Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Recipe for Writing

I've written before about Luke's reluctance to write. It's much better, I think because when something is important to him, like a wish list or a letter to somebody in the Harry Potter universe, he can put aside all the anxieties that the act of writing brings up. Or, maybe what he's really doing is forgetting about them, because the task at hand doesn't really feel like a 'task.'



That's how it was recently when he got the bright idea of making his Grandma's famous cottage cheese pancakes here at our house; if he wanted them here, he had to copy down the recipe:





I love it when we make these here, partly because they are really, really good. Like, addicting-type good. Also, I love following directions written in Luke's writing. It looks so optimistic and hopeful, I don't know why; maybe because he's overcoming something hard to do, and gets such satisfaction from the delicious result.



Also, these pancakes, which you will notice require an insane amount of eggs, are also special to Luke because the eggs come from our chickens, which he cares for and loves. He worries about them in thunderstorms, it's that kind of love.





Here is the recipe, in case you can't get it from the picture:



1) Combine: 2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp of salt, and 4 tsp sugar.



2)In a separate bowl, whisk together: 8 eggs, 2 cups cottage cheese (we've used ricotta with good results, but not quite the same), 1 cup milk, 4 Tbsp oil. I know these ingredients seem like they are not in proportion, but it will work. I promise. Plus, think of all the protein you'll be getting!



In Luke's cryptic recipe: "Add 1 to 2 Whisk till blended." Then, cook as you would any pancakes - but I would add, make sure you use a non-stick surface because these stick like crazy! Until we got a non-stick pan a few weeks ago, I was using nearly a whole stick of butter to get these out of the pan reasonably whole. I am glad that we're not doing that anymore.



I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

7 comments:

jugglingpaynes said...

Great idea! I've had problems encouraging my kids to write as well. Lately they've been into creating creatures on Spore, so I told my son if he wanted to continue playing he needed to write more detailed descriptions of his creatures and use proper grammar. That worked.

Now he has a paper to write as a requirement for his second degree black belt. Amazing what you can do when you are motivated!

Peace and Laughter!

Rana said...

I think that is great. My son loves to write and I think if he was made too we would not have all the little love notes and mini books he likes to make. I can't wait to try this recipe.

Rana

Karen said...

Cristina - what is Spore? If it's something that gets a boy to write, I think I need to sign us up...
That's wonderful about his second degree black belt!

Rana - don't you love all those little things that represent real communication? I hope you enjoy the recipe!

:-)
Karen

Anonymous said...

Karen - - did you seriously just ask what Spore is?? I'm going to ignore that. Yep, yep I am. (how does any self-respecting mom of boys NOT know what Spore is??!!) ;) Do a search on "spore" on my blog, and you can maybe get clued in. I LOVE the idea of copying the recipe. It sounded good, and I was trying to enlarge the pic to see it when I scrolled down and realized you had the recipe written out. Whew! About how many pancakes would you say that recipe makes?

Karen said...

Topsy - I am googling spore right now, heartily embarrassed that I don't know what it is :-)
We do smallish pancakes, maybe CD-sized, and it makes, maybe, 30 or 35? Quite a few - Luke doubled the recipe because he can eat almost an entire single recipe himself!

Cheers!
K

Rana said...

Okay don't feel bad Karen, I didn't know what Spore was either. I'm checking it out. Why didn't we know about this? My son is going to love this.

Karen said...

Rana - It looks really, really cool! Always nice to find out about something like this just as you're getting into the holiday swing, isn't it?

:-)
Karen