Why Martha is the Queen!

Okay, no matter what anyone may say about her, you do have to admire Martha Stewart. Today was one of those days that just reaffirms to me why Martha is indeed the queen of all domesticity. Earlier this holiday weekend I made for the Husband Ina Garten's Blintz recipe from her new cookbook. Ina recommends adding a nice blueberry sauce to the blintz as a topping. I made the sauce (with fresh blueberries, orange juice and lemon) but the Husband wasn't a big fan of the pairing, thinking it too sweet with the already sweet blintz. So, I kept the blueberry sauce and figured we'd have pancakes later in the weekend. The plan was for pancakes for breakfast this morning but it wasn't until sometime early this morning (meaning around 4:30am) that it dawned on me, in a half-sleepy state that I had thrown out my Whole Foods Pancake Mix. You see, the WF buttermilk pancake mix is actually pretty good, but when I bought the mix last I bought the wrong kind and it was really awful. The ultimate cross between elmer's glue and wallpaper paste. This lead me to toss the remainder of the package and left me high and dry on the pancake mix front come this morning.

Cut to the scene in the kitchen this morning. Miss B. is happily in her high chair, the Husband is hanging out in the kitchen and I need to whip up some pancakes MacGuyver style. I figure no biggie, I've got flour, surely I can put something together. First place I look? Tyler Florence. I've got two of his cookbooks and he's got a great recipe for apple french toast made from croissants so I thought he might have a good pancake recipe. Does he? Well, it may be good but it's a buttermilk pancake recipe and I've got no buttermilk (let's not discuss this... buttermilk had been on my Thanksgiving shopping list but there was only one container of it left at Wegman's when I went shopping and it was all the way at the back of the dairy case on the top shelf and needless to say being 5 feet tall I couldn't reach it.) Tyler also has a recipe for crepes... I scan the list of ingredients... I've got everything, but then I notice that you're supposed to let the crepe batter rest for an hour before using it. The recipe actually tells you that if you don't wait the hour the crepes will be, and I quote: "rubbery". Yum. I look over at my toddler sitting in her high chair awaiting breakfast--- needless to say I don't have an hour for a crepe batter to "rest".

Next? Next I go to a cookbook aptly titled "Brunch". Surely "Brunch" will have a pancake recipe? Yup, but it calls for self-rising flour. Don't have that!

Finally, I decide to go for the big guns... I hit up the Martha Stewart "New Classics" Cookbook. It's a great blue thing that's thick enough to be a good doorstop. Pancakes? Of course! What kind would you like? Again we've got buttermilk, buckwheat.... how about "Fluffy?" Yes, I'll take Fluffy! Thankfully the fluffy pancakes require eggs, butter, all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. All things we have... it also requires powdered milk, so I faked it and went with regular milk...

The batter looked good. The pancakes came off the griddle a nice golden brown and indeed fluffy! The taste? Thumbs up from the peanut gallery and they tasted great with Ina's blueberry sauce.

Martha Stewart Saves Breakfast! Woo-hoo!

By the way, after all this cooking this weekend... we ordered a pizza for dinner. Hallelujah!