100% Whole Wheat Pancakes

 Hello friends!

Today I’m going to share with you my MOST FAVORITE 100% Whole Wheat Pancakes recipe!

It is our go-to recipe for Saturday morning pancakes. Yum! Are you ready? Let’s do it!

Ingredients list:

2 cups 100% whole wheat flour (I grind my own, but you could use store-bought.)

2 cups fresh buttermilk (find it the refrigerated milk section).

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

¾ tsp baking powder

½ cup oil (olive oil or canola)

2 eggs

How to do it:

Mix the wet ingredients and add the dry ingredients (you could mix the flour with the spices and then add it to the wet mix, but I never do that—I’m too lazy!). You may add an extra ½ cup of buttermilk if you think the batter is too thick. But remember that you want it to be thick. Fresh buttermilk is naturally thick and that’s the key ingredient to these amazing pancakes!

Mix fully to combine. Do not overmix.

Get your griddle or skillet heated up to medium or medium/high (depends on your stove) and make your pancakes! I use a 1/3 cup measuring cup to scoop out the mix and pour on the skillet (the mix will be VERY thick!).

Let them cook on one side for a few minutes (resist the temptation of poking/flattening your pancakes!) and then turn them with a spatula and cook the other side.

And that’s it! Next time I make them I’m planning on doing a short video so you can see how I cook them. I always learn better when I can see things being done!

As far as the whole wheat flour goes, I like to buy whole white wheat kernels and grind them up (FYI-whole white wheat flour is NOT the same as white flour). I love my Nutrimill wheat grinder for this task. For pancakes, I prefer this type of wheat over the red wheat that has more of a “wheaty” flavor. But I’ve used both with this recipe and they always turn out delicious! Even my brother in law who’s not a big fan of whole wheat thinks they are fabulous!

I like to use 100% pure maple syrup as my topping--and butter, of course!--but you may put on them whatever you want!

Let me know if you have any questions about this recipe. I love it so much and I hope it becomes your favorite too!

X0,

Beverly

DIY Kitchen Towels

Hello friends! I actually made these cute kitchen towels back in November, and I never got around to writing a post about them. Now that the Christmas rush is long gone, I can take a bit of time to tell you about them. They are so fun to make! I call them Kitchen Towels, although some people call them Tea Towels, but I honestly don’t know the difference between the two. So… since we don’t ever drink tea in our household, I thought Kitchen Towels was more appropriate. Don’t you think? After all, they will be hanging in my kitchen area, right? It is so fun to have these pretty towels in a place where I can admire them all day long (yes, I spend that much time in the kitchen. I love it!).

The great thing about these towels is that you can draw on them anything you want! I was in my Laundry room last night and I thought it would be cute to hang one by the sink that says “For same day service, do it yourself!” Haha. Anyway, back to how I made these. I need to focus. =-)

Materials needed:

Pre shrunk, unbleached, 100% cotton fabric

Fabric Markers in the colors of your choice

Sewing machine and matching thread

Scissors

Iron and ironing board

First, you need to determine the size of your towel. I used one that I already had to have an idea of how big to cut them. Once you have your large rectangle cut, you need to fold in all the edges and iron them in place:

You could also double fold at this step (which will make it easier when it is time to sew), but I didn’t think of doing it for some reason. Anywhoo, when you have all of the edges folded and ironed, it is much easier to sew it all in a neat way.

Here you can see how all the edges are nicely ironed. My towel is pretty big–it is folded vertically and horizontally. Now, the design will go on just the part that will be showing and facing out; only 1/4 of the towel will be decorated. You are welcome to do the whole thing, but for me it was plenty to do the bottom right corner as I made quite a few of them to give out as gifts for Christmas.

So, once you have everything ready to go, it is time to sew those edges. If you can’t sew, maybe you could find towels like these at Hobby Lobby. I think I saw some similar ones, but they were pricey. Instead, I chose to buy the fabric and I only spent about $6.00. The fabric cost ranges between $2-6 dollars, but I had a 50% coupon that I used and I saved some big bucks. I think each one of these costs about a dollar to make. I know!

Now, this next step can be scary, but if you are a good artist and your hand does not shake you will be just fine. I actually browsed the Internet for ideas on what to put on these towels and I found some great inspiration. I also kept in mind who I was giving these towels to and their decor style. Once I figured out what I was drawing, I drew my images on white paper first with regular black marker. Once I was happy with the end result, I slipped it under the fabric and traced it with my fabric marker. It shows right through! It was so easy. If you don’t think you could draw anything more than a stick man,  you could try finding an image that you love online. Then you could print it to the size that you need, and trace it with no problem.

This is the one I made for my mom! I love colorful dinnerware, and this plate reminds me of something I would find in a fancy Mexican restaurant down in Oaxaca, Mexico.

This one I gave to my aunt Aleyda. I actually have this morter (or “pilon” like we say in Puerto Rico), and I just placed it in front of me and started drawing. The bananas on the front represent the green plantains that we use in Puerto Rico to make “mofongo” and “tostones”.

This one I made for my sawdust sister! It fits her decor style really well and it makes me happy to see it hanging in her modern kitchen.

This one I sent to my sister in law, Lidia. I hope she likes it. When we stayed at her house down in FL I noticed there were a lot of birds chirping away in the area (no alligators, luckily!). So, this towel is a reflection of sunny Florida and the beautiful lake that sits only a few yards away from their back door.

So that’s it! As you can tell, I actually drew the designs before I actually sewed the edges. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of the finished seams. Just imagine a seam the same color as the fabric that goes around the whole edge.

My sister washed hers and the design did not fade at all!  Just make sure that once you are done drawing your design to iron it really well. It will help to set the image unto the fabric. And of course, the better quality of the fabric marker, the longer lasting your design will be. I bought mine at Hobby Lobby and I love my black one. I like to do mostly black and then do some accent colors here and there.

Ok, I will stop talking now! Let me know if you have any other questions about this project!

Much love – Beverly