8.17.2013

Greek Yogurt Pancakes

Greek Yogurt Pancakes. Also known as "The Best Pancakes in the WORLD". At least that is what they are known by at my house. The first time I made these, I literally ate them OFF the griddle. NO plate needed. No fork needed. NOTHING extra needed. Pancake, meet Mouth. Mouth, eat Pancake.

Yes, they are really THAT good. In fact, they have become a staple in our home. Whether you want to label then as a staple recipe, staple meal.. that's up to you. But a week does not go by without eating these delicious creations. At least twice. A week. Although I have been known to put away more than two servings of these delicious pancakes in one meal sitting.

The most amazing aspect of these Greek Yogurt Pancakes, in my opinion anyway, is there are only FOUR ingredients. Four SIMPLE ingredients. Four REAL FOOD ingredients.

What you Need:
-24 oz. Greek Yogurt
(I use vanilla and honey Greek Gods Yogurt because it's what we always have on hand.)
-2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
-4 tsp Baking Soda
-4 eggs

Simple. Real. Ingredients.
First, turn the heat on under your griddle. I keep mine between low and medium low and adjust as the process of cooking the pancakes goes on.



Then you start with your yogurt and eggs.



Mix the yogurt and eggs around until you have a pale yellow mixture. If you have EVER made the most delicious blueberry muffins in the world, you will know EXACTLY what the mixture/consistency is like.

Pale yellow mixture and a whisk (VERY important).
Then it's time to add your flour.



And then your baking soda.


How EASY and SIMPLE is that?! I have found that using a whisk to combine the wet ingredients and using a spatula to combine the wet and dry ingredients works best. (It's something I learned when making the muffins mentioned above.) It keeps your whisk from acquiring the batter. You WANT the batter on your griddle, not in your whisk!

Use a SPATULA to combine/fold in the dry ingredients.
At first, it seems as though you are doing something wrong. You are really folding in the dry ingredients so it looks all lumpy and scary, but just keep going!

Looking kind of weird.

Eventually you will end up with PERFECT pancake batter.


And then, it's time to MAKE the pancakes!!! I use a 1/3 cup or 1/2 cup dry measure. A half a cup, which I started using before moving over to the 1/3 cup dry measure makes really BIG pancakes; not that that is necessarily a bad thing.


Each side takes about 2-3 minutes. BEFORE you flip your pancakes, you'll notice the edges building up a bit of a wall. That's when I usually flip mine. I've tried using the "bubble method" (where you check for a lack of bubbles forming) and it's never served me well. Then again, pancakes in general have just been one of those foods I never really understood and therefore was too afraid to try and master. They just NEVER turned out well. But no more! (Although my first batch was a bit dark; I spread butter on my griddle, but learned you really don't need it.)


Although I DO flip my pancakes back over to ENSURE they care cooked all the way thru (and because I usually end up splattering batter when flipping pancakes). I know mine are done when I can touch them (either with my finger or my trusty flipper spatula) and there is no "squish" to them. Because that is TOTALLY technical kitchen vocabulary there. :)

I also managed to get "better" as I went along!

Look! Really PRETTY pancakes!
If you can mange NOT to eat these straight off the griddle, they are absolutely DELICIOUS with strawberry jam, honey, maple syrup (straight from the tree, not the corn syrup stuff), strawberry jam AND fresh strawberries, JUST strawberries, the possibilities are ENDLESS!

In fact, I figured I should probably test out more than just my usual strawberry jam and/or strawberries and had a little sampling this morning.


But really, these Green Yogurt Pancakes with strawberries = Just Amazing. And strawberries with a little bit of maple syrup; forget about lunch/dinner and dinner/supper, I'll have pancakes ALL day long!

My version of StrawberryShortcake!
(The above photo is of MINI Greek Yogurt Pancakes, not the giants I made this morning.)

The kids LOVED theirs with banana and strawberries:


I do NOT like bananas, so I take mine with just strawberries when I can:


And of course, with just a bit of maple syrup is delicious as well!


In ALL honesty though, I think my favorite way is straight off the hot griddle! With the honey and vanilla yogurt, the pancakes are already full of flavor and life! Well, not life. I mean, that would be kind of twisted, right? But you know what I mean.

These things are GOOD! You need to make them. Today! I think you'd be glad you did!



P.S. OOOOH! I've also made these with blueberries and chocolate chips (two separate batters; not together :) IN the batter (messier on the griddle, so I don't make them very often) and they're DELICIOUS! If I had had FRESH blueberries, I would have left them as filling between pancakes, but I only had frozen, hence adding them TO the batter instead.

Bacon Bacon Bacon

I'm just going to say it: I LOVE bacon.

[Now you know.]

However, I am also VERY picky about my bacon.

Don't get me wrong, I'll eat it however which way it is served, but I have "particular tastes" of what perfect bacon is. So what IS perfect bacon? Perfect bacon is melt-in-your-mouth-crisp-perfection. And while I JUST stated I'd eat bacon any which way it is served, I REALLY detest non-crisp-perfection bacon. If it's close, that is one thing, but if my bacon is still wiggling on my plate ... I'm not touching it. Or I'll touch it to kindly hand it off to whomever in my family would like to digest it.

So how in the WORLD are you suppose to master non-crisp-pefection bacon?!

Well, I finally mastered it. And you want to know the best part? The "secret" has been on the packaging of my bacon all along. WHO KNEW THIS and did NOT share with me?!

The "secret": Bake your bacon in the oven.

Yes, BAKE it. Am I the ONLY one who found this earth-shattering? I had NEVER imagined cooking bacon in the oven, let alone with a cooling rack and cookie sheet. I first came across this way of cooking a few months ago. Unfortunately, it was NOT working. I figured it HAD to be my oven; I mean, the door didn't even close all the way on the top right side. (Yes, JUST the top right part of the door didn't seal completely with the oven; which meant half your meal was crispier than the other half REGARDLESS of what you were cooking and regardless of how many times you turned the food.) We finally decided to purchase a new range and the day before the installation I mastered melt-in-your-mouth-crisp-perfection bacon. In the "broken" oven. All because I decided to follow the instructions on my package of bacon.

First: Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Fahrenheit.

You can ignore the fact that it is 8a.m. and I'm only JUST now getting to making breakfast.

What You Need:
-shallow baking pan
-cookie cooling rack
-BACON!

First, take a shallow baking pan/cookie sheet out.



Then, place your cookie cooling rack right on top.


Next, lay your bacon across in a neat (not REALLY necessary), non-crowded (VERY important) rows.

Notice none of the pieces are overlapping.
As you finish unloading your package of bacon, you may want to adjust your pieces. The package of bacon I used this morning is one of those where I would have had one slice left by its lonesome and I was NOT about to leave a single piece of bacon out, wait for the rest to cook, and then cook a single piece by itself. Not in the middle of summer. In the desert. So I adjusted all my slices and ended up with this beauty:


Although, let's face it, COOKED bacon is FAR more beautiful than uncooked. And twenty minutes later, I had BEAUTIFUL bacon.


See that far, left piece. THAT is melt-in-your-mouth-crisp-perfection. Same with the third one in from the left. Those are the pieces you take straight from the oven and munch on while you wait just a tad for your pancakes to finish cooking so by the time the pancakes are done, you have MORE melt-in-your-mouth-crisp-perfection bacon to enjoy!


Bacon PERFECTION using the oven. WHY didn't I know about this sooner?!?!