Breakfast - morning tea - dessert - and good for you!

Today has been cold and wet. That means it's a good day to line up something on TV (I like Ellen) and do the ironing.
Next up cooking. Brought to you today by the soundtracks of Elton John's "Captain Fantastic", Paul Simon's Greatest Hits and Rod Stewart's "Night on the Town" - with thanks to the person who threw them out --see earlier blog "One Man's Trash."
I whipped up one of my old favourite recipes, which I will share.

CITRUS OATMEAL PANCAKES

This is the quadrupled recipe, it makes about 20 pancakes, most of which I put in the freezer with a piece of baking paper between them. They microwave back really well. So if you don't want that much - divide it down by 4.

3 cups of standard rolled oats

3 cups of milk

2 cups of flour

8 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons of melted butter

juice and zest of 2 oranges or lemons

8 teaspoons of brown sugar (I use 1/4tsp stevia and less sugar)

Mix oats and milk in a bowl and leave to stand for 5 minutes. Add sugar and whisk 30 seconds.

Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Add melted butter, juice and zest.

Stir it up - it should be a bit sloppy.

Cook in a lightly buttered pan, turn over pikelet style.

I use an icecream scoop to measure out the mixture, and flatten the mix down in the pan a little so it cooks through.

I use milk made from milk powder in a lot of my baking. It works out cheaper, there is less packaging, it means I'm not using up the fresh milk supply, and the people who don't like powdered milk in our house can't even tell.

The best thing to go on these, sometimes with fresh fruit or yoghurt, is my ...

MOCK MAPLE SYRUP

2 large tablespoons of golden syrup

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

juice of 1/2 - 1 lemon

Warm the golden syrup, and stir the next 2 ingredients in until combined.

It's nicer than the artificial maple syrup you can buy, and waaay cheaper than the real stuff. 

TOMATOES

Just a little pic of my tomatoes which are still producing in the first week of winter. The plants don't look that great, having succumbed to powdery mildew. I treated them with a baking soda solution that i read how to make somewhere, and although they still have it a bit, we are getting nice tomatoes off them anyway. They are "patio" tomatoes, designed for growing in pots. We have them in an enclosed outdoor area so they are like in a hothouse.

The chairs belonged to my parents and have been repainted and covered about 4 times in their 50 or so years. I include a little written history and a swatch on the back of one chair, under the upholstery, that one day might be interesting to someone.
The tomato stakes are upcycled fibreglass poles from a now extinct tent.