Blog Archives
Recipe Time! Francakes (French Toast Pancakes)
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It gets your body going and gives you energy to get your day started. During the week breakfast is usually cereal, toast, oatmeal, a bagel, or a smoothie. But come the weekend, breakfast gets to be a bit fancier. On Sundays Erik and I usually make either French toast or pancakes for breakfast (okay, and also occasionally crepes or waffles, but they’re not relevant to this post). One day we had the genius idea – what would happen if we combined them in to one mega-breakfast food? And thus, Francakes were born. A wonderful combination of French toast and pancakes. Light and fluffy like a pancake, yet cinnamon-y like French toast. The best part is if you know how to make French toast (which you should), and how to make pancakes, you can most certainly easily make Francakes.
Follow me to learn how.
Recipe Time! Cinnamon Toast Crunch Fried Ice Cream
My first experience with fried ice cream was at a Mexican restaurant, which my friends and I stopped at after seeing a movie one night. I was instantly intrigued by this contradictory dessert. Warm, crisp fried shell on the outside, cold, creamy ice cream on the inside; it was wonderful. However, I realize some of you, Erik included, had a different first experience with fried ice cream. You first had it at a Japanese or other Asian restaurant, with a tempura based batter as the shell. So where did fried ice cream come from? No one can really seem to agree. Its origins go back further than one would originally think, with two fried ice cream origin stories placing its invention in America in the mid-1890s. In the 1960s it started being associated with Japanese cuisine, and then later becoming associated with Mexican fare in the 1980s. In the end, I don’t think it really matters that much where it came from…what’s important is that it’s delicious!
Recipe Time! Monkey Bread
Monkey bread is a wonderful food, with a strange name. No one really seems to know for certain how it got its name, but rest assured – no monkeys are harmed in the making of this delicious treat. And it’s not some weird code disguising something gross, like how “sweetbreads” are actually the thymus and pancreas of cows. Monkey bread is made of biscuit dough cut into small pieces and covered in cinnamon, sugar, and held together with a kind of caramel. Monkey bread made its first appearance in women’s magazines in the 1950s and fits very much with the vogue of using canned or frozen ingredients and spiffing them up in interesting (and occasionally horrifying) ways. The 1950s ideology was all about making the modern housewife’s life easier with push buttons and quickly prepared foodstuffs. I have fond memories of sitting in my grandma’s kitchen and eating monkey bread that she made, which makes sense since she was a young housewife in the 1950s.
I could go on about this stuff forever, since it is part of what I’m studying in school, but I digress. Monkey bread is indeed an easy to make dish that can serve as breakfast, dessert, or just a little snack.
The Cereal Report: Chocolate Toast Crunch
The Cereal Report is a column in which PCFG conducts various cereal reviews, of new or limited products, as well as providing brief backgrounds on the cereal. Cereal is delicious and fairly cheap as far as meals go. Everyone should eat cereal!
It’s not everyday you see a new rendition of the Toast Crunch cereals. Lo and behold however, with the new year comes Chocolate Toast Crunch. People like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, people love chocolate, so Chocolate Toast Crunch should be a given right? Afterall the last one, Peanut Butter Toast Crunch was fantastic and the original Cinnamon sets a very high standard for its successors. Unfortunately Chocolate Toast Crunch is one of the weaker entries in this cherished line.
Microwave Popcorn Made Better
Confession time: I’m a procrastination eater. Because you know, you can’t do work if you’re eating. Seeing as how it’s finals time at school, I’m currently doing a lot of procrastination eating in order to put off working on papers. You have to choose wisely in your procrastination eating choices however, since you just want to put off doing work, not put on 20 pounds. One good snack (and not just for procrastinating, just in general) is popcorn. Fresh popped popcorn smells wonderful, and is tasty too. Bonus: popcorn isn’t terrible for you. Using an air popper doesn’t take that long, but it can be surprisingly hard to find a good (and not crazy expensive) popcorn popper, plus, some people just don’t really have room for one in their kitchens. But never fear! It’s easy to make popcorn in the microwave (and I’m not talking about the prepackaged bags you buy at the store).
You won’t need one of these, don’t worry.
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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