BFD - March '11

My oldest son has been asking for pancakes, and to tell you the truth, pancakes sounded good. It's been a looong time since I made pancakes, so when I came across a recipe for chocolate peanut butter pancakes, I thought, "Perfect! That is sheer genius!" Of course, in keeping with the chocolate theme, I wanted to have some Hershey's chocolate syrup. Unfortunately, I'm way too cheap to buy it. Fortunately, there is an easy, frugal recipe. I kept this month's BFD menu limited to pancakes only. They tend to be very filling and I didn't want to overdo it. So, this month's BFD menu consisted of:

Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Pancakes
Va-Nana Strawberry Smoothie
Hershey's Chocolate Syrup

Peanut butter w/chocolate swirl

I love the peanut butter and chocolate combo. When I think of peanut butter and chocolate, I automatically think of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Salty. Sweet. Yum. When I found this recipe, the first thing I noticed was that the batter did not contain sugar. Hmm. That's odd, I thought to myself. I mixed up the batter as the directions indicated. Then I taste tested the batter. You see, long ago I learned that if I didn't like the way the batter tasted, I wouldn't like the way the finished product tasted. Sure enough, I did not like the way the batter tasted. Sugar to the rescue! I added one tablespoon of sugar to the chocolate batter and one tablespoon of sugar to the peanut butter batter. Much better.

Chocolate w/peanut butter swirl

I think this recipe has alot going for it and I love the concept of pb and chocolate mixed together in pancake form. The directions mentioned that if you wanted a thinner batter, then add more liquid. In my opinion, I don't think this is optional. I added an extra 1/2 cup of water to the chocolate batter and an extra 1/2 cup of water to the peanut butter batter. The next time I make these - and there will be a next time - I'm going to double the amount of peanut butter as well. All in all, with a little tweaking, this was a terrific idea. Combined with the homemade chocolate syrup, these pancakes were perfectly able to satisfy a sweet tooth and a hungry tummy.

The link for the smoothies doesn't really have a recipe for Va-Nana (Vanilla/Banana) Strawberry smoothies. I simply took one of the recipes that called for yogurt and I used a cup of Tillamook Vanilla Bean yogurt, frozen strawberries, a very ripe banana, added a cup of milk and a teaspoon of vanilla. Blend it all together and serve. Very low key and easy this month.