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German Pancakes

If your house is like ours, there are never enough edges to go around when German pancakes are for breakfast! But several years ago, probably because I didn’t have a clean cake pan and didn’t want to do dishes, I stumbled upon a simple solution: use a cupcake pan!

We make the recipe just the same, divide the butter between the cupcake tins and fill them 1/2 full.

Now everyone gets edges! And they are fun to dip.

The recipe we use:

• 6T butter
• 6 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup milk
• pinch of salt
• larger pinch of sugar (optional)

While preheating oven time 400 degrees Fahrenheit, place the butter in 24 individual cupcake tins (quarter tablespoon each) OR two 9” cake pans OR in a 9×13 pan. Put in the oven while you mix the rest of the ingredients.

Pull the melted butter out and fill the pans or cupcake tins 1/2 full and bake for 15-20 minutes or until peaks turn brown.

Tips:
-I let my butter get a little browned because I LOVE BROWNED BUTTER

-I like to put my ingredients in a blender, while that doesn’t make it “poof” any better, it makes the pancake as a whole more fluffy.

-Sometimes I don’t do a full 6 Tablespoons of butter in the 9×13 pan.

– If you want more peaks, pour the batter into different parts of the pan, the peaks will come up where you pour!

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Zuppa Toscana

This will be the most basic recipe you’ll ever find that resembles Zuppa Toscana from Olive Garden. Does it taste just like the stuff you get there? Not exactly. But it is SO DELICIOUS! My husband even likes it better.

The part I like about this recipe is I that I can change how much kale I put in depending on how “healthy” I want to be! I personally like my soup HEAVY on the kale because this is one of the only ways I can tolerate the superfood.

Honestly, you can change the amounts of ANY of the ingredients and still get great results. I will include the amounts that I had the last time I made it.

  • Spicy Italian Sausage 1 lb
  • Onions (optional) 1/2 medium onion
  • Chicken broth 6 cups
  • Potatoes 4 medium russet cut into bitesized pieces
  • Kale 3 large stalks
  • Half-and-half or heavy cream

Directions: Brown the sausage (and onions if desired), add chicken broth and potatoes to the pot. You cook all of those in the boiling broth until the potatoes are soft. Once they are ready, add the kale and cream! You notice I have no “amount” for the half and half or cream. That is mostly because I pour it in until it looks yummy. Sometimes that’s 1/2 c, sometimes more!

The spicy sausage flavors the soup pretty well, but you can always add your favorite spices!

Extra tips:
Cutting the potatoes thinner makes it cook quicker! Which is a definite win for me, because I more often than not, don’t decide what to make for dinner until I’m HUNGRY.