breakfast of champions

Yes this is my son STANDING on the table covered in syrup!

I am a moderately decent cook.

I can feed my family most days without complaints, and I don't completely embarrass myself when cooking for company (usually).

That being said, I am no Chef-at-Home.

I am getting a little more saavy in culinary matters, mostly because I am home now, and have much more opportunity to dabble, and my developing interest in cooking is largely thanks to Food Network and the internet, which allows me to try new recipes and improve my skills.

HOWEVER...it seems that setbacks and detours are unavoidable on the road to gastronomical nirvana.

This morning, seeing as both children were being cooperative, I had this dream that I would whip up some pancakes for breakfast. I make them from scratch, and don't really have a recipe, but it's not that complicated right? A basic pancake mix consists of eggs, flour and milk. Of course it is the proportions of those ingredients that is the key to successful breakfast fare, and I usually just guess and tweak here and there as necessary.

Feeling confidant in my skills this morning I opted to get fancy and thought that perhaps the addition of some Pumpkin Pie spice would be really delicious in the batter. Except Taco seasoning does not have quite the same effect as Pumpkin Pie spice. Oops!

I tried to salvage the batter, but it was too late, so that batch was discarded and I started over. This time I did manage to get the right spice into the mix, and started pouring batter onto the griddle. They bubbled away nicely, browning evenly and tasted not too bad. If you like rubber. Sigh.

Here began the tweaking process I spoke of earlier. A little more flour, another egg, some milk and a good dash of baking powder. Back to the griddle I went with the new batter, and guess what?

PERFECT!

My confidence restored, I carmelized up some bananas and ladled them over these nicely-spiced pancakes. After one or two disasters, we did end up with the breakfast I had envisioned.

Malachi devoured a stack, and in his own version of licking the plate clean, I found him with a sticky, syrup-covered plate on the top of his head. Something tells me we might need to worry less about gourmet breakfasts, and more about manners.