Live. Laugh. Love.: What's For Dinner? Week 5

Dear fellow pancake lovers,

you're going to LOVE this post!

I have a new favorite pancake and syrup recipe that my friend Sarah shared with me recently. I love trading recipes with Sarah because she always claims to be so casual about her cooking style, and yet when I try one of her recipes, it ends up being the best thing I've had in awhile. She's the originator of that lemon chicken and asparagus pasta recipe I've shared here before. Mmm! Speaking of... I've got to put that on our menu in the next few weeks when the asparagus starts popping up at the farmers markets.

Anyway, I'm no food photographer/stylist... but feast your eyes on Lemon Sour Cream Pancakes and Buttermilk Syrup! {Sarah must have a thing for lemon. :)}

Looks pretty basic, right? Tastes WAAAAAY beyond basic. So delicious!

I made the batter and the syrup on Friday night and then just cooked the pancakes and rewarmed the syrup in the morning.

Breakfast time on Saturday morning:

And here are the recipes:

{Sarah, I never heard back from you... hope you don't mind that I share?}

Lemon Sour Cream Pancakes 1.5 cups flour

3 Tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1.5 tsp salt

1/2 cup sour cream*

3/4 cup + 1 Tbsp milk

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp lemon zest*

2 ripe bananas

-Mash bananas. Mix wet ingredients. Mix dry separately. Add wet to dry and cook!

-*Notes: Sarah suggested that she just uses the zest from a whole lemon so that's what I did too. And I thought I had sour cream but it had gone bad, so I looked up a suggested substitution for sour cream in baking and found a recommendation for plain yogurt, which I had. I have since then prepared them with sour cream and both are fantastic.

Buttermilk Syrup

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp light corn syrup

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 tsp of baking soda (Sarah usually uses only 1/4 tsp)

-In a sauce pan, combine all ingredients except baking soda. Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add the baking soda; stir until foamy. Make sure to use a large enough sauce pan and the syrup tends to rise a little with the addition of the baking soda. It's very frothy and rich. Yum!

It was a tasty week at our dinner table if I do say so myself!

We invited my brothers over for dinner on Saturday evening (the 26th) and the kids loved playing with them while I got our dinner salads made. I had prepared spaghetti and meatballs on Friday night and let it simmer all day in the crock pot. So dinner was easy and delicious. The guys were watching the last seconds of a basketball game (of course) while I got the kids started at the table:

I don't have a pic of my spaghetti and meatballs, but it looked like... well... spaghetti and meatballs. Here's my recipe from my Grandma Verna:

Spaghetti and Meatballs

4 slices of bread

1/2 cup water

2 eggs

1# ground beef 1/4 cup parmesan cheese

2 Tbsp fresh parsley

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp oregano

dash of pepper

-To prepare meatballs, soak broken up pieces of bread in water for 2-3 mins. Add 2 eggs and mix well. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Form 28-32 meatballs. Bake on cookie sheet in 400 degree oven for ~12 mins. {May also substitute 2# browned grd beef for meatballs.}

1 onion

garlic to taste (I use 2-3 cloves)

2 cups water

3 Tbsp oil

2 cans tomato soup

12oz tomato paste

1 tsp salt

1 14.5oz can seasoned, diced tomatoes

1/2 tsp pepper

1 Tbsp sugar (I omit this)

oregano & Italian seasoning to taste

-Brown onion in oil. Mix all ingredients in crock pot. Add meatballs and simmer 6-10 hours on low heat. Serve over hot spaghetti.

Also on our menu last week:

Grilled chicken with peach salsa.

I know, I know. It is entirely TOO early to be eating peaches around here. I do feel guilty about it, but in about a month or less, we should be doing much better eating local produce within the appropriate growing season. Peaches were available at Meijer last week and this is one of our very favorite dinners.

The peach salsa recipe is from a friend of my mom's. I know I've shared it here before, but here it is again.

Peach Salsa

1 cup peaches, peeled and diced

1/4 cup diced red pepper

2 Tbsp jalapeno pepper, diced

2 tsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp green onion, diced

1 Tbsp fresh lime juice

-Mix all ingredients and allow flavors to marry for at least 2 hours. A great accompaniment to sauteed or grilled chicken, salmon, pork loin, etc. Also good with tortilla chips or as a bruschetta salsa.

-Note: I always AT LEAST double this recipe because I like A LOT of salsa on top of my chicken.

And, finally... Wednesday night's dinner time assembly line, awaiting the main dish:

Steak Stir Fry

Here's the recipe: 2 Tbsp cornstarch 2 tsp sugar 6 Tbsp soy sauce 1/4 cup white wine or water 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tsp grated/chopped fresh ginger 1# boneless sirloin steak, cut into thin strips 3 cups broccoli, cut into bite size pieces 2 med carrots, sliced 1 8oz can sliced water chestnuts 5 green onions -Combine first six ingredients and set aside. Stir fry vegetables in oil until tender. Remove and keep warm. Stir fry beef. Combine veggies and beef in pan and add marinade until coated and slightly thickened. Serve over rice.

The kids got avocado smoothies to drink with dinner.

And here are some more scenes from dinner time last week.

I asked Sophie if she'd like to help me set the table one night and she was so excited and clearly proud to be helping. She really only did the silverware and napkins, but I gave her one piece at a time and told her where to put it so it seemed like a lot to her. She knew right where to go when I said "put this fork where mommy sits", etc.