often things are done a certain way for a reason

    One morning while visiting my mom i found all of the ingredients for making blueberry pancakes waiting for my on the kitchen counter.
My brother makes the BEST pancakes ever, but mine are certainly fine for home consumption so i got to it.

Then it happened - i had an IDEA.
Oh, how many misadventures here in the Nikiverse start with me suddenly having an idea?

It really annoys me that blueberry pancakes only have blueberries every here and there because they are added after the batter is poured.
    You get bites with a lot of berry and bites with no berry.

It tweaks at my love for food homogeny.

What if i added some of them during mixing so that they would break apart, scattering blueberry bitletts throughout the batter?
Then i could still place extra berries where needed as they cooked.
Double the berry goodnes!
BRILLIANT!
It is so obvious, so easy.
Why has no one done it like this before?

sigh... this is why.


Too much berry caused the top cakes to cook unevenly and be, well, you can see for yourself.


I added more batter and placed the berries as is common and got the delicious bottom cakes.




sigh... foiled again by dratted reality

Proof of Life

       Squeaky Monkey has been retired as the co-pilot of my car.
Though not elderly per se, he has reached the point in an inflatable's life where constant exposure to the sun and temperature changes has not only begun to change his color, but make him a bit more brittle. It would be terrible if one day i got in my car and found him all deflated and pathetic in his seat belt from popping, so inside he went.
He was not amused by the term retired and had declared himself Sargent at Arms for the living room. No, i have no idea what that even means, but he seems satisfied with that so who am i to question it.

      After driving alone for a while, a new co-pilot happened along.

His name is Cyrano.

Margaret H gave him to me.

He is very quiet, 

rides in the console,

 and loves snickerdoodles.

      Those specific snickerdoodles were bought at a cookie and brownie stand that two girls had set up on the corner in Suzanne's neighborhood and we all know that i can not resist enterprising children. The cookie were overpriced, but were some of the BEST snickerdoodles i have ever had, They must have been made in muffin pans instead of on a cookie sheet because the bottoms were rounded up and crunchy.

There is only one more weekend of pet-sitting and then the busy season is officially over.
Then starts festival season.
I have been getting a lot of new jewelry made and hope to have an Etsy update (or 2) in the next month.

      Another new crockpot recipe has been marked off of the list. Last Friday i adapted a traditional slowcooker  roast  recipe to make beefstew to celebrate the official beginning of autumn. Cassie and Mike joined me for dinner and we all agreed that it turned out really tasty, though the quinoa never fully cooked up.

The previous Friday Lydia and I went on mayhaps the greatest Friday Adventure ever.
 It involved glassblowing.
Pictures to follow.

surprisingly tasty

I mentioned that while i was in Ohio visiting Rea we made jelly because i had never canned anything before.
The violet jelly was beautiful and tasted good, but the dandelion jelly was INCREDIBLE!
How can anything made from a bitter weed be delicious?
Like the violets, you make an infusion from the flower petals that is the base of the jelly.
It tastes honey-er than honey; it has the bright sweetness, but not the aftertaste.
I was in charge of lidding the jars as i got to use the fun magnetic wand. To see the whole process and get the recipe for the BEST JELLY you have ever eaten, click on Rea's link.
One of cool surprises for me about making jelly was that while the jars cool and you wait for the blessed PING that indicates it has vacuum-sealed, watching the bubbles blubbing through the amber liquid was mesmerizing.

i just noticed that if you embiggen the video

 you can see my lovely BFF reflected in the upper left-hand corner 

we're cooking with gas!

Yes, you are still small.

But you are bigger and WORK

So I can't complain.

Welcome to my new stove. Just in time for the biggest cooking day of the year. Of course, I am going to friends' houses tomorrow so that is besides the point, but I am sure that there are some important casseroles to be cooked in my future.