My last pancake project

Over the course of my entire childhood and almost all of my teenage years, I could not--no matter how hard I tried--understand how anyone in their right taste buds could like peanut butter. To me peanut butter was a gooey, sticky, nasty mess of a spread that wished it could be as good as lunch meat, but failed miserably. Well, actually, it didn't fail so much at its aspiration to make its way into the hearts of kids and into their school lunch boxes. All the choosy moms loved it, so I heard on TV just about a dozen times a day. But that was not enough to convince me.

My sister, on the other hand, was one of those peanut butter lovers. And to my disgust, she could actually eat it by the spoonful--yes, plain!--if and when she so desired to. What was worse than peanut butter alone was its frightful companionship with its gloppy friend, jelly. Why these two concoctions had to ruin the perfectly adequate bread in my sister's brown paper lunch bag and the lunch bags and boxes of all those other peanut butter fans at school, I had no idea.

I was off to college and in a new (well, actually, dreadful old) dorm with a roommate I knew nothing about save that her birthday was move-in day. In the first week of our "getting-to-know-each other" routine at our far-away school on the outskirts of Ohio, we quickly discovered our mutual love for cooking, baking, and eating food. Wonderful! I thought. A fellow "foodie." It's my lucky day. What was one of her favorite foods, you ask? Peanut butter.

To make an unnecessarily long introduction to this final blog a little shorter, it will suffice to say that I am a successfully recovered peanut butter hater. Or, to put it more clearly, I love--let me repeat--LOVE peanut butter. It is bread's most stunning outfit, jelly's lasting soul-mate, my perfect comfort food. I love peanut butter. Who wouldn't?

So, for the final post on this totally random and fun blog (hopefully, fun for you, too), I will pay tribute to one of my favorite food combinations--pancake style.

My plan: Make a pancake version of peanut butter and jelly. Know before it's even cooked how delicious this one will be.

My method: First, I made the pancake batter and stirred into the batter a few spoonfuls of peanut butter. I cooked this simple (but amazing, as predetermined by me) pancake in my skillet. But...while it was cooking, I made a banana and jelly sauce, by heating my favorite jelly (boysenberry) until it loosened up, and then adding sliced bananas once it was taken off the stove. (Did I mention that the only thing that rivals a PB&J is a PB, J&B?) I topped my peanut buttery pancake with my fruit sauce and wiped my drool off the counter. (Well, I didn't drool; I can't have you really thinking that. I just had to say it for effect, which, undoubtedly, has been ruined by my desire to clarify and save my composed image.)

My verdict: C'mon...Need you really ask? I think you know.

To all of my faithful blog followers (those who were forced to read for class participation points and those of you who proved the depths of our friendship by reading this nonsense just because): thank you. It's been fun. Well, at least it's been fun for me. I've had spaghetti and meatball pancakes, mac and cheese pancakes, omelet pancakes, hamburger pancakes, "toast" pancakes, and peanut butter and jelly pancakes, in addition to remembering the devilishly good Australian pancakes I had down under. Weird. But exactly the break I was looking for in my insane 21-credit semester. Now to work off those carbs...

~Happy Pancake Eating~