Decidedly Not Suzy Homemaker

I woke up hungry this morning and decided to make something for breakfast. I don't do this often because I'm generally not hungry before noon and no matter what all the nutrition articles say, eating breakfast does not boost my metabolism or make me feel energized throughout the day. In fact, it usually just gives me a stomach ache. Apparently my intestines like to wake up slowly.

Anyway, this morning at 9 AM I decided I was starving and turned to our new Community Cookbook that the realtor gave us in our welcome basket. I've found these to be the best kind of cookbooks because everyone contributes their simplest, tastiest, most fool proof recipe for all the world to enjoy. It's been fun to flip through and drool over the Southern cooking buttery goodness- there's a recipe for "Riane's Mashed Potatoes (Rich and Full of Fat)". Now doesn't that sound delicious? But not for breakfast. In the "Kid Friendly" section I picked one called "Big Puffy Pancake." I love pancakes (despite not usually eating in the morning, I adore breakfast foods and make them for dinner all the time) and a big puffy oven-baked pancake sounded divine. I rounded up all five necessary ingredients only to find we had no eggs - you know you don't bake or make breakfast often when you don't routinely keep eggs in your fridge. JP and Landon volunteered to get some for me and I listened to a Bankruptcy Law lecture while impatiently waiting for them to return. Once things were started up again I followed all three lines of instructions, set the timer for 25 minutes, and listened to more Bankruptcy while my pancake became "puffy and golden brown." When the timer went off, I went and pulled this out of the oven:

Well... it was certainly puffy. It actually had a higher peak in the center but I was laughing so hard when I pulled it out of the oven that I hit it on the rack above. It looked like a pie-sized popover gone wrong and it most definitely did not look like a pancake.

Landon and JP had gone down for their morning naps (JP had to get up at 5:15 this morning because Landon decided sleeping in until 6 is for suckers), so I decided not to judge on looks alone- surely something with flour, milk, butter, and eggs couldn't taste that bad. I pulled out the sections that were fluffy, put them in a shallow bowl, and added powdered sugar, syrup, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream. It now looked like this:

I think it could now be classified as a dessert, but is there any better two meals to combine? Breakfast and dessert? Mmmmmm. And it was delicious! I took the picture above at 10:01 AM. I took the picture below at 10:05 AM.

It was very good, even if not very pretty. I kind of hope I screw it up again next time.

Update: Apparently others want to partake in the big puffy popover pancake goodness:

Big Puffy Pancake

Ingredients: 3 T butter, 1/2 c. flour, 1/2 c. milk, 4 eggs, 1/8 tsp. salt.

Instructions: Heat oven to 425. Place butter in pie pan and melt. In a mixing bowl, combine remaining ingredients. Beat until smooth. Mix in melted butter. Pour mixture into pie pan. Bake for 25 minutes or until pancake is puffy and golden brown. (Or until mountainous peaks are formed. Either way, top with delicious dessert-like toppings and enjoy!)