Easter Breakfast

Message from Dan
Breakfast in general has to be one of my favorite meals to cook. With simple ingredients and very basic techniques you can put together a great breakfast. My favorite part is that it emphasises the freshness and quality of the ingredients. Recipes with only 2 or 3 ingredients will easily show poor quality ingredients, but don't be fooled. Good ingredients are no longer hard to find and are not at all too expensive. In fact, if most people knew exactly what to look for when purchasing fruits and vegetables you may not need to change your buying habits all that much.

This Easter morning, we decided to go a little overboard for the simple sake of overboardedness. Breakfast consisted of, (it's always homemade by the way) pancakes with strawberries, banana's and chocolate chips. Spiced homefries with sauteed onions, omelets with sauteed peppers and onions and sliced chicken (Left Overs) with cheddar cheese, bacon and coffee. It was incredibly delicious....and easy. Here's how.


Tools
Spatula
Griddle (preferably) A large non stick pan would suffice
Non-Stick 6 or 8 inch omelets pan (totally not necessary)
Box Grater
Sauce Pan

Pancake Recipe
Yields: 4 Large Pancakes (More than enough for 2 people eating like human beings)
1 1/2 Cups AP Flour
4 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Salt (Kosher Salt please)
1 Tablespoon White Sugar (Regular table sugar)
1 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Egg
Vanilla Extract (to flavor - use sparingly)

Simply combine all the dry ingredients, (don't forget sugar is a wet ingredient) in a seperate bowl, combine the wet ingredients and whisk well. Add the wet to the dry and mix until smooth. This shouldn't take any longer than 10-15 seconds of stirring lightly. DO NOT OVERMIX or your pancakes will become heavy and dense.

Once combined let sit for 3-5 minutes. While the batter rests turn on your griddle to medium/medium low. If you put butter on the griddle and it browns quickly or smokes the griddle is way too hot. Lower the heat and let it cool before continuing. After the griddle is preheated, ladle the batter onto the griddle in desired sizes. Let cook for 1-2 minutes before placing fillings into the pancakes. We used strawberries (because they were fresh) bananas (because they were ripe and on sale) and chocolate chips (because they were in the pantry, and I mean come on? Banana's strawberries and chocolate chips...Duh). Let the pancakes cook until they are browned on one side and flip. Cook until cooked through and brown on both sides and remove them from heat. Serve them immediately or keep in a warmed oven (200 degrees or lower) until ready to eat.