What happens when…?

March 6, 2014 Stacey Sansom Cooking, Kyle, Lance, The Children 0
What happens when you teach a nine year old to cook something? 
Answer: They want to cook that thing often. 
The better question is what happens when you teach a nine year old how to cook something and you announce that you are having that particular item for dinner? 
Answer: They beg to cook it in spite of homework not being complete and them having to be somewhere on short order. 
The good news is that we had plenty of time and I actually did not show him how to make the pancake batter although I am sure he could follow the directions on the box. See, the children all know that I do not follow the directions on the box 99.9% of the time and the results are better 99.9% of the time. They know the difference. They just don’t know what the difference is. That is the one known problem with tinkering with the recipe.

Today I did not want to cook dinner. I just did not feel like it. It happens. Frankly, I was not really in the mood to eat much of anything. It was cold and I did not want to eat just anything. I wanted comfort food. It was going to be a busy evening.

I spent most of the morning sleeping. Yes, I have days like that. Confession time again, I suppose. My body does not like 5:00am. I do not care what time I go to bed, it does not like either side of the 5 o’clock hour. This week it has been seeing that time a lot because Ben’s carpool buddy has been out of town. That leaves me driving him to the Park-n-Ride lot to catch the bus downtown. He wants to be there before 6:00am. I am okay with that in theory. My body, however, has other ideas. It comes back home and literally crashes. I get the other two kids ready for school, drop Lance off in the morning, and I literally come home and crash out on the couch. This week I am fighting a sinus bug or a cold of some sort that is going around so my body is just extra tired. I am tired.

Today I just wanted comfort food. I decided we were having pancakes for dinner. Lance was thrilled. “Can I cook them?” That is all that I have heard since I showed him how to cook them a few weeks ago. He was delighted that I let him actually do it. I had Kyle help supervise him. He was pleased to tell me about how he made perfectly colored pancakes that were not dark brown or burnt. Yes, I was schooled by my nine year old about how pancakes should be a certain color.

With all of this in mind, I decided that this was a perfect combination. I was not going to have to cook and I was going to have some comfort food. Now, the problem? I really did not want to have to deal with using pancake mix. That meant that I was making these pancakes from scratch. Oh yeah! Lazy gene was kicking in big time. Starvation was looking good at this point. The problem with the lazy gene is that children still want to be fed no matter how lazy I am feeling, how little I want to cook, or if I want to eat what is being cooked. How dare they actually want to be fed every day?!.

No worries I had plenty of time and a willing helper. I found a recipe I was going to try and I set about making the batter for Lance while he finished up his homework.

My first attempt at making Cinnamon Oatmeal Pancake batter was interesting. Let me just say that this is interesting in texture. I have added quick cook oats to my shopping list. I always have some on hand, but somehow I have managed to use all that I had and was one cup short for the recipe. A substitution was used by grinding up some old fashioned oats.

Lance was having fun cooking the pancakes, but his first experience cooking them was interesting as well. He was not impressed. Needless to say that by the time we got to the end of the batch of batter he was done and he let me cook the remainder of the pancakes. See he was happy to cook them as long as he could get that perfectly golden brown color on the pancakes. With these, he was not quite getting that and he was not happy at all. These were a different experience all the way around.
Lance posing for a picture. Happy to be cooking. He was happy to be cooking until he started getting dark colored pancakes. They were not burnt per say, just dark. 
The pancakes turned out fine overall. If you like undercooked oatmeal in your pancakes that is. It was like eating granola in your pancakes. They fluffed up and spread out a lot more than traditional pancakes and they were very filling. Flavor wise they were very good. I will make them again, but I think I will let my oatmeal sit and soak up some milk in the bowl before I cook them first. I will definitely use all quick cooking oats and I probably will try grinding up that a bit more. Needless to say I am not a fan of undercooked oatmeal in my pancakes. In granola it is fine, but not in my pancakes. The kids liked it just fine, but there are still some in the fridge. Normally they will devour the leftovers so that is saying a lot.

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