This is Nicholas. Our friends adopted him from South Korea this spring. We love this little guy. He’s always so smiley and happy.

We were lucky enough to get to celebrate Korean Liberation Day with them all when we were in Des Moines this year. Nicholas waved his flag…

and we all had some Korean pancakes (Hoddeok)

They’re described as “a fried yeast dumpling, flattened to a pancake, with sticky cinnamon sugar centre.”

And let me tell you…they’re tasty!

If you’re interested in learning more…or trying to make them for yourselves…check out this site.

http://www.lastappetite.com/korean-street-food-recipes-hoddeok/

I don’t know why I always get the incredible urge to bake when its 90 billion degrees outside…I guess thats why I have a/c. My power company must just love people like me!

Oh for Yum!

Breakfast Granola

Makes 14 servings (not sure what classifies a serving…a 14th of this i guess. )

6 cups old fashioned oatmeal, uncooked

1 cup honey

1 stick unsalted butter or margarine, melted (I believe in butter, so i used it!)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup almonds or pine nuts (slivered almonds all the way)

1/2 cup dried apricots, sliced (I don’t dig these…so i used dried cranberries)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spread oatmeal evenly in roasting pan or large jelly roll pan. In medium mixing bowl, stir together honey, butter, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and vanilla. Pour over oatmeal and stir until evenly coated (i used my hands…stir? really?) Bake until evenly browned, about 20 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes to prevent clumping. Remove from oven, stir in almonds or pine nuts and dried fruit and continue to stir every 5 minutes until cool.

Notes: Okay…I wanted my almonds toasted…so i put them in the last time I “stirred”, with 5 minutes to go. They probably could have been in a little longer. I also like my granola clumpy…so next time I think I’ll stir less. Also…you’re gonna wanna bake this on parchment paper. You don’t have to, but I’d rather just throw that away than scrub a pan.

Store tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to one month.

Now, it says “breakfast Granola”. Somehow I don’t see mine making it to the bowl in the morning…I don’t see it making it to morning at all…

Yesterday’s lunch had me a bit concerned by its green-ness…

You’ve heard of the Green Smoothie, right? You know what gives it that beautiful green color?

Yep, Spinach.

It was super tasty. I probably will add less mandarin oranges next time, just because they were a bit overpowering, but it totally wasn’t as bad as i thought it would be. And, my iron count probably thanks me for drinking it!

I even got Ellie to try it. Just took bribing her with a marshmallow to do it. Hey, I’m not above that. Used to think I was…then i had children.

Enjoy it…its good…and good for you!

Green Smoothie

1 small can mandarin oranges, chilled (with juice)

handful of fresh pineapple. (I used canned crushed pineapple, about 1/2 c.)

1 frozen banana. (Mine wasn’t frozen, but I hear you want to freeze it by breaking it into chunks and then putting it in a ziploc in the freezer).

blend until smooth…and then add spinach, and blend again until smooth. I added ice cubes…since my banana wasn’t frozen. Seemed to work out okay. You can add as much spinach as you want. i filled the blender to the top with it. Couldn’t even taste it.

Happy Blending!

I’ve been wanting to try these pancakes for awhile now. We finally got it done tonight. They are fabulous.

I thought to take a photo of them because I tried the batter to see if it was too thin, and ate the “test pancake” (really the size of a dime), and it was so good!

aren’t they pretty?

The recipe:

Oatmeal Pancakes

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. quick oats

1 T. white sugar

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

3/4 c. buttermilk

1t. vanilla

2 T. vegetable oil

1 egg

Place all ingredients into a food processor or blender and puree until smooth.

Cook on a warm, oiled griddle or frying pan until both sides are browned. Serve with butter and syrup.

The batter comes out kindof thin, but sets up really well. I didn’t have to add any more flour. And I really liked that i could just pour them from the blender to the pan.

Another thing I really liked about these pancakes…and I guess I don’t know how this compares to other pancakes…there are only 207 calories per serving (4 servings to a recipe), so I felt pretty good eating them. They also weren’t nearly as sweet as normal pancakes, which has always been my issue with them. I don’t like the sugar crash I get after eating them.

However, they weren’t nearly as sweet as the time Nathan decided to make pancakes for me and switched the amounts for flour and sugar….but I digress…

One recipe makes about 13 medium size pancakes, so if you have a hungry family, at least one that eats more than mine, you may need to make more than one batch!

Ellie loved them…asked for more even. Evan took one bite and spit it out. What does he know?