Cherries are notoriously expensive, but for a month or so they come down in price, and I always get a few large bags during the summer season. At first appearance they are around $2 per pound, but wait a week or two and the price quickly drops.
I like to add them to yogurt or as a mealtime dessert -- I'll also nibble from small bowls throughout the day. They are especially good in pancakes, like almost any seasonal fruit would be. And if cherries are too expense or hard to get, you can substitute with your own local fruit stand favorites.
They are a little messy to work with though, so you want to rinse off any surfaces that the cherry juice pools on, and especially clothing or kitchen towels.
It's much easier to just pop one in your mouth and chew around the cherry pit. But for pancakes it's best to slice around cherry pit. Once you get going it only takes a few minutes to get a cup full for my Cherry Pancake recipe. You can go online to get a special device that pits them as well.
For the pancake batter I use commercial brand. If you have a homemade recipe then use it. I can get a large box of dry pancake batter at my local 99c only Store. Regular grocery store sell it cheap enough, too.
Start your day right, with my fruity cheap$kate breakfast of Cherry Pancakes.
- 3/4 cup water - okay to use milk for a richer pancake batter.
- 1 cup of pitted and sliced cherries - roughly sliced or chopped. Use any cherry amount that suits your taste. Okay to substitute with any fresh seasonal fruit like: blueberry, peach, apricot, strawberry, and even sliced banana or canned fruit.
- 1 tablespoon of cooking oil - to grease skillet. Add more when needed, depending how may pancakes you make.
- Butter and favorite pancake syrup - add as much as you like.
Prepare pancake batter according to package directions. My pancake mix calls for 1 cup of flour and 3/4 cup of water.
Mix pancake ingredients in a bowl. When mixed it will be like thick country gravy.
Start to heat the pan over a medium/low heat.
Rinse off cherries. Removing the cherry pit is messy, with red juice that will stain clothing or a wood cutting board, so don't wait too long to rinse off any juice that get onto surfaces or clothing.
I like to slice cherries this way: Cut though to the center of a cherry and rotate slice all the way around and twist cherry apart. One half of the cherry will have the cherry pit. Slice to remove the pit.
You can let the cherry pieces be on the large size.
Mix sliced cherries into pancake batter.
Add oil to pancake pan and pour on the pancake batter. Brown each side of the pancake. Mine took about 2-3 minutes for each side. It really depends how hot your pan gets. The box directions above mentions cooking time to brown each side as 1.5 minutes each....hmmmm, they must be using a super hot pan!
If you want a dark brown pancake presentation, then just cook one side to get the right amount of brown, then cook the other side for a minute, to finish. Serve browned side up, on the plate.
Serve hot with melted butter and favorite pancake syrup.
0 comments:
Post a Comment