Another problem solved! Nap time?

I'm making a lot of pancakes recently. I've been having fun tweaking the recipe - turns out, adding more baking soda isn't always a great idea.

For one, baking soda is salty, and we're trying to minimize our sodium intake, thank you very much. Also, additional baking soda stops giving you more puff at a certain point, but does thicken the batter, which is 'not so much with the good' for pancakes being done all the way through.

I've tried adding liquid banana flavoring (meh-it's real banana pancakes or forget it), vanilla (meh) and finally lemon. Unsurprisingly, lemon pancakes are delicious! Anyone who likes lemon poppy seed muffins or bread will agree.

I try to control the variables as much as possible - pan, temperature, preheat time, pancake mix consistency, elapsed time before the flip... and still, I tend to allow the pancake to brown too much or not enough.

You would think you could flip an underbrowned pancake back over and it would brown correctly, but you would be wrong. You have missed your chance, Mr. Impatient. You can't put a baby back in the womb, (or can you?) and there are no second chances with pancake doneness.

What's that you're yelling? Cooking and baking is an art, and I should practice? Refine my skills? Learn something?

NO! Once again it is technology which is the solution, and EtchCo to the rescue: I present to you 'The FoodView Extreme!'.

Basically it's a heat-resistant camera in the center of each burner, looking up at the food you're cooking. Originally I pictured a glass-top stove, but The FoodView Extreme! would work with any stove type.

You'll use glass cookware with The FoodView Extreme! - the camera picks up a live feed of your food as it cooks, displaying the image on a monitor built in to the stove itself, into a nearby cupboard, or wirelessly streaming to your iPhone or other wireless device. Color correction software would adjust the image to subtract the ruddy heat glow, ensuring an accurate display of delicious doneness!

Using a phone app, the user can use previously stored images to create a basic image database for doneness - 'Hey, FoodView Extreme! app - in the future, say DING when the bottoms of my cupcakes are this color - thanks'.

The FoodView Extreme! isn't just for the stovetop. With The FoodView Extreme! for ovens, your biscuits and cookies will be perfect each time. No more burnt bottoms! No more underdone middles! Pre-order The FoodView Extreme! today!

Another rousing breakfasty tale

I was boiling water for to make the oatmeals, and something on the burner's drip tray caught on fire (my sweetie does love boil-overs - dinner just isn't dinner without a boil-over).

The fire burned for a good minute, throwing up a fair bit of smoke. I prepared the hand towel for the inevitable smoke-alarm-alert-wavy-wave-waft.

Along with the smoke, tiny motes of burning boil-over rose up, like little flying creatures, lively little critters of energetic curiosity springing forth out of dinner debris in a flurry of spontaneous generation.

They burned out quickly, settling all over the kitchen as little specks of creamy ash, smearing everywhere like dirty little comets. They're so cute, I left them where they fell - I couldn't bring myself to scrub 'em off.

Dinner Guests Prep - Suggestion

Long before you start cooking, turn on all the burners to high for 5 minutes. Allow anything burnt on to burn off.

Let the air clear fully (open a window, whydontcha) and then start cooking. This means your lovely dinner won't be tainted by the smoking remains of last week's Chef Boyardee.