Weekend Things: Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce

This weekend I…

Got a special package delivered straight from New Orleans. <— Thanks, Uncle!

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My mom said I shouldn’t have shared with everyone at work.  I argued that then I wouldn’t be able to brag that I have family in New Orleans or see the look on people’s faces when you say “don’t accidentally eat the baby!”

Enjoyed Friday evening Happy Hour.

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We tried a new place in Louisville.  It was cute, affordable, and the pizza was delicious but it just wasn’t the Med.

Cooked a delicious Saturday night dinner.

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Beef stroganoff, mustardy brussel sprouts and red wine.  I’m on a mission to become a wino but I currently know nothing about wine and am paranoid that liquor store employees are suspicious when I wander around the wine section for so long before finally making a decision.

Had dinner and well, more King Cake at my parents’ on Sunday  night.

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My mom found the baby, continuing my streak of not finding the baby.  FYI this is a Mardi Gras tradition.  You hide this plastic baby inside the King Cake and the person who finds it in their piece is in charge of hosting the party the next year.

Other weekend highlights would include…

An outdoor run, seeing Gangster Squad (Ryan Gosling, you so cool), me pretending to work on the puzzle but actually just watching TV instead while Joey comes up with some systematic way to finish all the sky parts that are left, coffee with Hannah, bottling our beer and booking a trip to Vegas for my sister’s 21st birthday!!  I think I’m more excited than she is.

Oh!  and Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce!

Last week we made “the lazy man’s quiche” aka a fritatta, with ricotta cheese.  It was delicious by the way, but we had leftover ricotta that I didn’t want to waste, so ricotta pancakes were born.  Lemon and blueberries are the obvious pairings for such pancakes and they turned out to be really delicious.

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Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce

For the pancakes:

  • 1 cup AP flour
  • 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 cup ricotta
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg white
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 1/2-2/3 cup milk (enough to get batter to the right consistency — you want it slightly thick)

For the blueberry sauce:

  • 1 cup blueberries
  • 2 tablespoons water
  • juice of half a lemon
  1. In a large bowl, combine flours, salt, baking soda baking powder and sugar.
  2. In another bowl, combine ricotta, egg, egg white, milk and lemon juice.
  3. Add ricotta mixture to dry ingredients, mix until just combined and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
  4. Heat a griddle, and drop batter by the 1/4 cup once hot.  Once bubbles start to form, flip pancakes and cook on the other side.
  5. While pancakes are cooking, combine blueberries, water and lemon juice in a sauce pot.  Bring to a boil, then mash blueberries, reduce heat and simmer 5-10 minutes or until thickened.
  6. Top pancakes with blueberry sauce and devour!

Now what to do with the 1 cup of ricotta that’s still left over.

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What did you do this weekend?

Do you know what a King Cake is?

What’s your favorite weekend breakfast to indulge in?

Weekend Things: This is December

So, it’s that time of year again.

December.  Full-on Christmas season.  Which means Christmas lights, Christmas shopping, Christmas music (except that I’ve been listening to that for the past 3 weeks…) and Christmas feasting.  Oh and December also means the KBCO Studio C release!

I’m sorry if you’ve been reading my blog for the past 3 years, and have to keep reading posts about me waiting in line at 6 AM for some CD, drinking Starbucks and dressed like it’s below freezing outside, but this year will be no different.  Except that it was about 50 degrees and I was overdressed.


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But like always, my mom ended up going even though she claimed she wasn’t, we took pictures of us waiting in line and sent them to my uncle (who pointed out that I was overdressed) and reminisced about all the other years that we’ve waited in line.

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Warm enough for iced drinks, apparently.  I think I prefer warm weather to having to wait outside in the dark while it rains or just full on snows.  And by “I think” I mean I know.

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I’m guessing next year we will reminisce about 2012, the year someone drove up and asked why we were all waiting in front of a liquor store (the line ends up winding there) and one of the radio show hosts answered that “the people of Boulder just want their liquor!”

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And I will reminisce about how ecstatic I was that they were passing out bagels and cream cheese because I’ve had a serious bagel craving for the past couple of weeks.  And just for the record, that bagel was everything I hoped it would be.

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You know, I used to go because there’s a 2 CD per person limit and my mom needed me to be able to get more than 2 CDs, then I went because it was a tradition, and now I go because want a copy of the CD.  It’s unplugged, it’s not the crap on the pop radio stations and it’s always so good.

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I think Mayer Hawthorne and Grafitti6 are my favorites, but really, I love them all so far.  Oh, and I also go because it’s tradition.  And once something becomes a tradition, I basically insist on doing it for the rest of forever.  So don’t think you’re bailing next year, Mom.

After we got our CDs, we all kind of parted ways and I, in fact, went off to run a race.

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This being the only proof that I actually ran the Colder Bolder with my friend Jenn because I wasn’t about to carry my phone during the race.  The joke was on me though when we got beanies in our race packet and had to hold them the entire time we ran.  The race was on CU campus and I love being on campus so I loved the course (except the hills!) and only ran off the race course on accident once…

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December also means the Denver Parade of Lights.  Which I thought would mean a quick drive into Denver, picking a prime spot to watch the parade from and easily grabbing a late dinner somewhere on the 16th Street Mall.  Except that it was really nice outside and everyone else also had the same plan, so by the time we’d made it to the parade (40 minutes after it started — hey traffic, you suck) it was so packed that there was no way we’d be getting anywhere close enough to the parade to see it.  And the wait for a table was an hour and a half (no thanks).  And we wandered around through crowded Denver for way too long looking for somewhere to eat that didn’t have a wait that would have us eating after midnight.

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Okay, after midnight is a slight exaggeration.  Oddly enough, even though nothing went as planned and it was late and it felt like we had walked all over Denver, I was totally okay with how the night turned out.  I’m usually the one who freaks out if we stray from the plan or if dinner isn’t at a normal hour and for some reason, I was just totally calm.

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We eventually happened upon a place with no wait (whoa!) and enough good-looking menu options to make up our minds pretty easily.  I got French Onion soup and a glass of wine and was totally content with life.  That parade probably sucked anyways.

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I spent the better part of yesterday at the mall with this person.  This person who has a dog treat fanny pack.  And whom, I told “I can’t be a part of this” to when she put her dog treat fanny pack on.  But we also did some Christmas shopping, lunch eating and boot trying-on.

Since it’s December, I can only assume there will be more Christmas activities, Starbucks holiday drinks, shopping, comfort food and family time.  Yep, it’s that time of year.

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How did you ring in December?

Are you done Christmas shopping or are you like me and have barely started?

Does it feel like winter where you live or is it unseasonably warm like it is in Colorado?