Thursday Night's Dinner...Pumpkin Pancakes!

One of the things that I love about cooking and eating is how it brings people together.  Some of the best moments that I have shared with my friends and family involve sitting around a table with good conversation and lingering over a home-cooked meal.  Since I live with my boyfriend, he is of course my primary cooking and dining partner.  But I really love it when my friends come over to cook (and eat) with me.  Last night, one of my best friends, KK, came over to cook and eat dinner with us and we had a blast.

In the morning, we emailed back and forth about what we'd like to cook for dinner and somehow we decided that we'd have breakfast for dinner with Bloody Mary's, eggs, bacon and pumpkin pancakes!  I know it is strange but I really enjoy having breakfast for dinner and luckily KK feels the same.

After a long day on the road for work, I hit the gym and then headed home to get started on our delicious breakfast dinner.  I lined two pans with aluminum foil and lining up thick slices of hickory smoked bacon on the pans.  I'm a huge fan of cooking bacon by baking it because I find that the bacon gets extra crispy with very little clean up involved.

I also got to work on making the Bloody Mary drinks for Kim and I.  B doesn't like Bloody Mary's and stuck to a glass of wine.  I was using a new product, RIPE San Marzano Bloody Mary mixer, along with Ketel Vodka.  I'll write more about this product in another blog post on but in one word these Bloody Mary's were delish.

B got to work putting together the pancake batter.  Although we found some great recipes for pumpkin pancakes, we were feeling a bit lazy so we just went with Aunt Jemima instant pancake mix. 

While the box calls for one and a half cups of water, B put in one cup of water and 3/4 cup of canned pumpkin puree.  He also added some generous dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg to the batter.  The key to a good pancake batter is to mix all the ingredients together without over working it.  The addition of the pumpkin puree made a thick batter that was perfect for large fluffy pancakes.

When the batter was done, we preheated the oven to 400 degrees.  When the oven was ready, we put the trays of bacon in the oven for about twenty minutes.  

While the bacon was cooking, this is where we put KK to work.  Although she has many talents as a finance compliance guru, MBA student and two-time Ironman athlete, she also is a fantastic pancake maker.  At her guidance, we heated up two large frying pans that had both non-stick cooking spray and a generous pat of butter.  When the frying pans were "sizzling like bacon" (and that is a direct quote from the pancake master), we turned the heat down and let KK get to work on ladling the batter into the pans.

After a few minutes on each side, the pancakes had a nice golden brown color and looked deliciously inviting.  We put the pancakes in a lid-covered baking dish to keep them warm as the rest of the pancakes were cooking.  When KK was finishing up the last pancakes, she also got to work on the eggs and cooked them to a perfect over easy.

The end result?  A delicious breakfast for dinner.  The bacon was very well done (a little error on my part of cooking times and tray placement) but still delicious with a nice smoky flavor that is always tasty with the sweet maple syrup and the runny egg yolks.  The pancakes, thanks to KK and B, were light, fluffy and had the nicest flavors of pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg.  

Although the meal was fantastic, what I enjoyed most about last night was goofing around in the kitchen, telling stories and spending time with the people I love.  And in the end, isn't that what really counts?