banana oatmeal nutella pancakes

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of “in the larger scheme of things…” thinking. Here at astronomy camp, we’ve been talking a lot about big things, like black holes, supernovae, and ominous things like “dark matter” and “dark energy.”

Thinking “in the larger scheme of things” can make me feel small and insignificant. I am smaller than a dustbunny of a dustbunny of a dustbunny in our solar system, which is one of many in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is one of billions of billions of galaxies in a universe that is constantly expanding. We are living on the periphery of a very average galaxy, orbiting a very average star… puts my seething rage toward the dude who took my java chip frappuccino at Starbucks yesterday into perspective.

That’s the thing…if I’m so incredibly small, do things really matter?

The universe isn’t going to care if I smiled at you on the Metro. Space aliens will never find out if I replaced the toilet paper roll. Mars wouldn’t know if I wrote you a handwritten letter or a sloppy Facebook message. The black hole at the center of our galaxy definitely doesn’t give a damn whether I washed my hair this morning (thank god).

I guess this is one way of looking at things, “in the larger scheme.” But the other geeky way of looking at our place in the universe is that every action has a reaction. Every shake and rattle sets off another and another. In this scenario, the little things do matter.

Although the former way of thinking about it is tempting (and gives me an excuse not to wash my hair so often), I’m pretty convinced that the latter is better.

Think about flipping pancakes. The trick to making good pancakes is to wait until you see little bubbles form around the edges of the pancake. These super tiny bubbles signify that the pancake is “flippable.”

These bubbles are smaller than my pinky fingernail. In the “larger scheme of things” they are practically invisible. However, that little bubble makes the difference between a big, shriveled, goopy mess of pancake batter and a glorious, fluffy stack of pancakes. The difference between a grouchy, hungry morning spent washing batter off my black yoga pants, or leisurely watching pools of butter melt atop fresh flapjacks while sipping a mug of coffee.

With love,

Erica

Banana Oatmeal Nutella Pancakes

Servings 4

Ingredients

1 cup flour
1/2 cup quick oats
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 banana mashed
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 large egg
1 cup milk
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup Nutella

Instructions

Stir together all of the ingredients except for the Nutella in a large bowl until well combined. Gently swirl in the Nutella.
Spoon the batter into a hot skillet over medium heat. Cook each pancake until the batter starts to bubble at the edges, flip and cook until golden brown. Continue cooking remaining pancakes.
Enjoy with butter and maple syrup! (and perhaps some more Nutella!)

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protein pancakes

It has been almost two weeks
since I’ve been on the Internet — I’m going to tell you what I’ve been up to.

Not much. But then again,
a whole lot.

I actually was somewhat busy — just two Thursdays ago I took my
Chinese final and went to prom (I’ll save that story for another day).
Then, I just sort of dropped off
the face of the Earth. I worked part-time as a hostess at a cafe, did
some reading (just finished Paper
Towns by John
Green), snapchatted, did some almond butter stress eating, and a whole lot of
wandering.

Yesterday,
I wandered down the street aimlessly, first into a CVS to buy a few pointless
things like tanning oil and Icebreakers gum. Then I talked to some of the
volunteers collecting signatures outside the metro station for a good while
about string
quartets and the weather. Then, I wandered downtown and had Mediterranean
style tacos with my mom at 3pm. Leisurely summer livin’ at its finest.

A few nights ago, I got into bed at 10:10 p.m. Turned off the
lights. My room was nice and warm because I never turn the AC on. I stayed up until midnight just watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s on my laptop and then drifted off to sleep.

It’s like time just slowed down twofold. My brain cells were burnt and fizzled to a crisp. The thought of sitting down and writing made my stomach turn. I ate a lot of Popsicles.

And then I realized that I had not been blogging and felt totally ungrounded and lonely — so I’m back! I’m looking forward to going on wild summer
adventures and telling you all about them. I’m going to bake luscious cakes
and eat them and tell you all about those too. I don’t regret my disappearance; I think it was healthy to do a bit of wandering. Now, I’m ready to get caught up in the world again like I’m known to do and attack whatever comes my way and report to you all about it.

Speaking of attack, this
is total “attack food.” These protein pancakes have two
ingredients, protein powder, egg whites, and pure power. Eat these for
breakfast and you will feel like a literal beast for the rest of the day.

With love,

Erica

Protein Pancakes

Servings 1

Ingredients

1 scoop protein powder
3 egg whites

Instructions

Beat the protein powder and egg whites together well in a bowl. Add a dash of cinnamon/vanilla/stevia to taste. Heat a bit of coconut oil in a skillet and cook for about 3 minutes on each side over medium heat.
Feel free to jazz these up with chocolate chips, blueberries, bananas... whatever floats your boat.

1 scoop protein powder
3 egg whites

Beat the protein powder and egg whites together well in a bowl. Add a dash of cinnamon/vanilla/stevia to taste. Heat a bit of coconut oil in a skillet and cook for about 3 minutes on each side over medium heat.

Feel free to jazz these up with chocolate chips, blueberries, bananas… whatever floats your boat.

oatmeal dark chocolate chip pancakes

Last Friday was the Sadie Hawkins dance at school.
Scratch that.
Last Friday was the “Girls Ask Boys Winter Formal.” Apparently “Sadie Hawkins” isn’t politically correct enough for my school. I’m technically on Spirit Committee… I should know these things.

My friend Veda and I had a track meet ~~before~~ during the dance.
When my coach told me I had to sprint 400 meters, I though he was kidding.
He wasn’t kidding.
I gagged a bit just thinking about it. Then after it was over, I gagged all over the place. Yeah, I’m a real superstar on the track team. 😉
But at least I bring brownies.

When I finally got back home, it was already nine, and the last thing I wanted to do was get dressed. But I did.
I put on my dress, slopped on some red lipstick, hoop earrings, and heels. Then I smooped my hair into a bun because I couldn’t even think of touching a flat iron (smooped isn’t a word, but “twirled” is way too elegant of a word to describe what I did to my poor hair). In the end, it was half decent. Sort of like iCarly meets flamenco dancer.

By the time we got to the dance, there were only 30 minutes left. Everyone was already talking about who should have the after party. Suddenly, I got a second wind. Kind of like how I have a second stomach for dessert (no matter how stuffed I am), I have a reserve of energy for a good party (no matter how insanely tired I am).

But, as last minute plans usually go, no one ended up having one.

And you know what? I was secretly happy. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good party as much as the next person (I’m a high school girl, I’m normal I swear…), but by then all I wanted to do was put on my Pink sweatpants (the ones with strawberries on the butt), lie on my bed with a huge bottle of Blue Powerade Zero, and play “never have I ever” with my friend Veda (even though we know everything that we’ve “never” done, it’s fun anyways).

I dropped off to bed around 1:30. It was a long day.

In the morning, I woke up refreshed and with a serious chocolate craving.
And these pancakes happened.

With love,
Erica

Ingredients
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup quick oats
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1
egg

a hand full dark chocolate chips

Place flour,
oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, vanilla, oil
and egg in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth.
Heat a
lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop
the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each
pancake. Sprinkle with dark chocolate chips. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

blueberry buttermilk pancakes (guest post)

Today I’m so excited to be featured on Top With Cinnamon which is run by one of my favorite fellow teen bloggers Izy! Since breakfast is by far my favorite meal of the day, and since blueberries are in season now — I decided to share my Blueberry Buttermilk Pancake recipe. A big stack of
these fresh off the griddle is the perfect thing to wake up to on a
Sunday morning. In my opinion, the ultimate weekend luxury is a
big stack of warm, fluffy pancakes covered in a shiny, golden layer of
syrup.

Click here to get the recipe!

carrot cake pancakes

So I told you about that huge bag of carrots sitting in my fridge? I’ve been going to town making all sorts of carrot treats, like carrot cake Lara bars, carrot muffins, carrot cake granola, and a big ol’ carrot cake. But I was forgetting about one of my favorite kinds of cake… pancakes.

These are extremely moist, fluffy pancakes with the warm and spicy aromas of carrot cake. Carrot cake has always been a favorite of mine, probably because it is usually covered with luscious cream cheese frosting.
Although there is no frosting on these pancakes, I made a killer cream
cheese and Greek yogurt glaze to slather on top of them. Cake for
breakfast anyone?

Plus there are a ton of fun add-ins you can throw in these pancakes, I added some big, buttery walnut pieces, some sweet, plum raisins, and topped it all off with some toasty coconut shavings. These are such a fun twist on traditional pancakes (because some one can only eat blueberry pancakes for so long…)
Do you have any funky pancake recipes?
With love,
Erica

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1 egg lightly beaten
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup

grated carrot
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
1/4 cup cream cheese

In a bowl, combine the first 7 ingredients. Combine the egg, brown sugar, carrots, milk and vanilla in another bowl. Stir carrots into dry ingredients until just moistened. Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a greased griddle or skillet. Turn when bubbles form on top of the pancake, and cook until golden brown. For the cream cheese glaze, place cream
cheese, powdered sugar, and Greek yogurt in a bowl and whisk until
smooth. Add water or milk until you achieve desired consistency.

Adapted from here