Saturday's Banana-Pecan Pancakes & Cookie-Dough Balls

Based on the title of this post, you can tell that Saturday was one of my healthier days right????  HA!  The title doesn't even include all the snacking I ate throughout the day and the wonderful birthday dinner I went too along with the amazing libations served at said birthday dinner.  Let's break this down.....

Breakfast:
On Saturday and Sunday mornings since I get the pleasure of sleeping in (which I'm not as good at any more), I try to choose breakfast recipes that are more challenging or that look like they take longer.  I do this because I'm normally up before the Mr. so I have more time to cook before he comes downstairs and starts ravaging through the pantry and fridge, and because if the recipe or meal doesn't work out, I still have time to serve cereal.

I've never made pancakes before and they don't look that hard, so I decided to try Banana- Pecan Pancakes.  Boy was I wrong!  I followed the recipe religiously as I always do, reading it over and over 1,000 times and making sure every ingredient is perfectly measured.  (not OCD at all!)  The mixing and the batter part of the recipe seemed to go well.....

(Please disregard my 2 awful set of knives in the background.  I never wanted to spend money on fancy knives because I didn't cook.  Well, now that I can't stop cooking, all I want is a fancy set of knives!  Crazy how things change.....and for me I think maybe it was over night?!?!?  I'm currently excepting a new knife set donations.)

I've heard you should cook pancakes on the griddle, but since ours is still in it's original packaging and box (and I actually forgot we even had one), I decided to make my pancakes on the skillet, 2 at a time.  I started off using a 1/3 cup scoop size.

I think this picture is a little deceiving because it looks like everything is going smoothly here.  HaHaHa!  The recipe says to heat the skillet and THEN pour in the batter.  I guess I didn't really 'heat' the skillet first, I probably more 'warmed' the bottom of the skillet.  I also had the burner on low-medium.  The pancakes were taking FOREVER to brown on the bottom to then flip them over.  So I decided to turn the stove to high.  I flipped over the first pancake and this is what I got.....

Oops! Not quite the yummy pancake I was looking for.  The first two pancakes ended up like this:

They were burnt and were all squished from using the spatula to turn them.  I think they squished because while the bottom was burnt, the middle was still almost pure liquid.  I was a little discouraged, especially since I know the Mr. can cook pancakes that look better than this, so I should be able too right???

I turned the heat to medium and decided to go for round 2 and so on.  I also changed my scoop size from 1/3 cup to 1/4 cup.  I was worried the 1/3 cup size was a little too big for the skillet and they were hard to flip and keep away from each other on the pan.  I finally ended up with some decent looking pancakes but they were a little limpy for my liking.

After some time, I was finally able to serve a plate of edible pancakes.

These pancakes weren't as thick as I like them, but the flavor was so yummy!!  I put a little more mashed banana in than the recipe called for, and they were delicious!  I also sprinkled on top some crushed pecans (I bought pre-crushed pecans from Fresh & Easy).  I didn't toast the pecans because I just plain forgot.  But they were still really good!  I definitely want to give this recipe another try and see if I can master a better looking pancake!

Afternoon Snack:
I felt like I hadn't made dessert in a while and we had nothing sweet in the house, so I went running to my growing stack of dessert recipes and found something that didn't require baking and something that I already had all the ingredients.  We were headed out to dinner that evening for a friend's birthday, so I needed something fast.  I decided on Egg-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls.

Who doesn't love to eat raw cookie dough?  When I make cookies I'm lucky enough to even have dough left to bake because I eat so much of it.  Yes, I know it has raw egg and it could make me sick, but the taste and texture is just full of greatness and I can't help myself.  So this recipe sounded like the perfect snack to make and have on hand. 

I followed the recipe precisely as usual.

Baking really doesn't get much simpler than this recipe.  Well, can you really even call it baking if you don't actually 'bake' anything?  The oven never gets turned on.  I mean, that's like saying you're going to go fishing, but you never actually use the fishing pole to try and catch anything.  Do you get what I'm saying??

Back to the recipe.....I used the medium sized cookie scooper thingy I have (which is the best and anyone that makes cookies should own!), scooped some dough out, rolled into balls and then put into some tupperware to stay fresh.

(You can tell I'm a new blogger and photographer b/c my picture here is what I was going to put them in until I read they had to be kept air-tight.  Then I forgot to take an updated picture of the actual container used.  Be patient with me, I'm still learning.)
Anyway, these were very good and would probably be even better on top of some french vanilla ice cream.  They would also be a fun thing to make with kids.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a final picture of them and I don't think there are any left.  I guess I will just have to make them again!  :)



Things I learned:
1.  When a recipe says "heat a large skillet", make sure you actually heat the entire skillet all the way through before attempting to cook something yummy. 

2.  Don't turn your skillet to high to make up for not pre-heating, you will just burn the outside if whatever you are trying to cook.