my favorite things

One of my favorite things+ one of my other favorite things= one of my new favorite meals ever

Carrot cake pancakes! I saw the recipe in this months Cooking Light and knew it would be WHEN, not if, I made it! It has just been a wonderfully pancake-y week.

Prepping the batter for this bad boy gave me a chance to play with our new toy, my mama’s Christmas present to herself of a mandoline! It is SO MUCH FUN!

Check out my awesome prep station:

And the beautifully uniform shreds:

And the ensuing gorgey batter:

Mmm. I should note that this recipe, despite tasting like cake, is ludicrously healthy. It is more carrot than anything else.

 

I made the batter last night and then refrigerated it so we’d have an awesome quickly prepared post-church brunch (I always get home from church ravenously hungry because I don’t eat before I take communion).

Onto the griddle (you have to spread ‘em out a bit):

  

Flippety flip:

 

I followed the recipe for the pancakes themselves exactly (a minor miracle for me) but I decided I didn’t want the honey butter… I wanted CREAM CHEESE ICING.

I pancaked it up by making it with maple syrup! About 1.5 T light cream cheese+ 1 t. maple syrup et voila:

And my final plate of beauty… Mama, Papa, and Baby Pancake:

 

You guys. These pancakes. They taste like CAKE! And the crunch of the walnuts is fantastic. And not to toot my own horn, but the maple cream cheese topping was perfectly tangy-sweet.

And the pancakes were so light and fluffy! Check out the interior shot!

Had I mentioned I love brunch? HAD I?

Another of my favorite things: Mexican food. Can I prepare authentic Mexican food? No, I cannot. But tonight I made what I am dubbing Hot Tortilla Mess. And it was delicious.

 

So in my opinion, at the heart and soul of good Mexican flava in a lot of cases is:

 

So I rehydrated a dried poblano in some boiling water and then set to work on a sauce that ended up RAWTHER great.

I sauteed 1/2 an onion and two small cloves of garlic in 1 tsp or so oil. Then I added cumin and chili powder (say 1/2 to 1 tsp each) and some cinnamon (1/4 tsp?) and stirred it around a bit more. Then I added the chopped rehydrated poblano a splash of red wine vinegar, a small can of tomato sauce and enough water from rehydrating the chili to reach the texture I wanted.

Here it is, bubbling away chunkified:

Let ‘em all hang and then pureed it all together. It was SMASHING.

Filling I put in a bit less effort. Fridge cleaning:

Leftover cooked pork chop and old-ish salsa. Shred the pork, throw in a few globs of salsa, add a cup or so of pinto beans, bam. Filling.

     

I microwaved 6 6-inch corn tortillas to soften them (I actually did three at a time, or they cool down) and put the filling in them, then topped them with the sauce.

I’m not going to pretend the tortillas were totally agreeable. This was when the hot mess phase began.

But anyway, I threw ‘em all in the pan and sprinkled them with an ounce or so of cheddar (any cheese would be good, I’m sure) and into the oven they went to get sexy and melty. Et voila:

Okay so a bit ghetto looking. Tortillas came loose, filling spilled out:

 

But SO GOOD. Especially when topped with Gringa Guacamole:

1/2 an avocado+ garlic salt+ red pepper flakes + glob of salsa + lotsa fresh lemon juice= yummy complement to Hot Tortilla Mess.

More mandoline fun:

Leftover carrot shreds and cabbage tossed with the orange juice vinaigrette we’ve had forever that I pepped up with some pineapple juice.

A final shot of dinner by the oven from whence it came:

Guys, I am in LOVE with this Kitchenaid countertop oven! It is SO GREAT! It did a great job with these, and in addition I have used it for baked goods (perfect muffins!), broiling, toasting, keeping things warm, etc., etc. It has all the pep and uses a FRACTION of the energy of a big oven! Loves it! Linda, THANK YOU AGAIN!