Keep the Leftover Pancakes!

Do you ever make pancakes and find that you have a few leftover? Toss them in the freezer for this sweet breakfast treat!

Overnight Blueberry French Toast
4 cups blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cornstarch
Leftover pancakes (torn into pieces)
6 eggs
3/4 cup milk
generous 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla

In the morning:
2 TSP butter, melted
Maple syrup

Mix blueberries, sugar, cinnamon and cornstarch. Grease 10 X 15 (or 9 X 13) pan and pour blueberry mixture into pan. Place pieces of pancakes over blueberries. In bowl, mix eggs, milk, baking powder and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Pour over pancakes. Press pancakes down to soak them and place pan in fridge. In the morning, preheat oven to 425. Press pancakes a bit to make sure all are coated with egg mixture. Brush with melted butter. Bake for 30 minutes. Serve with maple syrup.

Chicken Twice Over

reThis week I made Chicken Burgers with pesto mayo and then chopped up the leftover burgers, mixed in the leftover pesto mayo, added a little more mayo, and made chicken salad sandwiches for Fiber Fest today. Loved it!

Pesto
1/4 cup olive oil
2 TBSP chicken broth
1 cup packed fresh basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts
1/4 cup cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1 1/2 TBSP Romano cheese

Place in blender in order listed. Blend until smooth. Add more oil if needed. (You'll only need 2 TBSP for the pesto mayo and you can freeze the rest in ice cube trays to use later!)

Chicken Burgers
1 1/2 pounds ground chicken (if you can't find it at the store, just grind up chicken breasts in a food processor)
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp ground pepper

Mix ground chicken, cheese and pepper. Form into 6 patties and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm them up. Grill burgers for 5 minutes on each side, or until cooked through.

Pesto Mayo
1/2 cup mayo
2 TBSP pesto

Mix mayo and pesto. Put on cooked burgers. Yum!

Catching Nature

My nieces have been here all week. My Mom and I met Rodney in Missouri and brought the girls back with us. The week has flown by and we've enjoyed spending quite a bit of time outside in this fantastic Michigan summer.

Ember and I like to sit on the dock and try to catch minnows. We're not usually too successful.


Cheyanne and Ember also like to look for frogs, toads and salamanders and keep them for pets until bedtime. The found 5 salamanders, 3 frogs and some toads one day.



Yesterday we jumped the waves at Silver Beach in St. Joseph, MI. It is a big beach with soft sand way out into Lake Michigan. The waves were just the right size for us yesterday. I didn't get any pics, but we have some great memories.

Nostalgia

One of the great things about moving is finding little bits of nostalgia.

My Little Dumplings

After having Chinese Dim Sum dumplings in Chicago's China town in January, I have been searching everywhere for them. Wei Wei Seafood Palace in Grand Rapids is the only place I've found that comes close and they only have seafood options. I decided to try and make them myself. I'd read that they are very difficult to make, but I figured I could handle it. Wrong! The dough is made with wheat starch and potato starch and is very sticky. When I added more dry ingredients it just dried the dough out and overall it was a very tedious process of rolling out the finicky dough and stuffing the dumplings with chopped up shrimp, pork and veggies. As I was working, I said I would never make them again. But, when I ate them, they tasted just like I remembered. I think I'll play around with different dough recipes.

After forming the dumplings, I put them in a vegetable steamer lined with cabbage, since I didn't have a bamboo steamer.


I've found a great book called A World of Dumplings and I hope to try out some of their recipes.

Purple Beans??

I've grown green beans before and I don't remember the flowers being purple. They are quite pretty, but I hope the beans aren't purple.



I've never grown cabbage. I hope they are doing okay. They are just really leafy right now and I hope they develop nice cabbage heads and that I'll know when to harvest them.



While Carmina and the girls were here, we picked cherries. Yum, yum! I don't think we were supposed to CLIMB the trees, but I'll bet Carmina found some good ones up there.



We had to pick carefully because many of the cherries were moldy because of heavy rains we had the week before. A day later I went to a different farm with beautiful cherries. Not a moldy one in sight. I guess I know where we'll go next year.

Old Fashioned Things

You know how expensive those photo booths are these days? Well, we found one for $1 at The Children's Museum in Chicago. My Mom came up with the dollar and my nieces and I goofed around for the photos. Fun!