pancakes!

i am now in full LSAT studying/law school applying mode, and although 4 years have passed since i left college, i have apparently not lost my amazing talent for finding all sorts of cooking and cleaning projects to help me procrastinate from doing what's most important to my future. ::sigh:: on the brighter side, the good news is that mike and i will be eating awfully well and enjoying life in a sparkling clean apartment for the next few months!! :-)

tonight at 9 pm i decided it would be a good idea to make myself some healthy pancakes to take to work this week for breakfast, and make pancakes i did. i learned a few interesting cooking tricks along the way, so i thought i'd share.

Oatmeal Brown Sugar Pancakes
(look, Kira, you can enjoy oatmeal for breakfast without the mushy texture!)

1/2 c. plus 2 tbsp quick-cooking oats
1/2 c. whole flour
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 c. buttermilk

in a small bowl, combine the oats, flours, baking soda, salt and sugar. in another small bowl, beat the egg, oil and buttermilk. stir into dry ingredients until just moistened. pour batter by 1/3 cupful onto a greased hot griddle. turn when bubbles form on top and cook until the second side is golden brown. makes approx 10 pancakes (which i'm not sure i agree with - my batch turned out maybe 7 or so)

and now for the cooking tricks!!

1.) apparently, if you don't have buttermilk, you can substitute by adding 1 tbsp. lemon juice to your regular milk and letting it sit for a few minutes. i was intrigued by this idea since i'm constantly buying buttermilk to use in small quantities and then the rest usually goes bad in my fridge. i tried this lemon juice trick in this pancake recipe, and while i didn't notice a particularly buttermilky flavor (man do these pancakes taste healthy!), i didn't notice a particularly yucky flavor either. i'm thinking i'll give the lemon juice a try in a few more recipes before making up my mind on whether this is a good idea.

2.) if you're like me and never able to use an open bag of brown sugar before it starts to dry up and become crusty, i can confirm that tossing a marshmallow into the bag after opening will keep the sugar nice and moist! hooray! i've heard that a piece of bread works too, but that kind of grosses me out.