Thursday, February 11, 2016

Theme Suppers

I love cooking for a theme.  I am also the person who wears red on Valentine's Day, green on St. Patrick's Day, etc.  I celebrate every holiday and when there is an excuse to prepare a special meal, I am in!  This week was a special week for holidays.   

On Sunday night, it was Super Bowl night of course.  I talked about what I was going to make last week and that's what we had - wings, potato skins, carrots and celery sticks.  We bought frozen wings instead of making them from scratch.  I put lime zest, salt, pepper and lime juice on mine.  They were delicious.  The potato skins turned out pretty well.  I sliced the potatoes and baked them for about 30 minutes until they were soft, then moved them to a baking dish and topped them with cheese, bacon and green onion.  The skins could have been crispier, so next time I will cook them longer first.   




Then on Monday, it was Chinese New Year.  I love ordering Chinese take out, but I also like making it myself because it is just so much healthier.   I made this beef stir-fry with mushrooms and snow peas and mushroom fried rice based on this recipe.  It was all very tasty.  The stir-fry makes a lot of sauce so next time I would serve it with just white rice.


And then on Tuesday it was Pancake Tuesday!  We love our pancakes around here but for supper, I wanted to mix it up a little bit so I made a favourite recipe of ours, corn and cheese pancakes topped with maple pancetta, tomatoes, avocado and cilantro.  Every time I make this I am amazed at all of the different flavours.  It is so good, and very easy.



The recipe for the pancakes is:
1 cup of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
1 handful frozen corn
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 red or green chili, sliced (optional)

Whisk the flour, baking powder and milk together.  Fold in the corn, cheese and chili.  Pour onto hot griddle in small pancakes.  

When the pancakes are cooked, serve them hot with as many of these ingredients as you like:
chopped tomatoes
diced avocado
fresh cilantro
cooked bacon or pancetta (while it's still in the pan but cooked, drizzle over some maple syrup for a sweet glaze)
plain yoghurt
a squeeze of lime
hot sauce

Try it, you will not be disappointed. 

1 comment:

  1. Those pancakes do look good! We made your breakfast ones to which I added almond meal, coconut flour and used almond "milk" so they were tasty and dense. But I want to try these now! Also the potato skins. Thanks for the recipes.

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