Dutch Baby Pancakes, Pear Dutch Baby

Yesterday was Day 26 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made us a Pear Dutch Baby (Dutch Baby Pancakes, which can be vary in a number of ways.

PEAR DUTCH BABY, very good...

I make a recipe somewhat like this at our Bed and Breakfast Lodge, Apple Sausage Puff Pancakes (you can click on the link for that recipe); I don't have a picture of it, but will try to take one the next time I make them. They're always a hit with our guests, and it's one of my daughter and son in law's favorite breakfasts that she makes for him frequently.

I make mine slightly different. I found a recipe similar to this one that called for fresh fruit with an orange glaze sauce, cooked in a pie tin. I altered it created my own apple sausage filling and serve them in individual ramekins for the guests. They love them because not only do they taste wonderful, but the presentation is usually impressive. The ramekins are hot, the pancake rises above the ramekin by an inch or so, and I drizzle some of the sauce around the edge to make it sizzle when it's served.

Anyway, back to THIS recipe. I followed the instructions as the recipe called for and made it in a cast iron skillet as directed. For some reason the pancake only rose on half of the skillet and was flat on the other side, not sure why it didn't work all the way around, but when I make these in ramekins it can be a fickle recipe and if a little drip of batter gets on the edge of the ramekin it can stop the rise. Temperature of the skillet, or ramekins, is also important, and how hot the butter is. It can be tricky getting it to be "just right" every time, and I guess it's no different with making it in a skillet.

We really liked the flavor and texture of the pears as the filling. You had to use a lot of lemon juice, which I'm guessing is what's substituted for butter and/or syrup, and we thought it would be WAY too much, but it turned out fine. Knowing that there was so much lemon in it made us more aware of it, but I don't think you would have noticed it so much had you not known there was so much in it.

Also, the pears were a bit on the mushy side, however, I don't think that's a fault of the recipe, I just think my pears were a bit more ripe than they should have been. And the recipe does not tell you to peel the pears, which I would have done. The picture in the cookbook looks like they were peeled, but since the recipe didn't tell you to, I did not peel them. It only tells you to core and thinly slice the pears. Peeling them would have been better.

Final synopsis... this was a really good recipe that I would definitely make again. And I think I'll use pears in my puff pancake at the B&B instead of apples sometime to change it up a bit. This is a keeper recipe.

49 recipes down, 498 more to go.

Waffles and Berries, Linguine with Two Sauces

Today was day 24 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made two dishes. I made some Waffles and Berries (Waffles with Two-Berry Syrup) this morning, and some Linguine with Two Sauces for dinner tonight. Here's our critique of these two dishes...

WAFFLES WITH TWO-BERRY SYRUP, tough waffles, good sauce...

The waffles themselves had really good flavor (made with white flour, whole wheat flour, flax seed, and wheat germ), but they were a bit tough. We like our waffles a little lighter and fluffier. But, the flavors were very good and we liked the taste, just not the texture.

Also, the batter was really wet. I ended up letting the batter sit for a few minutes to allow the liquid to absorb into the flours and it helped quite a bit.

The syrup, however, was really good, and really easy to make. I thought it was really watery so I let it cook down a little bit and ended up cooking it down a bit too much. I may use this syrup at our Bed and Breakfast to top my own pancakes, waffles, blintzes and crepes. it was good, and really easy.

I probably will not make this particular waffle recipe again, however, and definitely would not serve it at our B&B since the texture was tough. But I did like the flavors. If it could be variated somehow so it wasn't so tough, I'd love to make this dish again, but it needs to be lightened up a bit.

LINGUINE WITH TWO SAUCES, one of my favorites so far!

I REALLY liked this dish a lot! My hubby liked it ok, but he's not a big time creamy sauce guy, so wasn't as in love with it as I was, but he still liked it well enough to make again in the future sometime.

It was a little on the sweet side, however. I'm not sure what caused it to be sweet since there was no sugar in it. Maybe the tomatoes, maybe the 1/4 of white wine (which was supposed to be a dry white wine) was not as dry as it should have been, which may have been the case as I'm not a wine connoisseur. But, I loved it.

The combination of the creamy white sauce that the pasta was mixed in with, and the red sauce that the pasta was topped with, blended really well together. I knew it was going to be good when I smelled the sauces cooking before it was put together and baked in the oven. And then when I pulled the foil off the top after baking it the aromas were delightful. I could not wait to try it. And once I did, I was so very pleasantly surprised.

I will be making this dish again and again I think.

46 recipes down, 501 more to go (close to breaking the 500 mark!)