Gingerbread Pancakes

Like a lot of people I like to look through magazines and love the peruse the recipes in them. Frequently I see one I want to try. A while ago found a recipe for gingerbread pancakes in "Woman's World" magazine.

I made these for breakfast the other day.....and yes they are as good as they look!!

Here is the recipe:

1 cup flour

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 cup skim milk

1 egg

2 tablespoons molasses

1 tablespoon of oil

Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat. Combine first 6 ingredients in a bowl. In a small bowl mix the next 4 ingredients. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir until just combines, taking care not to overmix.

Use 1/4 cup of batter per pancake. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes or until bubbles appear all over the surface. Flip and cook until the bottom is golden brown. Server warm with maple syrup......These are very yummy!!

Green Bean Gratin

This post is a little late.....I made these green beans for our Christmas dinner with Rex's Mom.

For some reason Rex likes green beans so I found this recipe on www.about.com for him.

This picture shows the remainder of the ingredients, butter, blue cheese, heavy cream, and bread crumbs. Paula Deen would be proud!!

The dish just before it went in the over....and my last picture. As usual when it came out of the oven I totally forgot to grab the camera!!

The recipe:

1 1/2 #trimmed green beans

3 ounces blue cheese

1 pint heavy cream

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Blanch the beans in salted water for 5 minutes. drain well and transfer into a lightly buttered casserole dish. Pour over the cream and crumble the blue cheese evenly on the top. Mix the breadcrumbs with the melted butter in a small bowl and sprinkle evenly over the top. Bake for 15 minutes or until browned and bubbling. Remove from the oven and let rest for 15 minutes before serving.

Lipton Onion Soup Mix....It's What's For Dinner!!

Today is a day off (and cold for AZ) so I wanted to make something that qualifies as "comfort food". Nothing says comfort to me quite as much as a slow cooker meal!!

The local Safeway store has pork on special often so I had a nice pork loin roast in the freezer. Rather than do the normal pot roast with potatoes, onion, and carrots, I decided to try something new.

I had some "Lipton Onion Soup Mix" in the cupboard and noticed this web address on the envelope: http://www.recipesecrets.com/. So I went to that web site and found this really cool tool. So first I clicked on "advanced recipe search". That took me to a page that had three sections. The first section was "recipe category". It listed categories such as appetizers, side dishes, and main dishes, etc. So I selected main dishes. The next section was "Main Ingredient" so I selected pork. The third section labeled "Signature Recipes" with selections like kid favorites, side dishes, and slow cooker. Slow cooker is my choice today!

The recipe I selected today after much discussion with Rex because it had ingredients in it he doesn't normally eat...good thing he has a cold this week so his taste buds are not a peak performance!! Anyway my recipe selection was : Slow Cooker Southwestern Pork Roast.

The recipe is:

2-1/2 lbs. boneless pork roast

1 envelope Lipton® Recipe Secrets® Onion Soup Mix

1 can (14-1/2 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained

2 cans (4 oz. ea.) chopped green chilies, undrained

3 Tbsp. firmly packed brown sugar

2 tsp. chili powder1 tsp. ground cumin

Place the pork in the slow cooker, mix remaining ingredients and pour over the pork. Cook on low 8 to 10 hours or high 4 to hours.

This can be served over rice or noodles if you wish. This was really flavorful. My pork didn't exactly look like this picture because as usual I forgot to take one..we just ate. This picture is the one off the recipe from the web site but mine looked sorta like that. And the best part is, it TASTED great!!

I also have something in mind for the leftovers!!