Pancakes

Next Tuesday (17th February) is Shrove Tuesday, or, as others know it, Pancake Day.  If it were a typical Tuesday, there wouldn't be much time to make pancakes as my brother would have school and would miss out.  However this year, Pancake Day falls on the Tuesday that my brother is on half-term, and I won't be needed in uni until evening, so we can take the opportunity to have pancakes for breakfast together.  This is the pancake recipe that my grandma uses and showed me last year when she was teaching me how to make pancake rolls.  It's not a typical American pancake recipe, but it closer to the crepe-style of pancake.

Ingredients

1/4 lb plain flour
1 egg
1/2 pint of milk
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Measure appropriate quantity of plain flour.
2. Add eggs to mixing bowl.  Add one teaspoon of salt and whisk, preferably with a free-standing machine.
3. Measure out milk into jug.
4. Gradually add flour and milk to the egg mixture and whisk.  At intervals, use a spatula to remove mix from the sides of the bowl and incorporate them back into the mixture.
5. Set pan on cooker at about level 3.  Using a piece of spare rag, grease pan with sunflower oil.  Grease pan for each new pancake.
6. Add two tablespoons of batter for each pancake.  Spread the batter evenly in the pan and cook on both sides.
7. Serve the pancakes with sugar and lemon, or honey, or maple syrup, or any other topping of your choice.

Blackberry Compote

In the last few weeks, my views about breakfast have become so much stronger.  I find it so important to have breakfast in the morning.  Every morning, within ten minutes of waking up, I'm always in the kitchen pouring myself a glassful of tap water and preparing myself either a bowl of cereal (without milk) or a slice of marmalade toast.  I'll then be dancing around my bedroom to some CD or other to rev up my energy for the morning.  But I'm now learning that although breakfast is so important, a lot of my friends seem to skip it.  They wake up too late to have breakfast before lectures, they prefer to have breakfast later in the day, they're too busy for breakfast, other reasons.  It shouldn't bother me so much, but it does.  I see breakfast as one of those foundation blocks for staying healthy as it gives you energy to concentrate for the morning, especially if you have 9am lectures like I do.  I know that what I described above for breakfast is quite small, but that's what suits me.  However, sometimes at the weekend or in the holidays, I might have a larger breakfast of crepes as a treat.  Usually, I'll eat them with sugar and lemon juice or with honey, but this blackberry compote, which I found in the September 2013 edition of the Tesco Food and Living magazine, also seems like a sweet and fruity choice to spread onto my crepes, pancakes or even on my toast.

Ingredients (to serve 4)

100ml (3 1/2 fl oz) orange juice
1 teaspoon cornflour
100g (3 1/2 oz) caster sugar
200g (7 oz) blackberries, some left whole
a pinch of ground cinnamon
a pinch of ground cloves

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, combine 1 tablespoon of the orange juice with the cornflour.  Stir until smooth and set aside.
2. Put the caster sugar, berries, spices and the remaining orange juice in a medium pan and heat on low until simmering (this should take about 1-2 minutes).
3. Stir in the cornflour mixture, lower the heat and cook for another 3 minutes.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.  The compote can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 4 weeks.