Strawberry Banana Pancakes

Do you know what's frustrating? Being nostalgic for the present. Inadvertently anticipating the inevitable. A kind of pre-sentimental sentimentality. That's where I keep finding myself lately. I haven't even left yet, and somehow I already miss London.

 

It's like I'm acutely aware that these moments are fleeting and that when they are gone, I will miss them terribly. So I jump the gun and end up feeling all sentimental about the eventual absence of people and places and things that are still right in front of me.

 

It is perfectly fine to mourn the end of an era...but only at the end of that era. I'm still here. This is silly. This is no way to live. This calls for comfort food. Specifically, pancakes.

 

The amount of time it takes to make and eat pancakes is pretty much the perfect amount of time to allow myself to sit in this too-soon sentimentality. It's okay to be a little sad. But don't stay there. Make yourself some pancakes. Then eat up, man up, and move on.

 

Let's save the tears for the plane ride back, shall we? It's always more fun to cry in a cramped public space anyway, right? Riiiiiiight... 
 
Strawberry Banana Pancakes 

 
Ingredients:

3/4 cups flour

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

just over 1/2 cup milk

1/4 stick (28 g) melted butter

1 egg

A dash of vanilla
1 banana, thinly sliced
handful of strawberries, thinly sliced

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.

Whisk together milk, butter, egg and vanilla in a smaller bowl. Make sure the milk isn't cold or it will cause the butter to re-solidify (is that a word?) and make life and whisking very frustrating. I usually just melt the butter with the milk and let it cool a bit before adding the egg and vanilla.
 

 
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix until just combined. 

Heat a pan over medium heat. Grease before spooning the batter into it. Add banana and strawberry slices as you see fit, making sure to press them down into the batter a bit so they stay tucked into the pancake when it's flipped. Once bubbles start to form and burst in the middle of the pancake, you'll know it's time to turn it. It'll only take about half as long to cook on the other side. 

Stack sky high and serve warm with plenty of butter and cinnamon.