roast (I used a crockpot on low for about a day & a half), garlic mashed potatoes, and gravy I made from the pork roast juices. Very good comfort food. :-)

But, I did make cookies during the day. Peanut Butter Cookies. They are my favorite & super easy with my shortcut cookbook. Thanks Pat!

For this recipe my shortcut was cake mix. I bought a yellow cake mix from the natural food store to use for this recipe. Tried to make it as healthy as cookies could possibly be. Turned out pretty good for a health food store mix. I had never used one before. Can't complain.

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter
2 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 package yellow cake mix
1/3 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease your cookie sheets.

Mix the peanut butter, eggs, milk, and half the cake mix in a large bowl until well blended.

Mix in the remaining cake mix with spoon until all the ingredients are moistened.

Place sugar in a shallow dish. I used an icecream scoop to form balls of dough.

Roll the balls of dough in the sugar until lightly covered.

Press a crisscross pattern on top of cookies with fork.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, just barely set at center.

Cool on cookie sheets for 3-4 minutes, just to let them firm up a little. 

Transfer to wire cooling rack.

Enjoy! Cheers!

Happy Friday! Thanks for stopping by *Kelly



Great Peanut Butter Cookies

Mexican Breakfast Omelette's

I have a little catching up to do. Enjoy some breakfast!!

I had some left over taco meat that I used for breakfast omelette's. They remind me of something I use to eat locally. Mine was a lot less greasy. I used Colby jack cheese, my taco meat, jarred salsa, extra onions, eggs(of course), and topped it with salsa, avocado, and sour cream. Also, a few flour tortillas on the side.

Mine was a lot smaller than the monster my husband ate.

I began by reheating my taco meat on the stove.

When it was heated, I put it in a separate bowl and set it aside.

Next, I cooked up some red onion, about 1/4 cup chopped, in some salsa.

Only until the onion was slightly tender. Taste test of cut with a fork to see when they are cooked enough for you.

When my onion was done, I put it aside and began my omelet. I used 3 eggs for this monster.

First, scramble your desired about of eggs, I add a dash of milk to help my eggs get and stay fluffy.

In a frying pan, heated on medium-low heat, I used in my eggs. I leave them be and let cook until you can see that the bottom is fully cooked.

 Omelet making is hard to judge b/c you want to be able to flip half over to fold, without ruining the shape.

Before flipping, I added about 1/4 cup of my meat/onion mixture.

I also used up some left over breakfast potatoes from the morning before. Approx. 1/4 cup total for this omelet.

Some chopped tomato, and some shredded cheese. Then flipped the bad boy in half.

Let the omelet brown on both sides before removing it from pan.

After it was completely cooked, I plated it. Topped it with a little bit more cheese, large dollop of medium salsa, some sliced avocado, and a dollop of sour cream.

On the side of you want, use a few flour tortillas.

(I have tried my hand at homemade tortilla making. I have to admit it did not go well. So, when I need them, I BUY them from our local Mexican restaurant. Yeah I cheat so what. What??)



Cheers*

 Have a great Thursday! Happy Eating! -Kelly



Mexican Omelet

Aloha from Hawai'i

As you can tell by my lack of blogging, I've be gone for awhile.

Lucky me, I just got back from the island of Oahu, in Hawaii. www.gohawaii.com/oahu

We, my mother in law, and myself were there for four days, three nights, and had a nice relaxing time. We ate well too. For some reason my camera decided to only work about 1/2 the time. So I didn't take pictures of my food but, here are some of the places we went.

We stayed at the Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort & Spa. Very very nice. http://www.marriottwaikiki.com/

Hale'iwa, on the North Shore of Oahu, an historic surfing town. It was a great place to get away from the hussle of all the tourist in Waikiki.

www.gonorthshore.org/

A local woman on our airplane told us we HAD to go to Lanikai Beach, also on Oahu. It was absolutely beautiful!! As you can see from the picture below, the water is amazing.

Cheeseburger in Paradise, a Jimmy Buffet owned chain, was close to our hotel, and was convenient after a long day.

My mother in law and I had the Kobe Burger, it was tasty, although we both ordered them medium and they came well done. I felt bad for our waiter, I could tell he was having a bad night, and I've been there done that so I didn't complain. This place was a good tourist-y thing to do.

http://www.cheeseburgerinparadise.com/



We also found Hanks Haute Dogs, in Waikiki's International Marketplace.

They were featured on the Food Network's Drive In's, Diners, & Dives.

Their haute dogs are all beef Kosher dogs, yum!!

I had the chili dog, no onions, and some freshly cut french fries.

Pat had the Hank's Dog.

http://www.hankshautedogs.com/

While we were driving around the island we stopped at a food truck, Tony's Kahuku Shrimp. There are a lot of them that serve shrimp b/c there are a lot of shrimp & prawn farms on the East side of the island. We had the Garlic Shrimp, a sweet & spicy chili garlic sauce, served with white rice and salad. VERY VERY good!!!



another view of Waikiki Beach



Waikiki Beach, Hawaii



I had to stop in here for a quick Margarita while in Hale'iwa, on Oahu's North Shore.

 

On the second night we were there, we went to Germaine's Luau. It was so much fun. The food, the culture, the location, all wonderfully beautiful.

 We had Kalua Pork, and a giant buffet of other Hawaiian & International Food. It was a great experience and I highly recommend Germaine's. Plus the fact that it is the last family run luau in Hawaii!! Good reason to check it out.

http://www.germainesluau.com/



the women's dancing was AMAZING





the staff pulling the pig from the ground