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.

Little helper

More dinner time scenes:

Eating with some etiquette...

...but not for long...

Wait till you see the facial expressions that follow...

She was purposely being a goof. Lovely.

But wait, it gets worse...

I laugh out loud every time I see her eyes in this pic. Hahahaha!! :)

At least there's one pic of her sweet eyes... even if they're accompanied with messy fingers.

Will and Craig discussing their day.

The dinner table is often the hub of our family together time on the weekdays. I try my best to make this time happily memorable.

Happy Birthday, Celia Mae!

Cecilia Mae celebrated her 1st birthday at home last Sunday with a fun family party! (She actually turns [turned] one on the 31st.)

When we arrived, Will and Sophie were completely and totally enamored with all the colorful helium balloons they had suspended above the kitchen table with dangling ribbons long enough for the kids to reach. Seriously... that's all you need for a great party: helium balloons with long ribbons. Save all the money you might waste on other things and just have balloons. :)

{Sorry for the dark picture.}

Will collected them all and made himself the balloon distributor of the day. Then he got all upset when he accidentally gave away the orange one (below) "because that was his favorite". Thankfully, that older (more mature) boy kindly traded it back after Will's mini meltdown.

You can see in the above picture that we were coming down into the basement. Wait till you see what Cecilia's daddy just finished building for his little princess!

A two-level CASTLE!

What a lucky girl, huh? All the other kids {and adults} sure thought so, too. :)

Here's Sophie in the first floor window.

Inside, the walls are painted in pastels with a blackboard wall along the back and a princess rug on the floor.

If you look to the right there is a ramp with slats (sort of like for animals, only steeper) to climb up to the second level...

...which is entirely a ball pit!

{Plus a little lookout point in the corner - not shown here.}

It's big enough (and sturdy enough) for adults to climb up too so Kelly and I played up there with the kids.

Will had to bring his balloon. Now that he has it back, he isn't letting it out of his sight. ;)

Peaking out over the top. {Yes, I know. I look like a dork.}

The big thing was to bury the older kids. They loved it.

Umm... the balloon is a giveaway, buddy.

Can you see Will? :)

Eye can! Get it? EYE can. Yep - I'm my mother's daughter with the puns.

Sophie and Celia in the look out. Steve did such a nice job making sure this whole thing is so safe and secure and padded! There's foam flooring all around.

Happy Birthday, baby girl!

Can you see Sophie? She's "hiding".

They had a small ladder on the side of the castle for adults to peek into the ball pit.

"Hi, daddy!"

Me with the birthday girl. Poor baby had a cold at her party. But she did so well and was very pleasant all afternoon despite her sniffles and watery eyes.

Craig and our friend Mike playing ping pong.

Gift time!

Will was just itching to "help out". It took everything in him to restrain himself. You could just see his hands and face wanting to reach out and rip that paper. But he got a pep talk ahead of time and only had to be reminded a few times. :) And Kelly let him fetch the new presents and help her open the difficult ones.

Guess what our gift was... Books, of course. That's our standard gift these days. You can never go wrong with books. Sophie just wandered around and played with Celia's toys. I wonder if she'll be interested in opening her presents in a few weeks?

The newest member of the Munoz household: Bentley Munoz! He's just a puppy but he is growing fast and should top out at ~130# according to Kelly. This is our friend Jill holding him.

Cake time!

Grandma and Papa Riedeman with their three grandkids.

This was so funny. We were getting ready to leave and I couldn't find Sophia. I asked Kelly if she'd seen her and she glanced into the bathroom just far enough to see Sophie on the left side of the toilet playing in the toilet water. She just laughed and said, "Oh, she's just playing in the toilet." Then she looked a little farther into the room to see Cecilia on the right side of the toilet! Both girls had the lid up and their hands in the toilet. Eew! But it was hilarious and we both ran for our cameras. By the time I got back, Sophie had run into the glass walled shower. See her on the right? Apparently this is the hot spot for little kids because whenever we visit, both of my kids love to "hide" and play in the shower. And Kelly has to keep the door closed so Celia won't pull up on the toilet and play in it.

More balloon play.

It was a fun party with delicious food and good times.