Pancakes and Balance

Last week was like a baking/cooking marathon. Just be glad I only have pictures of Saturday morning! Before my pancake extravaganza I made zucchini bread, 2 banana cakes that involved leftover chocolate from my previous cake, and some delicious pizza (caramelized onions and roasted red pepper...mmmmmm). So I thought I'd just share with you my Saturday morning ritual from last week. It seems that D is not so partial to pancakes, he likes savory in the morning, and this particular morning he was a bit stressed due to what I like to call the University Blues, or otherwise known as Relationship Ruiner - no really I'm exaggerating, but this stress of exam after exam really puts things on edge! So, how do I face Saturday morning tension? By making myself my own massive gringa breakfast, of course! And yes. I did eat these all alone, but don't worry, there were leftovers for a few days.

So, what to do in order to enjoy such deliciousness? Well, if you've ever made pancakes before you'll know that they are really really easy and the most important thing is to either have a griddle or a cast iron pan of some sort that evenly distributes heat. Most of the flimsy pieces o' shite I find ever present here won't help you much in the pancake department. Glory be that my suegra has one cast iron heavy duty pan for making vegetable tortillas. I had to rummage amongst all the other pans and essentially take apart the cabinets in order to get that baby out, but success was mine in the end! To begin I decided to try to make some buttermilk. Since the only milk we can really get here is the unrefrigerated excessively pasteurized kind, I didn't exactly have options pouring out my ears. So resourceful Emita reared her usually too lazy head and decided, what the heck, I'll try this whole lemon juice curdle my own milk trick. I poured the milk I would need for the recipe, minus 2 tablespoons, and added 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Then I waited for about 15 minutes. It sort of curdled. Next time I'm going to try more lemon juice or just use regular milk sans sourness just to try something different. I used a recipe from bonappetit that included corn meal. Here's the recipe, give it a shot if you are missing the massive gringo breakfast that gets so much flack here! Hey, it's way better than a day old dried out hallulla and some instant coffee, lemme tell ya.
Recipe courtesy of www.bonappetit.com

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 2 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, cooled
• vegetable oil

Preparation

• Sift first 6 ingredients into large bowl. Whisk buttermilk, eggs and melted butter in medium bowl to blend. Add buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients and whisk until blended and smooth.
• Preheat oven to 300°F. Lightly coat bottom of heavy large skillet with oil. Heat over medium heat. Working in batches, pour 1/4 cup batter into skillet for each pancake. Cook until bottoms are golden, about 1 1/2 minutes. Turn pancakes and cook until second sides are golden, about 1 minute. Transfer to baking sheet; place in oven to keep warm. Repeat with remaining batter, adding more oil to skillet as necessary.

So anyways, I cooked up some frozen strawberries with some added sugar and a dash of vanilla, piled it all up with some natural yogurt and REAL maple syrup (courtesy of my folks in gringolandia) and the results were as follows:


Mmmm. Happy eater.

On a more life oriented note, I decided today that really the only thing I'm missing is a routine that has the right balance. By this I mean work time, friend time, gym time, me time, boyfriend time. These are a lot of times. Yikes. Thus my problem! I feel like I have no time and this is ever more important as my travel day gets closer. Yup, you heard it, Emita is taking a serious vacation to go back to see the fam and the friends, go to a conference and watch a best friend get married. I actually get to do a reading in the wedding and I am so excited that I get to be a part of it in some way! I plan on keeping on with the blogging, although I know it will be difficult since in 5 weeks I will be bouncing around between Vermont, Maryland, NYC, Boston and Maine. Oof. But I am nothing but excited if a bit anxious about the whole thing. I need a break. I have been working crazy hours and have had way too little time for friends. This has turned me into the worrier I become when my life becomes unbalanced. I start to feel completely abnormal and that somehow something is supposed to be different. I realized how crazy I was behaving and stopped writing lists of things I have to do every single day. I already feel a little better. I also decided to try to get a better rhythm going at the gym. Lately I've been going at such random times and days that it just totally discombobulates me. So this week I decided to go to spinning on Monday and Wednesday nights, when I feel least motivated. Here I must mention how much I agree with Emily and her gym rant because it is oh so true. The machines are crap and especially post-work hours the place is way too full with people. So I decided that when I have to go at those times I'll try to take a class. Fortunately, my schedule allows me to get to the gym around 8:30, change and be ready to wait in line to sign up for spinning by 8:45 and then take my class at 9. Today I went for the second time and realized that there are some regulars, which somehow suddenly made me feel a sense of normalcy. I decided to be friendly and chat with some of the others while waiting and was so happy to find that they were all super friendly and nice. Not a gym snob in sight and everyone was just buena onda. Success! I had a great spinning class and left feeling on top of the world. It can be frustrating having to remind oneself to not become bitter about particular situations, especially if you're me and you're prone to dwelling in the muck rather than searching for that ray of sunshine. So this particular moment was especially appreciated...that is until I had to wait for the bus for half an hour and resist the calls of a street vendor offering me eucalyptus gomitas, super ochos, golpes and alfajores. I thought about that alfajor for a good 10 minutes but in the end I resisted. Something about eating candy after the gym that doesn't go down so well. Next time I'll take Mr. Street Vendor up on his offer.
So although it may seem quite obvious that yes, one needs an appropriate balance between work and play, and no, this is never easy, I find it to be pretty much my only quest in life right now. And truth be told, I think I struggle more than I succeed, but you know, those times when everything just falls into place and you truly feel nourished, those moments - as fleeting as they sometimes can be - are to be savored as long as possible.
Can this come in the form of spinning class at the gym? It seems so.