Apple Butter Thick German Pancake

When a Thin German Pancake just won't cut it, it is time to break out the thick german pancake.

The original recipe called for apples browned in butter and brown sugar.  I often make them with peaches. We don't have any apples at the moment, but do have the memories of applies ensconced as apple butter. So, with a healthy dose of "What could happen?" opened the apple butter and this is what happened ....

Thin German Pancake

I make two different dishes that are each called a German Pancake, but are quite different. One is a thick cake, baked with fruit in the bottom and flipped when served. That is not what I am talking about today. Today I am talking about the thin cake that I used to love to get at Elmer's before a good friend gave me a lovely kit with the ingredients and a recipe so I could make one myself.

These are similar to the ones I blogged about in muffin tins last year.

The 30-minute scrambled egg

In my reading through Cooking for Geeks, I have been inspired to do a lot of experimenting with eggs.

One technique that sounded interesting was for a 30-minute scrambled egg that ends up with the consistency of cream cheese. It took a couple tries to get it since care needs to be taken to keep the pan from going over 160 degrees (when the yolks start to form curds) but if you are much below that temperature it takes forever. So I ended up trying a couple different double boiler systems. Using a regular double boiler was easiest, but trying to clean it after was quite a chore. I like the setup best (pictured) with a small pan in a pan of water with an upside-down plate between.

Next time: In the end, I'm not sure it is worth the work, but I'll keep thinking about where I would use this as an ingredient in something else. Anything I make with cream cheese will be a tempting target.

Pork back ribs

We had some pork back ribs so I thought I would try a recipe by Alton Brown.

Squash Crab Risotto

I have been swimming in squash, with more showing up each week. So my mission is to find lots of fantastic ways to eat squash. This one is a variation on a favorite of mine.

Strawberry Smoothie

 I have been making a lot of smoothies lately. They seem to make a nice afternoon pick-me-up. It all started when we were getting an every-other-weekly box of fruit from Organics to You in the late summer and through the fall. We have since stopped the delivery just because I don't like to feel forced to eat so much fruit just because it keeps showing up. Anyway, we kept the smoothie habit.

Recently I made a strawberry smoothie.

Paleo Lasagna Experiment

I was wanting lasagna the other day, but didn't feel like messing with the noodles (and didn't really want the carbs). So I decided to try an experiment and slice some sausages lengthwise and treat them like the layers of noodles and to the rest like a traditional lasagna. It turned out tasty, if unphotogenic. 

Pipkin Cooking over the fire

I had a lot of fun at a cooking-over-the-fire day at a friends place. Should have taken more pix, but was too busy playing with dogs, fire, and food.

Anyway, there is a full report at her blog:
http://briwaf.blogspot.com/2013/01/fire-cooking-day-report.html

Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie from Scratch

Well, not really pumpkin. In this case I made a butternut squash pie -- it just doesn't sound right. I wanted to make it gluten free (and I didn't feel like making my usual crust which is a lot more work). I also needed to make a substitution: I had no evaporated milk in the house.