Exquisite Turmoil

Well, today is definitely not a healthy eating day. I was taken with a desire for pancakes this morning so I whipped up a batch of my favourite buttermilk ones. They’re sooooo good. And simple.

• 3 cups flour, sifted (sift after you measure)
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Combine your dry ingredients. Then mix in

• 3 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

Make sure that you let your eggs / milk / buttermilk come to room temperature (just set’em on the counter for a half hour) before you add them to the dry ingredients. You’ll get MUCH fluffier pancakes. Also, when you combine the dry / wet ingredients, don’t beat them until all of the lumps are gone. Just mix it up until it’s wet. You WANT a few pockets of flour. It give the pancakes a much more authentic (and tasty) texture.

Dinner tonight is going to be some hotwings. I guess Dan is really in the mood, so hotwings it will be. Those are simple, of course. Just cut the joint between the wing / drumstick and chop the tip off of the wing and throw it out (the tip). Sprinkle the wings and drumsticks with a little salt and pepper. Get your oil (or shortening) nice and hot (350-375) and drop the wings in until they’re nice and golden. Scoop’em out and put them on brown paper bags to drain (the bags work much better than paper towels).

Once they’ve cooled down a tad, coat them with your hot sauce. I like:

• 1/2 cup Frank’s Red Hot sauce
• 4 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 Tbsp Tabasco sauce or to taste
• 2 tsp dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp cider vinegar

Just toss all of that in a saucepan on low heat until the butter melts.

Finally, be sure to serve them with THE BEST bleu cheese dressing ever.

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 2 Tbsp buttermilk
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/8 tsp onion powder
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder

And don’t forget the bleu cheese! I buy a container of crumbles and make a double batch (so 2 cups mayo) and find that’s about the right amount of bleu. If you don’t love bleu as much as Dan does, however, you may want to cut it down. He devours this stuff by the jar full, but I can’t eat it except with wings. Way too bleu cheesy for me. I’m more of a ranch girl ^_^ Just not on my wings!

Anyway, enjoy!