Time Together

We’ve been pretty busy around here.  School, work, school, work, then finally the weekend!  Since I’ve started my full time job, we spend less time together as a family.  I love having my new job, I love the work, the people, it’s great.  Then there’s the mom-tug, and I can’t help but wonder what this means for my family.  My mind races back and forth, rests for a while on how good this is for all of us, all the while hoping Iz is happy with the arrangement too.

I’m pretty sure she is.  We’ve had a week or two of trantrums as soon as I would walk in the door, but they’ve seem to have subsided.  She’s pretty independent and fully confident.  She knows that I’m here for her and love her.  Makes me realize that starting her at preschool when she was 2 was the right thing (even though I lost sleep / was nauseous  over us being apart, and wondering HOW IS SHE GOING TO MAKE IT WITHOUT ME – but maybe it was how am I going to make it without her?).  She can totally handle herself in so many different situations, and she’s confident to know what to do when I’m not around.  It’s all good.

So, now what to do.  It’s quality, not quantity, right?  You might have noticed, but we have a thing for food around here.  Food that we make. Nice slow food.  Food that we grow.  Healthy, complete food.  So we’ve been spending time cooking and we are having SO MUCH FUN!

Since I can’t start dinner at 3:45, and have maybe, 30mins to really make something before we fall on the floor when we get home, we’re making quite a bit on the weekends for the week.

Saturday morning, we made German Pancakes.

They are so easy to make, fun to watch and take less time to cook than our trad pancakes.  Izzy LOVED watching them puff up in the oven.  Iz has been a fantastic kitchen helper for as long as I can remember.  Now that she’s 4, I’m just blown away by her cooking ability.  She’s an excellent pourer, stirrer, cutter, and a super taster (except when there’s raw egg…).

The pancake was a hit, super yummy, and Iz and I even whipped up some whip cream, sliced up the strawberries and piled them on the pancake.

Here’s the recipe.  Enjoy!

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup all-purpose whole wheat flour
• 1 cup milk
• 6 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Vanilla Extract – all to taste.  If you like sweet, you can add 1/4 -1/2 cup sugar.  We don’t want sweet, so the nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla was perfect for us.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Melt butter in a medium/large baking dish.  Keep an eye on it, you don’t want it to burn.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, milk, eggs and salt. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish.

Bake on center rack in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until golden brown. These can puff up pretty high, so definitely cook these in the center and remove the rack above it.  And, if your dish is shallow, put it on a cookie sheet so it doesn’t fall to the floor of your oven.

To make the whipped cream, chill a medium mixing bowl in the fridge for 20 mins.  I use Heavy Whipping Cream, pour  a pint in the chilled bowl, using your hand mixer, mix at the highest setting until you like the consitency.  We don’t add sugar, but if you want it sweeter, add a bit of powdered sugar to your liking.

* I think this would be really yummy if you added crushed apples or mashed bananas too it.  You could even add a mashed butternut squash, YUM!  The possibilities are endless.