I charged up the battery on my old d-slr this week. It's been a while since I played around with it. Last winter I upgraded my lens to a pretty snazzy macro for improved food photographs. All photos today were shot on my Nikon D40 with a AF-S Micro NIKKOR 85 mm. No flash.
After a wildly successful catering event 
this week, I had a few ingredients left over. Including most of a litre of buttermilk. What do you do when life hands you buttermilk? You make buttermilk pancakes, of course.
This recipe was modified from the one found here at epicurious.com
Ingredients:
2 C washed and dried fresh blueberries
1 1/3 C all purpose flour3 Tbsp sugar2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt1 1/4 C buttermilk
2 large eggs2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melteddash of ground cinnamonreal maple syrup to serve
Prepare the blueberries and leave them out on a folde
d sheet of paper towel to dry on the counter.
Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with a couple layers of paper towel to absorb excess oil. Put it in the oven and as each batch comes out of the pan, put it on the baking sheet and leave it in the oven to stay hot. Whisk together dry ingredients in a large bowl.
In a medium sized bowl, whisk wet ingredients.
Add wet to dry. Do not over-beat. Small lumps are okay.
Heat about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a non-stick pan over medium heat.
I started with oil and then switched to butter to keep the pan greased between batches. I like my pancakes to be a bit crispy around the edges, so I like lots of hot oil or butter in the pan. The first few pancakes are always a little wobbly, but once you get your heat right and the motion down, you kind of get a rhythm going.
Fold the blueberries into the batter with a spatula. I started coking the pancakes before I thought of adding the cinnamon, but now would have been a good time to do that. 
Pour a heaping tablespoon of batter into the pan. Don't overcrowd. You need to have room to get in and flip.
You know the pancakes are reading to be flipped when little air bubbles begin appearing on the top.
A second spatula is often helpful in the flipping. Don't worry if you screw up the first few times. I've been flipping pancakes 
for years and I always start out a little rusty. To check that you've got it right, cut open a finished pancake to make sure the batter is fully cooked through.
Make sure you remove all the little mini pancake bits (bb's, my mom calls them) and loose blueberries so that they don't burn over the course of cooking.
Serve hot with as much maple syrup as you
like.
Other topping options:
sweet yogurtwhipped creamfresh fruit
jam
apple buttercreme liquer
If you're like me, and always make too 
much food, these pancakes can be covered and refrigerated. They will reheat beautifully in the toaster oven tomorrow morning. Or later tonight. More that likely, later tonight, as I don't think they are going to survive the J monster and his powerful pancake chomping action.
I have been promising J I would make him 
some more stuffed french toast for the last couple of weeks. School, work, the ever-present mountain of laundry rising up out of the hamper in the corner... somehow, getting up and making breakfast on the weekends get lost under the covers.
This time I was making good on my promise. And boy was it good...
You can use whatever fruit you like for the filling. If it slices well like bananas or pears then they can go right in, as is. For berries, they should be macerated first.
I just so happened to have some extra cream cheese frosting leftover from cupcakes I made for class earlier in the week. Thanks for the recipe, La. The cream cheese frosting was actually J's idea. And for topping I chopped up craisins and pumpkin seeds and had 2 varieties. The Joy of Cooking strikes again!
Cream Cheese Frosting: (makes 2 cups)
8 oz cold cream cheese
5 Tbsp soft, unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla
2-4 cups confectioner's sugar (I didn't use as much as Rombauer calls for because I wanted the flavour of the cream cheese to be more present. Plus I don't like having things too sweet. This is going on cupcakes and french toast after all...)
Step one: Beat together vanilla, butter, and cream cheese.
Step two: Sift in sugar in batches.
Step three: Stir, stir, stir! Or if you are lucky and have an electric mixer or food processor... well then... that's just a lot easier, isn't it?
For french toast: (this is for two, multiply as needed)
4 slices of bread (I like challah or sliced country loaves)
Arrange your bread slices like butterflies and spread 1 Tbsp of cream cheese frosting on each facing slice.
Layer banana slices so that they rest overlapping but still inside the edge of the crust.
How to macerate berries:
Rinse and dry raspberries... or blackberries, or blueberries (you get the idea.)
Place in a bowl.
Mash for 10 seconds or until the once-berries are now kind of in between recognizable fruit and jam.
Squeeze about 2 tsp of juice from a lemon. See this post for a tip on a quick, easy, clean way to juice a lemon without any fancy gadgets.
Sprinkle 1-2 Tbsp of fine or superfine sugar. Mix together and check for balance of sweetness, acidity, and berry flavour.
Let stand briefly before spreading over the 
already existing layer of cream cheese on one side of the butterflied bread.
In a medium sized flat-bottom dish, prepare a mixture of 3 eggs, salt, cinnamon, and a splash of milk and stir vigorously with a fork.
After closing each sandwich, press firmly together before placing the bread in the egg mixture.
Wait for the bread to soak up the egg before flipping and repeating the soak up time.
Prepare a large non-stick pan, melting about 1 Tbsp of butter over medium heat until sizzling.
Transfer bread from egg dish to hot pan. Fry on both sides until golden and no longer releasing egg when poked with a spatula.
J and I wanted to try 2 different kinds of filling so when it was ready to come out of the pan I quickly cut each one in half and served up combo plates. They were quickly doused in maple syrup and whipped cream and gobbled down with indulgent glee.
Now I ask you, if pizza is a vegetable, is raspberry and cream cheese filled french toast a serving of dairy and of fruit?
this week, I had a few ingredients left over. Including most of a litre of buttermilk. What do you do when life hands you buttermilk? You make buttermilk pancakes, of course.
d sheet of paper towel to dry on the counter.
for years and I always start out a little rusty. To check that you've got it right, cut open a finished pancake to make sure the batter is fully cooked through.
like.
much food, these pancakes can be covered and refrigerated. They will reheat beautifully in the toaster oven tomorrow morning. Or later tonight. More that likely, later tonight, as I don't think they are going to survive the J monster and his powerful pancake chomping action.
