Pancakes (or Waffles) for One
My children are both in public schools. Consequently, there are usually very few other children at school who also keep kosher.
Events where there is food involved take a bit of planning.
If there is a birthday party for a classmate, or another special event around food, I will send in a similar kosher item for the girls to eat.
I try to make whatever I send appealing and special. I hope that this way, neither one of them will feel left out or deprived.
Last week, Raizel’s class went to a local diner for brunch. The goal was to learn how to speak to a waitress, communicate what you want to eat, stick to a budget, handle money, etc.
This always presents a quandary for me. While I am happy to have Raizel learn these tasks, I struggle with what she will eat, when she cannot eat anything that she orders.
Raizel explained her dilemma to her teacher, who then asked if he could speak to me. As a member of a religious minority, I very often have to explain to their teachers and the administrators about our food restrictions.
Her teacher was very kind and respectful. It was his suggestion that I send Raizel to the restaurant with kosher food that she could eat with her class.
This time, I made Raizel pancakes, using our new wonderful stove top grill. Since pancakes are not very popular in our house, I only wanted to make just enough pancakes for one serving.
Ingredients:
1/3 cup flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon –a dash
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon oil
3 drops of vanilla
Optional extras:
Maple syrup, ¼ berries, chocolate chips, 1 tablespoon shredded coconut, 1 teaspoon icing sugar, butter
Instructions:
Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. Then, add the egg, oil, milk and vanilla and stir until smooth and well mixed.
Spray oil the grill and heat over a medium hot flame. When the grill is hot, pour batter onto the grill until desired size and cook on one side until lightly browned. I added chocolate chips on top of each pancake. Then, using a spatula, turn each pancake over and cook on the other side.
For waffles, cook according to the settings recommended for the waffle maker.
I served the pancakes with maple syrup. When I packed the pancakes in a container, I added the maple syrup inside the container with an even smaller container.
The pancakes came out great and Raizel loved them!
I think that now that we have this wonderful stove top grill, I am likely to be making pancakes more often. Since I only spray oiled the grill, they came out light and fluffy and not greasy.
Mixing the dry ingredients in a bowl.
The batter mixed up until smooth.
Pancakes on the griddle.
Chocolate chips added on top.
final product, in process.
Served with maple syrup on the side.
Raizel said, “this is the best recipe ever! Usually I don’t even like pancakes.”
References:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Old-Fashion-Pancakes-Single-Serving/
http://itsautumnslife.com/waffles-for-one/
cookingforthetimechallenged 
Favorite breakfast treat ! These look so good !
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i loved it on my school time perfect food for breakfast yummy😄
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😊
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shredded coconut is a must and add a bit of ground flaxseed meal too
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Yum!
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These look absolutely delicious and it is great that you go to lengths to ensure the girls never feel they are losing out by having different dietary needs and strictures. I know how hard that is but also how rewarding it is too. I wanted to share with you that my eldest daughter has just moved into her first owned home with her husband yesterday and today posted a film on facebook of her new kitchen all unpacked with the comment ‘I’ve got my kitchen ready to go before I unpack anything else just like mummy always did’ – it melted my heart 🙂
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That is soooooo nice! I guess you never know what they are soaking in. Congratulations for your daughter! That is a real milestone. Where does she live? Are you able to visit? In my first apartment, I had no idea how to organize the kitchen. I asked my mother to come and help me. Her voice is always in my head whenever I cook. Fortunately, she is a wizard in the kitchen!
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I’m en route to London on Tuesday and I can’t WAIT to see it 😀 I learned to cook watching and listening to my mother, she to hers and my daughters to me …. If you love cooking the kitchen is the heart of home and family and no one will guide better than your mummy 😌
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Too true! Although in my mother’s family it skipped a generation. She learned to cook from her grandmother. My mother too over the cooking when she was 10 years old, as her mother worked.
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These will make a beautiful breakfast meal! They look great 🙂
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They really were. Plus, not to much.
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looks delicious, good recipe
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Thank you! A hit. The new griddle makes a difference.
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Your husband is right. The following comes from http://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/choosing-healthy-fats.htm:
There are basically two types of unsaturated vegetable oils:
Traditional, cold-pressed oils such as extra virgin olive oil, peanut oil, and sesame oil that are rich in monounsaturated fats and made without the use of chemicals or heat.
Modern processed oils such as soybean oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, canola oil, cottonseed oil, and safflower oil which are industrially manufactured—usually from genetically modified crops in the U.S.—using heat and toxic solvents.
Quote finished, this is me again:
There is also cold-pressed walnut oil sold everywhere before Pesach, and that’s the one I use. Canola and safflower are the worst in terms of being completely genetically engineered. Sunflower oil depends on having reliable information about the processing plant. Oilve and sesame oils are too heavy for frying, so sticking to cold-pressed nut oils seems to be the option for now.
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Thank you for clarifying that! What do you think of light olive oil for baking? Is it better to use coconut oil?
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My pleasure! I had undertaken this whole study of different oils years ago when I discovered that I was allergic to canola oil. To answer your questions, coconut oil is very trendy, but not very healthy. Here is a comparison prepared by a licensed nutritionist https://blog.fitbit.com/fat-face-off-olive-oil-vs-coconut-oil/
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Thank you! I am trying to figure this all out. Usually, I am the one who is pushing to be more healthy. What about baking? (And, I found 1 recipe for fish cholent. I wonder if anyone would eat it?)
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Maybe if you don’t tell them what it is…
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It called for canned sardines. But, how bad could it be?
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It could be very bad, if there is canned stuff that goes into it. I have to catch my husband in a fishing mood, then I’ll be able to make it and take pics. Bur generally, you need a fish, with bones, head, tail, and all, not a filet. Pike is great. What we catch around here is rainbow trout or red / yellow snapper. Then you need beets, carrots, potatoes, celery, parsley root and parsley greens, barley, tomato, and beans. Start with sauteing onion and garlic, then dump all the veggies into a crock pot, cook until potatoes and beets are done, and set it up for Shabbos by cutting fish into portions and adding it to the veggies. Season, add some bay leaf and whole black peppercorns, and if you like it hot, a chili, cherry, or jalapeno pepper. Last step, add some dry red wine (some people add beer instead, but I don’t do beer), and go bench your licht!
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Do you leave the fish whole or wrap it in a cheese cloth? How do you prevent the bones from getting in the way?
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To tell the truth, sucking on the bones was the most delicious thing out of the whole deal, but with your girls, it is certainly a concern. What I would suggest, then, is to filet it and make sure there are no bones in the filet, and then wrap the bones in cheese cloth. This way, you’ll have boneless pieces of fish to serve, as well as the intensity of the fish stock that comes form the bones. Allspice also helps to bring it out. Gut voch!
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Thank you! This is a great idea.
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The way you deal with a very challenging situation by maintaining Kashruth while making Raizel comfortable in non-kosher environments and eliciting respect, rather than resentment, from teachers and administration, is a lesson for all – amazing! Yashar Koach!
If you don’t mind my answering your reader: there is kosher whole wheat flour, both organic and inorganic, and I use that or spelt flour for practically everything, including pancakes and blintzes.
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In general, I find school administrators and teachers very respectful. The challenge is more for Raizel. As a teenager, she is still developing and self-conscious. It is not easy to feel different than your peers. It requires inner fortitude to maintain one’s culture when the surrounding cultural norms are different than yours. Ultimately, the goal is to peacefully coexist with others based on a foundation of mutual respect. I am grateful that her identity is strong.
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Any teenager is a challenge, for herself, her parents, her teachers, etc. Raizel’s admirable ability to meet all her challenges has been nurtured and is being reinforced by you and your husband. Trust me, I am a professional in this field! A huge big Yashar Koach goes to you and your husband.
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Thank you! I feel like Raizel, like all of us, is on her own journey. I pray everyday that we will guide her well and that she will have the tools that she needs to function to her maximum potential.
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I can totally relate to that, but don’t we all wish that to all our kids? One warning I have always given to parents of kids with special needs at seminars is not to set benchmarks for their kids’ potentials or abilities. Raise the plank and keep raising it! You don’t know what H-shem’s plans for her are.
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It is true. The struggle is to balance the special with the education.
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Yes, but if you think about it, what is education? Who says that to be a functional and relatively happy human being, one has to know certain facts, but not necessarily other facts?
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Agreed!
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Devilishly delicious. After looking at the ingredients, I can see why the taste buds enjoyed the finished product. This dish helps create BALANCE with all the other healthy meals you prepare.
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It came out great! Now, she keeps asking for them all the time.
Off topic, my husband has decided that he no longer wants to use canola oil, which he says is unhealthy. Have you ever done research on healthy fats?
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Is the pope catholic? 🙂 You can find my article about healthy oils at: https://allabouthealthychoices.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/time-for-an-oil-change/
If you have other questions about foods and healthy fats, just let me know.
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I knew you were the right person to ask. I have to read it.
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I used to make big batches for my kids, even turn them into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Fun and wholesome, if you add whole wheat flour instead of bleached white flour. Is there a kosher whole wheat flour? Just don’t want to offend you, dear. Smiles, Robin
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I tried to do that, using spelt rather than wheat flour. I would make a whole batch and freeze them. But, no one would eat them after they were frozen. Using the griddle makes them much less greasy. Maybe now they would be interested?
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