Pancakes

If its weekend, nothing makes it special the way pancakes do! If only you knew it’s nothing beyond the 3 easy steps to the heavenly pancakes-

1. Whip

2. Pour

3. Turn

Here’s a quick sure-shot recipe to ensure your pancakes soon become your Sunday morning hot-favorites!!

Ingredients

1 cup refined flour

1 large egg

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Assorted toppings such as honey, jams, preserves, sweetened whipped cream, chocolate syrup or nutella dip.

Put all the ingredients into a blender and whip.

Heat a smooth griddle or pan on the stove.

Brush the pan with oil.

Reduce the flame. Pour half a cup of batter on the pan. Cover it with a lid that allows rising space. Although covering isn’t an essential step, however, I personally recommend doing so as the pancakes turn out softer as covering helps in retaining the moisture.

When the pancake starts to bubble and develops holes on the top side, flip it to cook the other side too.  Cooking the other side won’t take more than a minute.

Serve with an assorted topping of your choice. 

Bread Swirls

Kids (and even their dads) aren't happy, no matter how huge is the range of desserts you try to present to them and they always long for more variety. At times, you are hard pressed for time and fall short of groceries enough to craft fancy desserts to lure them. For such hasty occasions, here’s a nice and easy recipe that can be a good picnic snack too.

These bread swirls and quick, easy to hold and bite, best served cold (so there are no heating and re-heating hassles!). What else you think are the rudiments for a kids snack?

All You Need:

Sliced Bread 

Bread spread of your choice for filling

(Try to choose a dark or bright colored filling to gratify the greedy eyes of the kids)

A simple process:

Cut the edges of the bread slices. Now lay a slice on the clean kitchen counter and roll it with the help of a chapatti rolling pin, exerting little extra pressure on the corners as they are harder than the center portion of the bread. Repeat with the remaining slices too.

Spread evenly the filling you prefer on the slices one at a time. You can choose anything between jam or preserve, honey, chocolate sauce or nutella, and cheese slice. Leave half a centimeter in each slice for over-lapping. Now roll the first slice tightly and place the next slice on the uncoated edge and press gently with the fingertip to join the 2 slices (with an attempt to make a longer bread slice that can be rolled further to make a thicker roll). You can also use a few drops of water to seal the edges if required. Make each roll with 3 slices swirled together. Cover the rolls with a cling film and leave for 10 minutes to ensure binding.

Now unwrap and slice the rolls. Serve them and watch the smiles!

Savory Sausage Bread

Sunday mornings are usually listless, limp and lazy. Looking for a way to add a dash of excitement to kill your last night’s debauchery and the hangover drones? Here is a nice and easy idea that would also serve to your appetite.

Savory Sausage Bread

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 45 minuts

Serves 6

Ingredients

2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped

1 lb. Italian link sausage, skin removed
1 can cooled crescent rolls
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
14 slices pepperoni egg white
½ tsp dried Italian seasoning or 2 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. In a large skillet, heat up oil over medium-high heat. Add onions, cook and stir until translucent. Add sausage, cook and stir until no longer pink, breaking up sausage into small pieces. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Shift to a plate creased with paper towels. Put to one side.

2. Roll out crescent dough onto baking sheet. Firmly push the edges and gaps to seal. Dust half the cheese in a strip 3 ½ inches wide down the center of the dough to within 1 inch to the end. Top with sausage mixture and add the remaining cheese. Top with pepperoni.

3. Fold each side of the dough to the center and nip the edges together. Brush with egg white and dust with Italian seasoning. Cook in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until the shell is deep golden brown.

How to Make French Toast

There are some things we just relished from times we can’t even recall. French toast is one such dish that we had when we were toddlers and are sure we are going to relish it till we grow old. (considering the fact that chewing French toast won’t be a problem even after our teeth shred off!) But hold back; in all these years, did you ever think how to make French toast? Probably, not, because we have our moms for most of the things we need.
French toast in fact is one recipe that you can quickly follow and learn from this blog and surprise your mom with golden slices on a plate with some culinary sauce on the side. Lets just get to some work.

Gather ingredients like-

4 Eggs
2 ½ tablespoons Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon Vanilla extract
12 slices of bread
crushed sugar (optional)


Now, follow the Instructions-

Beat the eggs in a bowl. Add salt, sugar, milk and vanilla essence to it.
The mixture will turn frothy in a while. It’s time to shift it to a shallow dish.

Heat the pan on medium flame.

Soak the bread slices in the mixture for a short time.

Grease the pan lightly with oil using an oiling brush.

Now bake slices one by one on the pan until each side turns golden brown.

Keep tossing to ensure even cooking on both sides.

Once done, remove from pan and shift to a plate you are going to use for serving.

Bake each slice of bread in the pan until it turns slightly brown on each side.

French toasts are ready to surprise your mom or mate.