Ok, I didn't get around to posting on Valentines day because, well, I wasn't cooking. I was too busy chowing down on truffles. I mean, when your husband brings home a box of your favorite truffles and starts eating them himself, you have to dig in and get your share. So in lieu of writing a holiday post then, here is one in celebration of a far more obscure, but no less yummy one. Pancake Day.
Right after we moved to Ireland, I started seeing signs everywhere that said "Remember! Tuesday is Pancake Day!" and for the life of me I couldn't fathom what they were talking about. When the signs changed to "Today is Pancake Day!" a week or so later I gave in and asked. And duh, it was Fat Tuesday. Shows how closely I pay attention to the calendar.
Basically, the Irish version of Mardi Gras involves eating lots of crepes.
All I can say is Brilliant.
And yum.
Since then we have kept up the tradition, because who doesn't love an excuse to eat pancakes? This year it almost passed me by. I wasn't even thinking about pancakes and lent and Easter until I happened to look at my organizer yesterday and realized it was tomorrow!
It's not coming on a great day. For one thing, Briton's school has a big potluck dinner tonight so no pancakes at home for dinner as usual. For another, first grade is assigned to South America. I probably could have fudged it and brought pancakes to the potluck and pretended I was with a fourth grader (lucky ducks got Europe) but who wants to cook that many pancakes, and forget about it with crepes. So we had to settle for afternoon pancakes.
The kids have shown a resistance to crepes lately (why? don't they know how good they are?) so I made a regular batch of pancakes after school and, at Briton's request, my own version of Nutella. I cant buy Nutella anymore. I just eat it. Spoon, jar, heaven. It's gone in two days. But I CAN make a reasonable replacement at home. So today's totally healthy (hahahaha) after school meal was pancakes with chocolate peanut butter ganache, sliced bananas and mini marshmallows. What can I say, Pancake Day comes only once a year.
Chocolate Peanut butter Ganache
3 T chopped semi sweet chocolate (or just chocolate chips)
1 heaping T peanut butter
3 T cream
melt the chocolate in the microwave, stir in peanut butter till smooth, add cream and stir till smooth and glossy.
This ended up making more than we needed for three or four pancakes. I decided to make the leftovers into quick fudge by adding some melted butter (about 2 tsp) a little more peanut butter and enough powdered sugar to make it pretty thick. Refrigerate till solid. Eat. Worry about calories later.