Paco’s Pancakes

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Once upon a time we lived in the South close to all of our family! Oh was it nice! Occasionally we would drive to the in-laws for the weekend.  Mark’s dad (aka “Paco” to our kids) would make us pancakes every Saturday morning! They were the BEST!  Something we looked forward to for sure.  At some point, I asked Paco to share his “secret” recipe….and that he did plus he taught me first hand how to make his pancakes! It’s been a few years, and I still make them each Saturday morning.  Reminds us of our Southern roots:) SO you are in for a treat with this recipe! SO much better than the stuff in the box…and not too hard to make!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 eggs

Directions:

  • Mix flour, baking powder, brown sugar, and salt in a bowl.
  • Whisk milk, vanilla, oil, and eggs together in another bowl.
  • Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Don’t overmix.
  • Cook on hot griddle!

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Stack of pancakes anyone?

 

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For a tasty variation, add milk chocolate chips to the batter before cooking!

Making “Gak”

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My kids love making things….especially sticky, ooey, gooey, stuff like “gak”!  I have made this several times, but this weekend I tried this particular “recipe”.  You should try it out….takes minutes to make and provides endless fun!

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You will need two four ounce bottles of glue, water, borax, and food coloring.  I let each kid make a full recipe of gak, so I used four glue bottles (two per kid)!

DIRECTIONS:

  • Have kids empty both bottles of glue into a bowl.
  • Add warm water into the empty glue bottle and shake. Pour this into the bowl. (Original recipe calls for a full glue bottle of water here, but I found this too be too much water.)
  • Add in desired amount of food coloring to the bowl and stir.
  • In a separate bowl, mix 1/2 cup warm water with a teaspoon of borax. Mix until borax dissolves.
  • Pour borax solution into glue bowl! Have kids mix and watch in amazement.
  • Here’s where it also gets tricky though. The gak will not completely “gel” together until you physically knead it with your hands. Time to get messy! AND don’t worry this takes some time…the longer you knead the better the consistency!
  • I give my kids cookie cutters, cups, plastic utensils, small animal figurines, etc to use in the gak. They stay busy for at least an hour! Store gak in a large ziploc bag!

 

*Original idea and credit goes to Lil Luna!

Mother’s Day Cards

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I must say I have the BEST mother and mother-in-law. Both are extraordinary women of God! They have set examples for myself and my husband that we are ever thankful for. Since Mother’s Day is tomorrow, I thought I would share this cute card idea.  I prefer having my kiddos make cards rather than going to the store and purchasing non-personalized expensive cards! So this year, here is the card the kids and I put together!

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You can see the card on the left is the outside of one of our cards, while the card on the right shows the inside. The “big” kids had fun making hand print flowers, and the little tot is a bit too small to do hand prints so we used her feet for the butterfly! Much love and appreciation to all the moms out there!

 

Taco Shells and Seasoning

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I enjoy trying out new recipes and seeing what things I can make at home rather than buying pre-made at the store. So tonight I made my own taco seasoning and flour tortilla shells.  The seasoning was just right, but I will admit I have some more work to do on the shells. The shells ended up being a bit thicker than I would have preferred, but the taste was ok!  Here are my finished shells and the seasoning mix (sorry but I don’t have the art of food photography down just yet:) plus the recipes!

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Taco Seasoning Ingredients:

  • 1 Tbsp Chili Powder
  • 1/4 Tsp Onion Powder
  • 1/4 Tsp Garlic Powder
  • 1/4 Tsp Dried Oregano
  • 1/2 Tsp Paprika
  • 1 1/2 Tsp Cumin
  • 1/2 Tsp Salt

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together well. This amount made enough to mix with 1 lb of Ground Beef and 1/4 cup water to make the taco flavored meat.

*Adapted from here

Flour tortilla shells:

  • 4 cups flour
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 6 tablespoons vegetable shortening
  • 1 1/2 cups water

Directions:

Combine first 3 ingredients.

Using your fingers, work shortening into flour until its evenly dispersed and crumb like.

Pour water in and mix until a ball of dough is formed.

Lightly flour your work surface and knead the dough 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic.

Let rest covered with plastic wrap for 20 minutes.

Divide dough into 8-10 equal pieces.

Roll each piece out into a circular shape…as thin as you can. This is where I had a hard time!

Cook each shell on a hot griddle (medium heat) until lightly browned. Flip and brown the other side too!

*Adapted from here