Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Fruity Ricotta Pancakes with Maple Syrup Minus The Fingertips

I've said it before - Jamie Oliver has fun recipes. 

With my parents going through serious home renovations (they are getting their dream kitchen), I thought I would have them over for some meals while they are without their place.  

Keep in mind, too, that drinking beer with breakfast is generally frowned upon, right? Beer with dinner? Now we're talkin'!  Have you ever heard of having breakfast for dinner?  I certainly have.  So it was with fun in mind that I planned a super dinner for friends and family - Fruity Ricotta Pancakes with Maple Syrup and Raspberry Beer. The pancakes are a Jamie Oliver recipe from my iPhone.

Three yummy fruits go into the batter - raspberries, blueberries and mango.  With eggs yolks whipped and gobs of cheese added, the pancakes are really quite good.  A blop of plain yogurt and some real maple syrup (not the fake crap) make for a solid meal - breakfast or dinner.


Oh wait, the fingertip thing.  Oh my, mangos. If you are not familiar with mangos, they are about the size of a softball with a large stony pit.  Unknown to me at the time, you don't actually cut the mango in half.  Basically, you whack off 4 sides (yes, it is round, but you follow me, I'm sure).  

Well, for some reason, despite previous experience with this thing, I opted to cut in half.  After all, I managed it the first time I did this recipe.  With the mango on the cutting board, I commenced cutting.  It was not too different from cutting through a bowling ball once I reached the pit.  With hands secured to the knife handle and the blade top (with fingers curled well out of the way), I started pushing down evenly with both hands. Really pushing down.  

Hard.

Really hard.

To my horror, I realized that, in my efforts to cut a rock in half, all four of my fingers on my left hand had curled around the knife blade and where parked conveniently between the razor sharp edge and the cutting board.... 

Holy shit.

If that blade had gone through the pit, four tips would have flyin'. 

For a moment, I just froze when I realized what I had done. It was that same feeling you get when you use a hairdryer in the bathtub, play with loaded weapons, or juggle chainsaws - that pit in your stomach with the cold sweats to boot.

I challenge you to Google "fingertip cuts" if you have the stomach for it. I did.  Yikes.

It would have been horrible. All nose-picking would have to be done with my right hand.  My guitar and drum world tour starts in a few weeks with a concert in the parking lot at the gas station up the road.  What would I have done? Typing my blog for the six people that read it would have been more difficult for sure. Oh, the horror of it all...

Oh but, it would not have been just my fingers in the batter. My mom's too! No, her fingers where not next to mine under the knife. No, she was in the kitchen when I was using the mixer to whip up the egg yolks.  "Standing peaks" according to the recipe.  "Watch the little bubbles..." Mom said as she pointed into the goo, with her fingertips a micro-fraction of an inch away from the whirling blades....

Kitchen klutziness.  Genetic?  Maybe...

The beer, by the way, was the Raspberry Ale from Dark Horse Brewing Company in Marshall, Michigan. All in all, a very average fruit beer.  As a stand-alone drink, it would not have been very good,I must admit. The raspberry tones, while present, seemed a bit weird.  The balance seemed a bit off.   However, with Fruity Ricotta Pancakes with Maple Syrup sans fingertips, it went over quite well.  

Get the app and give it a go.

And don't cut yourself.


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