PANCAKES

PANCAKES are one of those you can 'feel them doing you good' breakfasts.

 

Particularly when made from fresh eggs collected a few minutes earlier.

 

 

No-fail pancakes

2 eggs

2 cups milk

1/2 cup wholemeal SR Flour - sifted

1/2 cup SR flour - sifted

 

Beat eggs and milk until frothy

Gently add flours

Combine until creamy

Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes

Heat non-stick pan and grease

Use a table spoon to drop small amounts of batter in pan

Serve with lemon and sugar or berries

 

Note - the chooks will love the scraps!

 

Salty lemons

CAN you grow great lemons on the coast?

Sir Peter Cundall doesn't think so in his latest Weekly Times column.

Still I persevere.

Call me stubborn but I'm not going to let a fruit tree get the better of me.

My neighbours have a cracker which tantalises me every time I look over the fence as my citrus trees are not half as prolific. But when when I asked them about any special soil treatments or fertilisers, they seem to take the 'healthy neglect' approach.

Darn.

One lemon tree which came with the property and sulked in various parts of the garden is now happily caged in the fully wired-up chook run, gets plenty of sunshine, water and ahem, chook fertiliser. The hens even like to climb the ladder next to it to occasionally roost in the branches.

The others are variously in pots and the ground.

Hopefully the little darlings will improve. The lemon and lime trees, not the chooks, they are fine.

But even if they don't my dear neighbours are happy to swap plump fruit for the feather riot's eggs.

So as long as I keep a few cackleberries I can have my lemon pacakes and eat them too.

Pancakes please

PANCAKES are the perfect autumn and winter weekend breakfast.

After a bracing surf or cycle down the Great Ocean Road - or even a sleepy stroll to get the newspapers - siting down to pancakes made with fresh eggs from the chooks is always a great meal to start the day.

Saturday's pancakes ready to enjoy.

Versatile too.

You can add blueberries to the mix or serve them on the side.

Instead of butter, lemons and sugar or maple syrup, I'm a sucker for no-fat Greek yogurt and a handful of berries. Or a splash of real-deal maple syrap.

Here's the recipe - if you like your flapjacks on the fluffy side then add 1/2 cup more flour or if you like them more crepe-like then add a splash more milk.

This recipe makes heaps - they freeze well but I usually give any leftovers to the hens.

2 fresh eggs
3 cups milk
3/4 cup wholemeal SR flour
3/4 cup plain flour

Get out the medium sized Sunbeam mixmaster
Beat the eggs, add milk
Gently add flours
Mix until resembles cream
Let it sit for a few minutes
Cook in a pan with a little oil or butter, flip when one side is all bubbly. (If cooking for a few friends, then I'll use two pans to keep things moving.)
Enjoy!

Sunday brunch

FRESH from the oven Saxon Hot Cross Buns from 3RRR were a great success - a nice and chewy texture with the cranberries and orange peel giving the buns a lovely fragrance.

Best enjoyed fresh from the oven or toasted

However, Sunday brunch is not just about buns at the Jan Juc Surf Shack.

No sireee.

The preferred brunch menu during autumn can range from rolled oats porridge with some blueberries, Greek yogurt and passion fruit - low cost high taste - through to pancakes with lemons from the neighbours and sugar, or sourdough toast with Darryl's Dry Roasted Peanut Butter which it leaves the others which are way too oily in it's wake like steeplechaser Moss Trooper racing against the donkeys. 

Another favourite is poached eggs from the gals on sourdough with fresh spinach and corriander.

Hot fresh coffee is not optional, as are the Sunday papers and back issues of the New Yorker.

Meanwhile, the feather riot are served left-over pancakes or toast, before allowed out to chase insects.

Any leftover buns will be toasted by the fire and eaten later.

Extra-large eggs

Egg-citing news!

One of the girls laid a really bountiful egg this morning.

A friend holds the super-egg (Hilda?) next to the usual suspect

Must be all the leftover pancakes the little devils enjoy.

Here's the recipe.

Perfect pancakes

2 free-range eggs
3 cups milk
3/4 cup wholemeal SR flour
3/4 cup white SR flour

1. Beat eggs and milk
2. Gradually add flours
3. Beat for 5 minutes until fully mixed
4. Let sit for 10 minutes
5. Pour a large spoonful into a non-stick pan with a tiny slosh of olive oil
6. Flip when bubbles appear
7. Serve with lemon and sugar
8. Enjoy!

Sunday morning I awoke to a glorious sound - rain teaming down on the old corrugated iron roof.

If there's a better noise - other than listening to Leonard Cohen's Darkness, Edwards Sharpe and Magnetic Zeros Home or an empty 5ft wave sweeping through Wategos as you paddle out, I've yet to hear it.

However, the girls are not happy.

Image found via google

Breaking into a running start as i open their hutch door that would impress Pharlap, they scurry about eating their breakfast of pancakes (I regularly have friends over for a Sunday brekkie so the gals get the leftovers) and pellets during a break in the rain, they then duck under the hen house when it pelts down.

The sight of their cross little faces never fails to amuse.

However, as soon as the sun comes out, they dash about gobbling down unwary worms and insects.

And as it's Sunday, at 1pm they will be listening to their favourite radio show, Dirty Deeds.