Pancake Day is finally here (I think you might call it something else in the US? Fat Tuesday? Love that name). So what’s for dinner?
I like to keep it simple and traditional (well, traditional for the UK, anyway) - we cook thin, crêpe-like pancakes and serve simply with lemon and sugar. Mandatory pan tossing is involved.
Much like this:
It’s also called Shrove Tuesday.
It is indeed, but I’m a heathen so am very much focused on the food.
We will also be making thin pancakes, but alongside lemon and sugar some of us will have golden syrup and some - gluttons all - will have Nutella.
Tasty though the pancakes are though, the main point of the exercise is the flipping.
We had some hot cross buns yesterday. It gave me the opportunity to point out they’d gone up in price. I remember when they were one a penny.
We made paczki yesterday, which are Polish jelly doughnuts that are traditionally made prior to lent.
Good Lord, it’s WAY too early for hot cross buns (despite what the supermarkets are trying to tell me)
Hot cross buns may be eaten up to six months before or after good friday.
Sorry, but them’s the rules.
I’m not religious, nor am I spiritual.
Nor me, but I don’t eat Christmas pudding or mince pies in June, either! You’ll be cracking into your Easter eggs next.
Well, I do celebrate St Practice Day. (A drinking holiday for preparing for St Patrick’s Day)
Now that, I could get on board with.
Polish jelly donuts on steroids. Paczis are big in the Detroit area (in popularity and size-- I’ve heard they can be up to 1000 calories in one paczki).
One of the things I both miss and am relieved I do not experience, no longer working in an office environment, is that I am no longer tempted by things like chocolate-topped, custard-filled paczis being brought into the office. Those were my Kryptonite-- the jelly-filled ones I could resist.
oops never mind
I see these in our local grocery store’s bakery this time of year. Do they taste just like a bismark?
Traditionally, they are jelly-filled and rolled in granulated sugar. Bismarks are cream-filled.
I’ve avoided cream or other dairy filled pastries since I got a bad cheese Danish at work once. Now, the thought of a cream-filled donut turns my stomach (although I can still eat cream puffs. Weird). I lurve jelly donuts from Randy’s.
There’s a pancake-fried chicken restaurant I’ve gone to since I was a little kid. They make a German oven pancake that’s rather thin and served with lemon and powdered sugar. Really yummers. I think I could really get into pancake day.
This is the first time in forever that I’ve had a Shakespeare class that met on Shrove Tuesday, so I made my students apple fritters from this more-or-less period recipe. Not bad if I do say so myself!
Many in the United States (specifically around New Orleans) also call it Mardi Gras. Tonight we eat jambalaya made with andouille sausage. Been listening to Cajun music all day.
Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) is a good Catholic holiday, being the day before Ash Wednesday. Gotta love it - “you’re going to give up something fun for 40 days, so go nuts partying the night before!”
Bought two dozen paczki this morning from a local bakery (why, yes, the owner is Polish!). Please do not confuse the mass-produced crap you find in a grocery store with actual bakery pastries. Find yourself a good Polish deli / bakery. Worlds apart.
I made a king cake yesterday, filled with cinnamon and sugar. Baby included, which my son found.