Pineapple Pancakes

Saturday mornings are the time for homemade pancakes at our house. I learned the basic recipe during a stopover in El Paso with a friend's family, en route to California. It is so easy to remember because it is all in ratios of 1. I never bother with store bought mixes anymore now that I know this super fast and easy recipe.

Some time ago, when I decided to see if Moriah would eat pancakes for breakfast, I started adding 1 smashed banana to the batter. This was a HUGE hit, it was one of the only instances I actually saw her pick up food from the tray and put it in her mouth (usually only old stale cheerios from the seat of the high chair or from off the floor were voluntarily picked up and eaten). Most of the time I add in some mini-chocolate chips for the grown-ups and we can't seem to get them into our mouths fast enough either. Since that time, pancake Saturday mornings have become a tradition at our house.

Last week I didn't have bananas but I did have a small 6 oz. can of crushed pineapple. I added the whole thing, with juices, to the pancake batter and they turned out to be a delicious change of pace from banana. Tropical, moist, lightly sweet and fluffy, they didn't even need a lot of syrup.

Basic Pancake Recipe
1 C flour (I always split this 50-50 whole wheat and white)
1 C milk (this can be any kind of milk - I have tried soy, whole, 2%, and buttermilk)
1 egg
1 Tbl sugar
1 Tbl oil
1 Tbl baking powder
1 serving fruit - I suggest crushed pineapple, banana, grated apple, or berries depending on what you have on-hand
Makes 8-10 pancakes

Pancakes can be a great vehicle for extra nutrition for kids (or adults). For underweight children like M, they can be liberally buttered, or you can sneak in a little protein powder, increase the proportion of whole wheat for kids who need more fiber, etc. Having the ability to adjust the ingredients to your family's needs is one of the best things about making from scratch rather than a mix.

Slow Roasted Steak

On my last birthday, we discovered that Moriah likes the slow roasted filet from Outback Steakhouse. Since it costs $16.95 per serving, I've been trying to find a way to duplicate it at home. A little research on the web netted this recipe I am home today, I happened to have a steak in the fridge and a big rosemary bush out front, so I decided to give it a try.

25 minutes later, the steak came out of the oven looking pretty good. I previewed a juicy, perfectly medium-rare red-meat morsel, to make sure it was good enough to feed Miss Picky.

Dinner time:Prepared a roasted sweet potato with butter and a sprinkle of brown sugar and cinnamon to go with tender bite-sized pieces of the steak. It looked pretty good to me!

And this is the response from my Mighty M...can you see the tears?!

Next stop after she refused to eat anything but cheerios in her high chair was the computer desk for some youtube videos distraction. That got us 5 bites. Then she'd had enough and went to go play with the power cord to the fax machine. After repeated "no"s she got a 60 second time out on the living room rug. That was so upsetting that she ended up throwing up the 5 bites plus all of the afternoon snacks. Sigh...