Thursday, January 1, 2015

To Celebrate the New Year: Chocolate Pancakes with Raspberries and Bacon



I have a personal policy to not order restaurant menu items that I could conceivably make at home.  Make well, at home, I mean.  For instance, I make a really tasty lasagna, and a very tasty eggplant parmasan, and I can even make buttery garlic bread sticks with a golden crispy outside and a soft warm inside.  So, I usually avoid Italian restaurants and opt for places that serve entrees I don't make so well at home - like murgh tikka massala. (Oh, how I love Indian food.........  mmmm........ Indian food.........)

Ahem.  Sorry. 

Last weekend, I had the most delightful morning out with some of my family members in from out of town.  My mom treated all the ladies to brunch at a very trendy place where the menu was a tough one - so many delectable-sounding things to choose from and only stomach room enough for one.  I ultimately chose the rice bowl with Korean spare ribs and pickled vegetables (oh. my. goodness. it. was. unbelievably. delicious.) and a spiiiiiicy bloody Mary.  I forewent the chocolate pancakes with raspberries and bacon thinking - rice and vegetable are healthier for me and I think I could make that chocolatey-raspberry-bacony goodness at home.

So to celebrate the New Year, I did.  

I served it for dinner.

My family really loved me.




I used this pancake recipe from My Thirty Spot.   I tripled it to feed my large and hungry family.  I did not make the marshmallow topping, just the pancakes.  They were very cocoa-y, and were not too sweet.  They were juuuuuust right.




So pretty to see fresh fruit in the winter :)







I baked the bacon in the oven, of course.  Because since I learned about that little trick back in October, that's now the only acceptable way to cook bacon.  All those years, I never cooked real bacon because of the greasy mess, and could honestly say I wasn't really a bacon-eater.  Now, in the past three months, I've eaten more bacon than in all the rest of my life combined.  







Because I was trying to copy the menu offering as best as possible, I decide to make my own chocolate sauce for the first time ever.   It was easier than I expected and tasted so amazing, no husband of mine will ever be allowed to bring a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup into this house again.  

This is the recipe I used -- I doubled it, but probably didn't need too.  We still have some left over in the fridge, which is kind of a dangerous situation.  

(No pics of the actual cooking process because I was non-stop stirring bubbling, steaming chocolate.  Make your own and you'll see what it looks like.)







I don't recall there being chocolate shavings on the restaurant pancakes, but it seemed like the right thing to do since I had a dark chocolate bar in my pantry and because... chocolate shavings.








The only sad side to this story is that I really wanted to make my own whipped cream so that the homemade effort would be complete.  But I didn't have any whipping cream and I did have a tub of whipped topping, so I went with the obvious and easy option.  Some nights, you just can't do it all.  Know what??  It still tasted awesome.






If you are a person who likes chocolate, raspberries, and bacon (which you probably are, since that describes 99.98% of the world's population), I think you should try it.

Happy New Year!

13 comments:

  1. Sound so yummy!!! I think I'll try this one day.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Theresa, this looks and sounds amazing!!! Def going to make this for our next Sat brunch at home!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are so my kind of person. I haven't eaten pork since junior high, but bacon, smelling it is the ONE thing that makes me reconsider. I love that you made it for dinner. Just fabulous.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dinner-time surprises like this every so often earn me a lot of mama points :) New Year's Day seemed like a good time to "treat' my family!

      Delete
  4. mmmmm, that looks so, so good! we should go out sometime with lori for indian food. tandoori's? though star of india on delaware in kenmore is also extremely good. mike and i love indian food but it is surprisingly hard to find people, let alone couples, that share our taste. go figure?! but i too don't want to waste money on something i can make at home and despite how hard i try, my indian food just cannot compare to the restaurant version.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed - homemade attempt are never the same and I always wish I would have just spent the money on the real thing instead.
      Let's plan an Indian date - just the ladies or with the guys?? If I was going w/o Russ, I'd save him the sorrow and tell him I was going grocery shopping so he wouldn't sit at home moping :)

      Delete
    2. we are cool with whatever. always nice to bring the boys, but also nice not having to obtain a babysitter. so whatever you are up for ;)

      Delete
  5. Those look totally delicious! Thanks for the "eye" candy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your welcome :) And thanks for helping out with my comment question, Danielle! I really appreciate it! Now I can head to bed in peace ;)

      Delete
  6. Yum! And why have I never thought to make my own chocolate sauce before!? I need to do that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Making the sauce was so easy and TOTALLY worth it. It was delicious!

      Delete

Like the old song says, "comments are a girl's best friend." Or something like that... So... leave a comment! I love chatting here! Pretend you're on my back porch, kick the broken plastic sandbox toys aside, sip your iced coffee, or beer, or (__fill in the blank with your beverage of choice__) and let's talk about all the things, because back-porch blogging is what I do!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...