Real American Pancakes/Waffles

Brief background:

Here's to making meals from the scratch with healthy and fresh ingredients. If you have the luxury of time and you are really into knowing what's inside your meals, you may consider making your pancakes yourself rather than buy those store pancake mixes that you cannot tell what has gone into it. Trust me these pancakes look and taste even better than Aunt Jemima's.

Friends, you must invest in measuring cups for this recipe, no guessing here please, so go out and purchase one because everything needs to be very accurate for the pancakes to turn out fluffy. Another key thing is that you need to have a light pastry hand as over-mixing will toughen your pancakes (something about the flour turning to gluten due to over handling!) This recipe makes 2 dozen pancakes.

Ingredients:

4 large eggs

1/2 cup oil and butter (half and half)

4 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoon salt

2 3/4 cups milk

2 3/4 cups self-raising flour

8 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon Lemon/orange rind (optional)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence (optional)

(All measurements are levelled, not pressed)

Preparation:

1. In a medium size round, wide but shallow bowl, measure out your dry ingredients - flour+baking powder+salt+sugar. If using Macdougall's non-sift self-raising flour there is no need to sift but if you cannot get self-raising, just double the baking powder measurement. Mix properly with spatula/wooden spoon to distribute evenly. Set aside.


2. Separate your egg whites from the yolks into two smaller equal sized round bowls; Get help with whisking the egg whites to peaked stiffness, usually takes like 10-15 mins (my 9 year old daughter helps here). Now, you would notice that the egg whites stiffen very fast on the top but have liquid underneath, so what you do is scoop out (into clean bowl) stiff whites from the top as you whisk till you get to the last bits. This technique makes sure that you get all egg whites stiff. So when the whites form firm peaks when you scoop up with whisk you know its ready. Set aside.


3. Now, in your yolk bowl, add milk and the cooled melted 1/2 cup of half butter and half oil (melted butter and oil must measure up to 1/2 cups, for more buttery flavour, use more butter than oil). Add vanilla and rind here if preferred. Stir to mix well.


4. In your flour mixture, pour in the egg yolk mixture and scrape in the egg whites (with spatula) and while using the spatula, scrape downwards towards base of bowl, turn clockwise and lift mixture to the centre gently, moving from one angle till you complete 360 degrees round the bowl from where you started. The idea is not to over mix as you do not need a very smooth mixture, infact mixture should still be quite lumpy!


5. Put mixture into freezer till you are ready to fry.


6. Prove your frying pan by melting a little butter and oil into the pan at medium heat till melted and slightly hot. Pour off oil into a mug for use while frying pancakes later.


7. Reduce heat completely to low and if pan is very hot remove from heat to cool a bit.


8. With a large cooking spoon or ladle, scoop out pancake mixture into frying pan and return to heat. Return mixture to freezer.


9. Fry on the one side till large bubbles appear, then flip over with slotted frying spoon. when it cooks underneath, you turn over into a covered serving dish.


10. Repeat 9 till all the mixture is finished.

Please note that the pancake mixture should never be left outside of the fridge when not in use, once you scoop out for frying return mixture to the freezer. This means that you will be making several trips to the freezer while frying, but not to worry, its worth the effort as the cold environment keeps the mixture in top condition and does not allow the flour to break down further. It is also important not to stir the mixture at all again after the initial 360 degrees stir. All you need to do to scoop in sections until you finish frying the pancakes.

Serve warm with pancake syrup; chocolate spread with a topping of vanilla ice cream; whipped cream; plain yoghurt topped with brown sugar; plain honey.

I am sure that you will enjoy this!

Corporate Jungle Rules of Engagement (2)....by Jenny Eason

I have been searching the web for a part (1) or (3) of this very interesting and hilarious point of view from a certain Jenny Eason. All I could come up with is that she must have been working with a company called Penspen and she evolved this fantastic must-read for all in the corporate world to read, imbibe and refer to as a corporate bible!

CORPORATE LESSONS

So, we will be going through change
Here’s three lessons from large corporations to help you survive change….

CORPORATE LESSON 1
A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day.
A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?”
The crow answered: "Sure, why not.”
So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested.
All of a sudden, a fox appeared,
Jumped on the rabbit... and ate it.


Moral of the story is….

To be sitting and doing nothing
you must be sitting very, very high up.

CORPORATE LESSON 2
A turkey was chatting with a bull.
"I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy.”
"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients."
The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree.
The next day, after eating more dung, he reached the second branch.
Finally after a fortnight, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree
Soon he was spotted by a farmer
Who promptly shot the turkey out of the tree.

Moral of the story:

Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there

CORPORATE LESSON3
A little bird was flying south for the winter.
It was so cold, the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field.
While it was lying there, a cow came by
and dropped some dung on it.
As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realise how warm it was. The dung was actually thawing him out!
He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.
A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.
Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him!

Morals of this story are:

1) Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy.
2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
3) And when you're in deep shit,keep your mouth shut!

Beans Porridge - Stew Style

Beans Porridge Stew Style

If for any reason, you want to do without Palm Oil in your Beans, or you do not have access to reasonble quantity when you are abroad. Then you must try this my version of Beans because it lends itself effortlessly to rice dishes, bread, yam and pasta unlike the acquired taste of the palm oil based variety. Enjoy!

Ingredients

3 cups Beans (Black eye, brown)
3 cooking spooonfuls Vegetable Oil
11/2 vey large sized Onions
1-2 small sized red hot peppers
2 tablespoonful crayfish, ground
Beef or chicken stock
Seasonong cube

Preparation

De-hull, clean and wash beans (for Black eye variety, you may want to presoak over night in equal amount of water to cut cooking time). Shred and chop onions up finely, set aside. Grind peppers, set aside.

Cooking method

Boil beans in water at slightly higher level than the beans. Place 1/4 of the onions and cover (do not add salt at this stage)

Check intermitently for liquid levels and top up as needed. Now you need to keep repeating this process as the beans cooks to a very dark chocolate colour, never stirring so beans will reatin its individual shape, not mashed up.

Once the clour has changed considerably (If not certain repeat the top up at least once) and the liquid levels is at near bottom of the pot, set aside.

In a pan, fry up the rest of the onions in the oil. Add salt whil stirring occassionally, the trick here is to fry until the onions really caramelizes, but careful do not over burn! (the slightly burnt taste adds a smoky flavour to the beans!)

Add your crayfish and peppers, fry slightly. Add stock, simmer for a while before turning into the beans.

Add seasoning cube and salt to taste.

Cover simmer and set down when most of the liquid has dried up.

Ready to eat!

Yam Porridge Stew Style

This is one dish that each time I make, always elicits good reviews, here goes;
Ingredients
1/2 Medium size Yam
3 large sized tomatoes
1 large onion
3 small red hot peppers
1 tablespoon ground crayfish
1 small bunch green leafy vegetables (spinach, 'green', or melon)
Prawns/Shrimps/shredded beef or chicken/smoked or dried fish
4 cooking spoons Stock (optional)
Cooking Oil
Seasoning cube

Preparation
Slice in circles, peel, cube and wash yams (little more than sugar cube size). Boil in salted water till almost done. Drain and reserve in pot.

Wash and puree tomatoes and peppers. Peel and finely shred whole onion, set all aside.

In a large pot, place enough cooking oil (say 5/6 cooking spoonfulls) and heat, adding some pinches of salt for taste. Sweat the onion in the oil till translucent and add the pureed tomatoes and pepper.

Cook until all the liquid has evaporated from the tomato mixture, do not burn while stirring intermitently. Add your yams and stir henceforth with WOODEN spoon. Let yams fry a bit in the tomato mixture.

Add your stock depending on what meat you chose (beef stock for shredded beef etc), then your seasoning cube and preferred meat (If using seafood, from this step onwards up the tempo as seafood cooks real quick!). Stir real quick before adding your washed, shredded veggies.

Top with crayfish, sprinkle all over - do not stir!

Cover and cook over low heat for 5 mins or till veggies are tender but still green. Stir, and set pot aside from heat.

Serve.