In a Blizzard? Think Hawaii with these wonderful Banana Pancakes

What can I make today for breakfast, January 25, 2014, to celebrate my great-niece's birthday and forget the view outside?

How about banana pancakes, almost as good as the ones we had in Hawaii? In any case, these remind us of a wonderful vacation so many Januaries ago and we can celebrate a bit for breakfast for a most precious birthday!

Take the ripest banana, like the dark one in the picture and mash it up before adding it to your favorite pancake recipe. You can mash it up completely or leave some chunks. If you leave a few chunks, the wonderful banana "perfume" will permeate through your kitchen, and you can dream to your heart's content, until you look outside!

In Hawaii, they slice their wonderful small apple bananas and get the heavenly aroma, however, I have found slicing does not give us the same effect in the continental US. I need to mash one banana and leave some chunks -- enjoy with maple syrup or your favorite topping, you will use less syrup as the banana adds a bit of sweetness to the wonderful banana-mash-pancakes! The restaurant in Hawaii was cooking hundreds of these wonderful pancakes, but since I only cook a few, mashing and leaving chunks in the batter creates a more aromatic mixture than slicing the banana.

Banana pancakes are a most wonderful comfort food during the coldest, snowiest blizzards. Finished eating the pancakes? Then enjoy the time to curl up with a good book like, "Walk Forward," and feel most blessed!

Happy Birthday sweetie, can not wait to see you again! I must adapt this recipe for French toast, the favorite of today's birthday girl, a most darling, beautiful redhead who lives in Austin, Texas, but is a "Cleveland Girl," when she wears her mittens!

Nothing like mittens or precious home cooking from Cleveland, but in any case, like me "keep dreaming" of warmer weather and beautiful sunshine!

Walk Forward

My book, Walk Forward, was published on Amazon Kindle Select yesterday. and for the moment it is #6 of  47 in its category!

The book includes foods loved by my family, such as potato pancakes, German spaetzle, homemade applesauce, and streusel kuchen.

I made the best streusel kuchen for my Mom earlier last year and remember how she enjoyed it.

I am so thankful that I took the time to make the yeast dough, while she gently and precisely made and distributed the streusel over the yeast dough base. She created wonderful butter streusel, while sitting at my kitchen table.

I was honored to have her call my house, her "home," for her last three years on this earth.

In my book, Walk Forward, I describe my mother's visits with her cousin Wilma, whose father was a baker. For a barn raising, he would bake huge streusel kuchens and cut them in long strips, about three inches wide. He would  place the strips in a layer, and place the next layer of strips over the one below it, going in the opposite direction.

When I close my eyes, I can still smell the streusel kuchen baking in my oven and imagine my Mom sitting in my kitchen. Recipes are connected to family and memories, as are sights and smells in the kitchen. We eat with our nose and our eyes, but also with our memories.

I will include recipes for foods mentioned in the book, Walk Forward,  in future posts,  but if you are interested in reading about my family and its roots, please check out a free chapter of my book, Walk Forward, on Amazon.com at:

http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Forward-ebook/dp/B009H6Y7AC

and "Yes," that is a picture of my Mom, taken in 1938, on the cover of my book.

If you like reading the chapter, download the entire book, come back for the recipes, and continue to Walk Forward!