Breakfast for Dinner

Happy summer everyone! It's so nice when I don't have to get up before the suns up to get my oldest ready for school. We get to sleep in and have pajama days. I love those days! When we spend till lunch in our pj's and finally decide that we better get dressed before Dad gets home. It's great! But with the lazy days come the hot lazy days.

You know the one's I'm talking about. The ones that the heat just sucks the energy right out of you. And you were able to feed the kids pop tarts for breakfast, pb&j for lunch but now its the dreaded hour of dinner. Now normally I can't wait for dinner time. Because I LOVE TO COOK! And I love that we get that time to be together as a family before we rush off to work on whatever needs to be done. Or usually that my husband has go back to work.

But when the heat is so much that the thought of turning on the stove let alone the oven is enough to make even me go running from the kitchen in fear what do you do? I had one of those days this week. It was hot, I was tired, and obviously my kids were not in the mood to actually like each other that day. 

I trudged through the house to the fridge looking at what could I make that wouldn't require effort, I decided on pancakes. A staple in our house, pancakes are usually made from a made from scratch mix that I'd made a few weeks before. Or if in a pinch Bisquick. I don't use just water like I know some of you like to do. Especially with Krusteaz. But use whatever mix you normally have on hand.  I add eggs, milk, and vanilla to mine with the result being a thick fluffy sweet pancake that my kids just eat up. Literally! They eat like five or six pancakes a sitting. 

Well this time, I was out of vanilla and didn't want just a plain old boring pancake and syrup for dinner.  This is kind of off subject but my favorite kind of ice cream shake is cherry chocolate chip cashew.  And as I searched for what to add to this pancakes I thought that all I really wanted was a shake for dinner. Lightbulb! I had cherries, and I had chocolate. Cashews? Nope, but the thought of those in a pancake just didn't seem right to me.

So I threw together this crazy idea and twenty minutes later and the griddle not heating up my house this is what we ended up with.

The recipe (approximatly)

4 cups pancake mix
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract ( I use butter or almond if I'm out of vanilla)
1/2 c pomegranate juice
2-3 cups milk
1/2 c sugar
Pitted Cherries
1 cup chocolate chips or about half a bag
2-3 drops red food coloring

I just threw everything in the bowl and mixed it together.  Then we topped them with some whipped cream, whole cherries and chocolate shavings.

Now if you know me you know that I usually don't follow a recipe. They never turn out for me. So everything I make is usually just me throwing together a make-shift recipe.  And when it turns out trying to remember the amounts! You can add more or less of anything I use.  I added the juice to add some fruity flavor to these but you don't have to use it. The only thing I will say about the milk is that milk is expensive. I use it because I can't stand just water in pancakes. But feel free to use just water or to half and half it with the milk.

I leave my pancake mix a little thin and let it sit for a few minutes. I like it to thicken up before I pour it on the griddle. It gives you a thicker fluffier pancake. If you come back and your batter is too thick add a little more liquid and use the consistency you and your family like.

 Brooker's ate 3 of these and the other two together polished off almost 10 and were complaining they wanted more. Definately another hit around here! Next time I have a quick and easy chicken salad recipe for another hot day dinner!

Happy Cooking!