O for Oatmeal pancakes.

this is one of my favorite pancake recipes. they are fluffy with a bit of chewiness from the oatmeal.
I don’t remember making these as a child, we mostly made pancakes without recipes though. and I must say that once I realized recipes actually existed for pancakes they have been turning out so much better. I mean I always knew recipes existed it was just we never used them, which meant it was about a one in ten chance the pancakes would be good. recipes changed all that.
now between this recipe and the one from a Betty Crocker cookbook my pancakes are fairly consistent, which is a good thing.


this recipe is pretty much like all pancake recipes. it basically mix everything together. the hardest part of making pancakes is the standing around waiting while they cook.

since unlike other recipes where you throw something in the oven and have time to go about doing other things while it bakes, pancakes have to have a constant watch. if you step away for even thirty seconds at the wrong time they will burn. and who wants burnt pancakes? not me. though I do have to admit I have at times scraped away the char and ate the burnt ones. but mostly I keep an eagle eye on them so I don’t have too. the other hard part is figuring out the timing of when to flip them. flip too soon its a globby mess, flip too late its chard. my method is to wait till bubbles appear nearly to the center of the pancake and a film has formed on the edges. this seems to work well for pancakes cooked on cast iron, I am not sure about other pans as I have always cooked with cast iron and don‘t have a clue about using other types of pans. watching cooking shows they definitely seem to cook differently.

and then on top of the constant watch you also have to make sure the heat is not turned up to high, or you can end up with a mess like in “Ramona and her mother” by: Beverly Cleary; when Ramona’s father slices the pancakes her mother just made and the batter oozes out because the pancakes are not cooked in the middle. I loved those books. I should totally read them again.

as for these oatmeal pancakes. they will remain the staple that they already are. I have always enjoyed a good pancake and feel they can be eaten for any meal or snack. they can be eaten with fruit added in before cooking or put on top after they are cooked. they can be sweetly topped with syrups and jellies; or they can have savory spices added to them and topped with meat or veggies. Pancakes are so versatile, I just love them.

N for nibble sticks.

Nibble sticks are pretty tasty. I knew this going into the recipe because we used to make this quite often.

When we were children in the summers we would go with a group of friends every clear Wednesday to the river for hours of swimming and fun. the area we used to go had several deep pools within about a quarter mile so if one was filled up you could always head over to the next.


the most popular one though had a large rock one could jump off. it wasn’t high out of the water only about two feet so it made it fun for all ages. we spent many hours taking turns jumping from this rock and working up an appetite.


Nibble sticks were the perfect cure for this. they were easy enough that we could make them on our own, and traveled well. by the time I was ten my mom had told us we needed to pack our own lunches for the river, so we did just that, making nibble sticks a staple. we had so much fun those Wednesdays.


nibble sticks are kind of a cross between biscuit and scone a little fluffier then a scone but not quite a biscuit either. they have Cheese an lunch meat mixed in which makes them feel more like a meal then plain biscuits. and easier then a sandwich because it doesn’t have to be assembled, and there is no chance of the contents slipping out and dropping out onto the ground. there is nothing worse then the contents of a sandwich slipping out of your bread onto the ground and being left standing there with two pieces of bread to eat, because dirt and pine needles are not palatable , and they will stick to cheese and sandwich meat.



my sister used to make these a lot for our trip to the river. and even though we would make the same recipe using the same instruction hers and mine always came out different from each others. to me hers always tasted better then mine. and I think the difference in them was the amount of mixing. hers were always a little more dense and flaky where as mine were more fluffy like a biscuit. I wonder which is the way its supposed to be. as the recipe gives no indication of finished texture. I guess it doesn’t matter though. both ways are tasty and that is what really counts.

M for Mud Pie

this was so good!
I remember begging my mother if we could make this recipe many times as a child, and her telling me no every time. for some reason she was dead set against this recipe. too much sugar for one thing and I think maybe the name put her off. but the recipe is for a chocolate gooey goodness, how can one go wrong with that?

the reason we never just went ahead and made it anyway I do believe is the lack of ingredients as a child we never kept chocolate syrup in the house and even now that I am grown its not something I keep around either, and chocolate syrup is a main ingredient in this recipe it is part of what makes it so gooey. it definitely makes this recipe what it is. A delicious, mouth-watering chocolate feast of scrumptiousness. yep I liked this one. a lot.

the chocolate base is an very rich brownie (emphasis on rich.) that goes together fairly easily. its basically just mix everything together in the order given then bake.

as soon as the brownie base is taken out of the oven you poke holes with a toothpick then spread chocolate syrup all over it, letting the syrup soak in as is cools. this is what gives it that lovely gooiness.


once its completely cool ,whipped cream is spread on top, or if your feeling fancy one could pipe it on. which would be very pretty and I kind of wish I had done. although with the way I pipe it probably wouldn't have been any prettier anyway. seriously piping is not my forte. but looks in cooking only matter if your selling, entering a contest, or on a baking show. and since I was not doing any of that its ok if its not over the top pretty. its all about the flavor. nothing I make is ever going to be very showy, its just going to come as it come.

I was ever so excited to finally make this recipe and it was everything I thought it would be. it turns out some dreams do come true. its nice not to be disappointed by a recipe that has been so highly anticipated. this book really does do a good job at having basic recipes that turn out so yummy.

the hardest part of the recipe was of course the waiting to eat it. waiting for things to cool completely can be so hard sometimes. and I actually had to wait even longer then that, as I made it to take to a party. which is the reason the cut piece is on a paper plate and not the usual plates I use. I thought about bringing one of the plates but I thought it might be a bit odd to show up with a fancy plate to such a low key party.

it was a hit though, so that made me happy. in fact the mud pie was well received everyone asked me for a copy of the recipe, that is definitely a way to tell if something actually tastes good.

I loved this recipe and will make it again.

L for lemon bars

I have always loved a good lemon bar. that being said though they have been the bane of my existence for many years. I have spent so much of my life trying to make good lemon bars, and failing exponentially each time.


yes me and lemon bars have a sad history, I have tried many, many recipes in hopes of finding that perfect one and each time there is something wrong with it. if the crust is perfect the filling is not. and if the filling is perfect the crust is not. one week I made lemon bars daily trying to get it right, repeating some recipes because they were close and maybe if I just tweaked this little thing it would work. swapping around fillings from one recipe to the other because the filling was good on one, but the crust was good on another. then feeding them to various family members till they were so sick of lemon bars they begged me to stop trying. none of them were ever quite right. and so I am beginning to believe I am the common denominator in this.

I do have to say though that this recipe is the closest I have ever come to perfecting lemon bars. the filling in this is really good. which I have found other recipes I have tried to be mostly lacking in this department. lemon bars I feel should have a nice lemon tartness to them, while still being sweet. but it seems most recipes call for an overwhelming amount of sugar to lemon ratio. lemon should never be so sweet the tartness is gone. its just wrong. but at the same time you don’t want it taste like a straight lemon and I have also made them where the lemons tartness is too over powering. I have also tried recipes that call for too much baking soda in the filling. and that I have too say is horrible. it not only tastes incredibly salty, it also changes the consistency of the filling causing it to be gloppy, bubbly and sharp where the bubbles on top burst then crystallized on top during the baking, and this has happened to me on more then one recipe. those recipes I didn't even bother trying again, they were gross.


I feel as if we made this recipe when I was a kid and it turned out fine. but I do believe it is because either my sister made them or my mother did. my sister is better then baking then I am so I am sure she could probably make these no sweat. I should have had her help me. I figure it still counts as me finishing this book if someone helps me. as long as I do a good portion of the work.

so what in this recipe did I not like? it was the crust in this one. it actually tasted ok, and this was my fault, I didn’t par bake the crust long enough, so it wasn’t quite set. I am not exactly sure how its supposed to look when its only half baked what is that magic look that gives the shortbread that perfect texture? definitely not what I did as it was a bit too soft. I suppose I should try making them again sometime to figure it out. because being slightly underdone was the only thing wrong with this recipe, and that was entirely my fault.

the taste was good, both crust and filling, so this is the recipe I will work to perfect, and one day I will get my perfect lemon bars.

once I get them perfect the worst thing about lemon bars will be the waiting for it them to cool completely. recipes that one has too wait hours to indulge in are some of the hardest recipes in the world. even if they are simple to make inpatients is hard to cure.

found out gold metal has this recipe on thier website!

K for Kartwheels

these are one of those pastries that scream make me! and so I have several times. but alas I can not seem to perfect it. I do seem to improve upon the recipe every time I make them though so I feel there is still hope to get that perfect buttery melt in your mouth texture I feel these deserve.


I think my problem is over mixing them. it seems tobe a temperamental type dough. kind of in the same was biscuits can be, though this is in no way a biscuit , its more of a shortbread cookie. but when I fist started making biscuits I struggled with over mixing them at first and then under mixing them till I finally got the right formula and now after so many failed attempts I make a delicious fluffy biscuit without even thinking about it. I just know how, and its not really in the ingredients or the instructions its all in the feel. while recipes are important its amazing to me how much there is to knowing how its supposed look and feel before the cooking process, and the only way to find that is to keep making and keep failing till one gets its right. one day I will get this right.


I by no means feel that these were a failure, in fact they were quite good, definitely the best I have ever made, but still not quite perfection. which can only mean one thing. I need to make them more often. Kartwheels however are not like biscuits, they are not something I can make nearly everyday , they need to be farther spaced out, and right now I am trying not to repeat any of the recipes in the book until I have finished them all. so perfecting must wait.


the cookie part of these are a shortbread type that is then filled with a pie filling. I used a strawberry jelly that I combined with fresh blueberries and cornstarch and lemon for the filling. I really liked the way the filling turned out. but really how can one go wrong with that combination?
this could be made with a variety of different jellies or jams. I used what I had on hand. at some point I think I would try this with a cherry filling. and maybe even an apple filling. obviously I like this recipe. so this is one I will definitely make again.