I heart cooking clubs- Dining with Dad

Here I am posting on the last day of the week, again! Hmmm, I need to get more organized. We have so many things going on during the summer that posting gets pushed to last.
Okay, so this week I made two recipes from How to Cook Everything. The first one is Everday Pancakes with one of his variations, and the second recipe was The Best Scrambled Eggs.

The Everyday Pancake recipe is a really great basic pancake recipe. It will probably be my go-to recipe for pancakes because it is so versatile and quick to whip up. I love all of the add in suggestions and look forward to trying a lot of them. Some of them sound so good, like substituting coconut milk for regular milk (love coconut milk) and some of them sound intriguing like spooning the batter over cooked bacon. I didn't pick anything as exciting as either of those two suggestions this time. My husband is a big fan of grains so we added one cup of cooked wheat berries to the batter. He liked it a lot and everyone else seemed to enjoy them as well (particularly my littlest guy). The wheat berries kind of give the pancake a chewy texture but it worked. Here is the recipe-

Everyday Pancakes

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar, optional (I left it out)
  
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons melted and cooled butter (optional), plus unmelted butter for cooking, or use neutral oil

Method

• 1. Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium-low heat. In a bowl, mix together dry ingredients. Beat eggs into 1 1/2 cups milk, then stir in 2 tablespoons melted cooled butter, if using it. Gently stir this mixture into dry ingredients, mixing only enough to moisten flour; don't worry about a few lumps. If batter seems thick, add a little more milk.
• 2. Place a teaspoon or 2 of butter or oil on griddle or skillet. When butter foam subsides or oil shimmers, ladle batter onto griddle or skillet, making pancakes of any size you like. Adjust heat as necessary; usually, first batch will require higher heat than subsequent batches. Flip pancakes after bubbles rise to surface and bottoms brown, after 2 to 4 minutes.
• 3. Cook until second side is lightly browned. Serve, or hold on an ovenproof plate in a 200-degree oven for up to 15 minutes.

My second recipe, The Best Scrambled Eggs, was also pretty good. They take quite a long time to cook but they have a very creamy texture. I probably won't make these too often. They were tasty but not enough to justify the extra time they took. One of the things I love about scrambled eggs is that they only take about five minutes to whip up so this just isn't as useful to me but for a special occasion they would be a yummy addition. The recipe only makes two servings so I doubled it. I also didn't have cream on hand (well actually I did but it was put in a part of my fridge that freezes and was totally solid) so I used 3 tblsp. of whole milk with 1 tblsp. butter. Here is this recipe doubled-
The Best Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients

• 8-10 eggs
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 tablespoons of cream
• 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil

Method

• 1.Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them just until the yolks and whites are combined. Season with salt and pepper and beat in the cream.
• 2. Put a medium skillet, preferably nonstick, over medium heat for about 1 minute. Add the butter or oil and swirl it around the pan. After the butter melts, but before it foams, turn the heat to low.
• 3. Add the eggs to the skillet and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. At first nothing will happen; after 10 minutes or so, the eggs will begin to form curds. Do not lose patience: Keep stirring, breaking up the curds as they form, until the mixture is a mass of soft curds. This will take 30 minutes or more. Serve immediately.
  

Coffee Break Muffins

I don't drink coffee but I like the smell and have been wanting to try Dorie Greenspan's recipe for these muffins, with a little tweaking of my own. The only thing I changed was that I used Postum instead of espresso. I liked them and will make them again but I think next time I will add a tablespoon of cocoa powder just because I personally felt like they needed a little something extra. I thought about adding chocolate chips but I think that might make them a little too sweet and I liked the fact that they were not overly sweet first thing in the morning.
Here is the recipe with my changes...

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp. postum
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup hot water with 1 tbsp. postum, cooled
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400F. Prepare a muffin pan.
In a large bowl whisk together the first 6 ingredients. Add the brown sugar. In another bowl whisk the remaining ingredients. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients. Whisk gently but quickly to blend. Do not overblend. Divide batter evenly among the muffin cups.
Bake for 20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.