Pancakes to the Rescue!

When the grandchildren come over unexpectedly and I don't have anything in the house to feed them that they especially like, I can always fall back on pancakes.  One of the pieces of kitchen equipment that  makes this really easy is a cross burner griddle.  I can churn out a lot of pancakes pretty quickly to satisfy their sudden starvation.

I have lots of different recipes, many with hidden ingredients that boost their nutritional value:  pumpkin pancakes, cottage cheese pancakes, whole grain pancakes.  Fortunately, the kids are not picky about that.  And I often have a mix on hand for a really quick meal.

More important to them than the recipe I use is the shapes we'll make.  Lately, it's been sea creatures.  This last week I ended up pouring out sharks of various varieties; Marcus is really into sharks.  We'll be driving somewhere and he'll say, "Let's name as many sharks as we can.  You go first."  And we'll come up with a growing list.  Even Ethan is identifying the generic shark, with great glee.  I also made some whales , a few octupi, seahorses, even a couple of mola mola.

Since my favorite part of a pancake is the crispy edges, making things that have more convoluted shapes seems to increase my enjoyment, too!

And then there are the toppings!  Oh my!