Canyon Life

Do you ever wake up early on a Saturday morning, when you really just want to sleep in, and then sluggishly make your way to a social outing that you thought you wanted to go to but then didn't really want to because sleep seemed more appealing the morning of?  And of course, as soon as you get to the event or friends house or whatever, you are super glad you went. Because friends are awesome and they have lots of coffee and teach you fun things. That's what happened to me yesterday.

For a few months now, my good friend Rachel has been trying to organize a morning of cooking. You know how that goes sometimes, you plan, stuff comes up, schedules change, kids get sick, we just couldn't seem to get it together and stick to a date. Finally, after a few failed attempts, we met up yesterday. It was just three of us, Rachel, myself, and another friend, Jasmine. Jasmine was the reason Rachel was trying to get this event on the calendar. Last spring, Jasmine got married to her long-time, long-distance fiance (when I say long distance, I'm talking AUSTRALIA. Wow.),  Alex. It was a mind blowing wedding, two beautiful Romanian families coming together, celebrating a couple of fantastic Christ-centered kids tying the knot. Have you ever been to a Romanian wedding? If you ever get the chance, make sure you go. They know how to put on a party! The food, the decor, the romance.... I digress. Anyways, Rachel gave Jas a really cool gift for her marriage, an ebelskiver pan. Seen here:

Jasmine and Alex are apparently big fans of this pan, because it makes these delicious Danish puffed pancakes they had in Australia. Rachel had learned to make them from her mother, so she offered to teach Jasmine the basics. She also gave her a cookbook on ebelskiver, from Williams-Sonoma. We used their basic recipe to get started, and here's the link to it from their website so you can do it too:

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/jam-filled-pancakes.html?cm_src=RECIPESEARCH

The link is actually a jam filled recipe, but that's ok, you get the idea. 

Rachel had Jasmine make the batter, which is a tiny bit time consuming, because you have to separate the eggs and whip the whites to stiff peaks and all that. If you are making enough for a crowd, double the recipe. We ended up making four batches so we'd have enough to bring home and share, and also because we kept shoving them in our mouths as soon as they were cooked. It can't be helped.

The neat thing about these pancakes is that they can be stuffed with anything. Fruit, jam, curd, chocolate, or savory things, herbs, cheese, nuts, and meats. You really can't go wrong. Rachel had blueberry filling and chocolate chips, Jasmine brought berries of all sorts, and I brought the savory, prosciutto, gruyere cheese, and green onion.

We started making the sweet pancakes first, just a dollop of batter in the pan, flip with these nifty wooden lobster hand looking tongs, and then toss in powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar. Next we made jam filled, strawberry filled, and all the fruits we had. To fill you just put half a scoop of batter, spoon about a tablespoon of filling, then cover with another half scoop of batter. Very simple, but you have to move quick. Then we added chocolate to a few, testing the different combinations to see what we liked best. There wasn't a bad flavor among anything we tried. After all the sweet stuff was done, we switched to savory fillings and things got crazy. Cheese, prosciutto, green onion and a dab of stone ground mustard went into a few, then just cheese, then ALOT more cheese, then cheese on the inside and outside, and then and then and then..... we ate them. And they were good. I think I prefer savory over sweet. Needless to say we thought of a bunch of other things we could do next time, and I am currently adding ebelskiver pan to my Christmas list. Rachel says her favorite go-to gift is a Williams-Sonoma ebelskiver cookbook and pan. I may copy that idea sometime, it's not even expensive. I highly recommend trying this in your own home. Kids love it, husbands will feel like you made them something that was difficult which then makes them feel special. Get to it!