'Tyler Makes Pancakes' - Read and Rise March 2021

Today's story and activity focuses on knowing where your food comes from. Ideally, I'd like for us to only eat foods with a short list of ingredients that we can all identify. The reality is, we're not there yet. Sometimes we still rely on cereal for quick morning breakfasts and prepackaged snacks make food prep so much easier when we're going to be out for a while at playdates or classes or things like that. Things like sausages and frozen fries or pierogis make dinner prep time much faster, but we try to look for brands that aren't chock full of mystery ingredients. So while we're not perfect, I feel like we're at least on the right path.

One thing we never use is pre-made pancake mix - I've honestly just never thought to buy it! Basic pancakes are simple and use ingredients I always have on hand like flour, eggs, and milk. Our book today, "Tyler Makes Pancakes," explores where each of those ingredients actually comes from. "Pancakes, Pancakes" by Eric Carle is another similar book you can check out! What's great about both of these books is you can read them together and learn about the ingredients that go into making pancakes and then get right in the kitchen and make some pancakes together! Cooking with kids is an important part of teaching them good nutrition - the more they're involved the more they'll be willing to try different foods and teaching them to cook for themselves sets them up for healthy eating when they're adults.

Featured story: "Tyler Makes Pancakes" by Tyler Florence

Activity: Make pancakes! Tyler provides a recipe for blueberry pancakes at the end of the book and that's the recipe we used this morning.

Mentally prepare yourself for splashes and spills, but let the kids help as much as they can! They will love it! I love the many faces of Squidgy while he's helping cook!

Cinnamon isn't in the recipe, but in this house "more cinnamon" is usually the policy for breakfast foods (and yes, it always gets on the counter)!

When the pancakes are dry around the edges and start bubbling on top, they're ready to flip! 

Word of warning, this recipe makes A LOT! This is the pile we had left AFTER everyone ate! At least breakfast is ready for tomorrow! If you don't want to have a mountain of pancakes left over, I would cut the recipe in half (you should be fine to use just one egg and ignore the extra half - my batter ended up runny and I added a few extra tablespoons of flour anyway). 

I hope you make some pancakes together soon! Happy cooking!