Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, so naturally we dove into a pancake dinner. Good times.  We aren’t much for plain pancakes around here — I’m all about the chocolate chip, my wife’s into the banana and/or chocolate chip variety.

Naturally we are right-thinking people and build this around Alton Brown’s Buttermilk Pancake recipe, found over yonder at the Food TV site.  I grew up on the Bisquick variety, so the conversion to this one is extra-welcome, and definitely worth the very minor extra steps (composing your own mix, acquiring buttermilk, separating the eggs).

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I’m going to try to talk food three times this week.  It’s going to be light on words, unless there’s a recipe for me to offer in-post, but hey, you’ve got some eating to do.

First up is my new favorite dinner. It is not healthy, but it is good: Chicken Lazone.

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I started to write this recipe up, and then got the odd feeling like I’d posted it before.  Sure enough, I had, over a year ago back on my Livejournal, in my sole food-tagged post until this blog started replicating over there.

So! Scratch the rewriting, then. Instead, you get the illustrations the previous edition lacked. Enjoy.

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I always like to get a day of recovery after travel. This past Sunday was exactly that.

Our morning started with a trip to Mayorga Coffee down in south Silver Spring. Christie had gone there a few times as part of one of her moms’ groups, and had nothing but good things to say about it.

Hm, make that almost nothing but good things. The bad thing was that it’s shutting down at the end of the year.

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Popovers are ludicrously easy to make (though the cleanup afterwards can be a mild pain sometimes). I have deep, fond memories of the popovers of my youth. I’ve eaten them with strawberry preserves and butter with an accompanying lobster bisque while sitting by Jordan Pond in Maine.  Everyone should have popovers in their lives — the crispy fluffy eggy buttery goodness of them.  Today, I share the recipe with you. They are this easy. Make them. Better yet, make them for people you love; they’ll know how you feel.

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This is an alternative version (though not much changed) of a recipe I found by “Mudflower” over on Recipezaar. I change a few methods here and there to make the preparation easier, and often make a one and a half times sized recipe, which just fills our ten quart pot (so you’ll want a reasonably large one even when making the regular amount).  The soup that results is really damn good — spicy, for sure, but with a lot of flavor surrounding that heat, lots of nicely developed corn flavor.

You can look at the original recipe if you like at the link above, but I’m going to supply my take on it here, embellished by the experience of making it several times.  Takes between 1 and 2 hours to get to the result, depending on how slow you are (I tend to be a bit slow). Enjoy!

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This is my Gamer Chili recipe — a modified version of one that Rob Donoghue (there he is again!) threw at me earlier this decade.  It got the “Gamer Chili” moniker for being very easy to throw together the morning before a game, and with a big enough crock pot (I usually do a double batch, but my slow-cooker is pretty high capacity), it can easily feed a table of 6-8 hungry gamers.  I may have posted it somewhere before, but it’s always good to get out there.

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Origins Game Fair introduced me to Jeni’s Ice Creams in its original North Market location. In other words, bliss.

I love these “cow to cone” guys, but they’re local to Ohio, and while I do consider them reason enough to travel to Origins, it only happens once a year.  So we’ve taken to making the occasional delivery order — affordable within their closest delivery area, at least, as you can get 9 pints packed in dry ice shipped to you for all of a $10 charge, making each pint cost between $9 and $10. That might sound pricey, but Jeni’s quality is completely worth it.  That’s not to say that every flavor is an instant hit for me, but the quality and craftsmanship of each one is undeniable. This is the sort of ice-cream that I like to shallowly skim with a spoon, so I can put just the right amount on my tongue to melt before going to the next. Jeni’s flavors lends themselves to savoring.

Here’s a quick tour of the flavors I’ve tried from the two shipments we’ve had so far.  I’ll include their descriptions, then my comments.

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