Cheat Night

I mean, what the hell good is it to be all up into the whole eating healthy and exercising regularly if you can't just give yourself a treat from time to time.

In the last two months of endless yogurt and fresh fruit, sensible salads, home made bread (over two months here and I have yet to have store boughten bread in the house) with an occasional cookie or single scoop of ice cream, I decided tonight that I wanted to cheat.

That doesn't mean I'm going to go all nuts, but it is certainly a night to lift the low fat, low cal, stuff.

So, what you might think would I cheat with? Easy. Buttermilk Pancakes.

People ask me all the time for cooking tips in general, but sometimes, they get specific. "How do I get light, fluffy pancakes?"

My answer is always simple.

Don't. Fuck. With. Them. The biggest mistake I see people make with something as simple as a pancake is that they fuck with them. They start stirring in all kinds of different ingredients and flavors, and then on top of that, they over stir.

INGREDIENTS

2 CUPS ALL PURPOSE FLOUR
2 TEASPOONS BAKING POWDER
1 TEASPOON BAKING SODA
1/2 TEASPOON SALT
3 TABLESPOONS SUGAR
3 CUPS BUTTERMILK
2 TWO EGGS (FORK BEATEN)
1 TEASPOON VANILLA EXTRACT
3 + 1 TABLESPOONS MELTED UNSALTED BUTTER

First thing to do is your mise on place. That's French for "get your shit together." Start your griddle, set at 375.  Get your the first five ingredients into a mixing bowl, mix them well. Since we won't be stirring much when we put in the liquid, mix them evenly now.
Add the liquid ingredients now. (3 tbsp into the batter, reserve one with a pastry brush for the griddle)

 Mix until all ingredients are moistened and combined. Lumps are OK, lumps are way better than over mixing.

Use a ladle or any other kind of utensil to pour the batter onto the preheated, buttered griddle.

That's a split Andoullie sausage, because hey, cheat. Now is another time to remember my earlier advice of Don't. Fuck. With. Them. What you are looking for is a drying along the edges, bubbles that burst and do not immediately close all the way across the surface of the cake, and a lessening of steam. Don't lift them up to check and see the golden brown meets your high standards, flipping them and handling them will increase the chances of a fallen cake. That's ugly. Don't fucking do it. If you can't tell if a pancake is done by not touching it and just looking at it, you need to make a lot more pancakes until you get this part learned. You want a deep golden brown. Flip with a nice turn of your wrist and finish the cook.

For toppings you can use what ever you like. I am using maple syrup and some butter. That's the real thing, if you want maple flavor, get the syrup that was once inside a tree. I have no objections to any kind of fruit, whipped cream, or flavors of syrup. I have no objections to people who wrap up a sausage link into a little piggy in a blanket. I'm too busy dealing with my own pancakes to go all purity cop on somebody else's.

For now, football's on. I'll watch the game for a while and eat this delicious, easy meal.