another knitting lunch break, and pancakes

As the weather was so nice Emm and I went to the seaside again, after a not so exciting trip to B&Q to get sealant for the leaking toilet (blurgh). Emm fell asleep on the way there so I got an hours knitting on her "little sister's dress", while looking out at the sea and sky and passersby. And eating mini chocolate rice cakes. after that we went for a walk, and to discover that the shoe shop that used to do the 'startrite' kids shoes, doesn't do any childrens shoes any more! And that the special offer of 1€ Johnson&Johnson wipes in the local shop excluded the unperfumed ones. Coming to terms with the fact that this just wasn't going to be a fun shopping day we went to the play ground, where Emm had lots of fun on the swings, and she walked all the way back to the car, still mostly insisting on two hands (my back is sore, I hope she'll get a little braver soon, we're practising lots so fingers crossed).

I'm so grateful to have my own car, it's such a treat!

Oh, yes, Pancake Tuesday, we had german style pancakes (big thin ones), with a creamed spinach filling (bacon, garlic, chili, spinach, cream, nutmeg, and some leftover grated mozarella). No photos unfortunately, and for dessert we had the leftover pancakes with real maple syrup! the shop assistant was trying to get me to buy the cheaper syrup, he felt guilty for the price difference, not realising that the cheaper one wasn't maple syrup at all, but golden syrup with maple flavouring! I try and stay away from artificial flavours as much as I can! I'd rather buy the real stuff, once a year, than have the cheap one all year round! Emm quite liked the spinach pancakes, we rolled them up for her, but she preferred the maple syrup ones!

So weird, Pancake Tuesday, I know a good few people here, that eat pancakes only on Pancake Tuesday! In Germany there's no such thing, everybody is either tired out from karneval, or still celebrating Fasnacht/Fasching! When I was a kid, we had pancakes about twice a week, and now my mum still makes some at least once a week, more often if her grandkids are over. She serves them with molasses or jam, as a special treat we sometimes got fried banana with them, but in the days before non stick pans it was a lot of extra cleaning up!

In the area I come from there's also buckwheat pancakes, a very savoury affair, quite bitter! They are made with coffee, water, eggs and the buckwheat flour (and salt if you're not using bacon), and fried in lard or oil, with  tiny pieces of bacon thrown in. They are very thin and crispy, and we had them regularly when my granny was still doing the cooking.

The savoury pancakes came into the picture in college, spinach soon becoming my favourite. They were such a quick and easy dinner to make, not too expensive, and getting some protein and other useful things into me, and using up lots of veg from the fridge.

And tonight, we had shredded duck and pancakes, the chinese kind! You know, the really thin little pancakes, spread with hoi sin sauce, thin slivers of cucumber and spring onion, then rolled up with the duck meat? So yummie, a bit naughty, but we had some steamed broccoli, too, to balance it all out!