pancakes

I should know better.  All my talk of breakfast foods inspired me to make some pancakes last night.  Now, I grew up in a household where Bisquick was never used and we'd only settle for authentic buttermilk pancakes.  My dad would whip up the batter and my mom would heat up the electric griddle and they'd be thick and fluffy and wonderful.

Again, I am lazy and cheap.  I also don't really like buying buttermilk because I end up throwing most of it away after a few weeks because, sure, I can totally make some more biscuits/pancakes but I can't tell if it's gone bad because it smells so darn awful in the first place.  I originally went to the store to buy Bisquick for a recipe for imitation Red Lobster biscuits (yeah, that's right.) but ended up buying Jiffy mix because it was $2 cheaper and I'm taken in by its vintage-styled packaging and blue gingham tablecloth in the picture.  I love me some gingham.

I was quizzing my coworkers on what to make for dinner when I realized that I could make pancakes with this mix.  I really should know not to trust anything where every recipe on the back includes a few scoops of mix and a few cups of milk.  And that's it.  This same "recipe" could make me pancakes, waffles, biscuits, and the topping for some chicken casserole.  But I gave it a whirl anyway.

I wasn't discouraged when the first pancake turned out to be a disaster.  If I know anything about cooking, it is that the first pancake is always a mess and you end up throwing it away.  So I kept going.  The batter tended to rise up instead of out, so the outsides would burn before the insides even started cooking.  I tried spreading out the batter in the frying pan, but towards the end, the batter had already started to thicken and rise in the bowl.  I ended up with 5 or 6 burnt/raw biscuit-like discs.  All the maple syrup in the world couldn't make this alright.