Sneaky Chef- Take One, Take Two, Take Three

In an effort to feed Carson healthier food, I purchased the book "The Sneaky Chef". Very popular with the basic idea that you sneak veggies and fruit into every day food. Carson loves fruit but isn't a big fan of veggies. Those who know me, know I am NOT a cook, nor a baker. I really don't enjoy cooking, I hate following recipes, and would much rather make something from a mix or box.

So my first attempt with the Sneaky Chef was Chocolate Chip pancakes. I very carefully mixed a healthy blend of white flour, wheat flour, and wheat germ. So far so good. But then things went downhill quickly. I had not read the entire recipe before beginning. I was simply following down the list of ingredients. Fourth ingredient, applesauce. After I dumped that in, I discovered that I was supposed to mix all the dry ingredients, then mix the wet ones, and THEN mix them together. Oops. No big deal, right? Right?!?

So after that I dumped in the egg, honey, chocolate chips, baking powder, and milk. The mix was a bit thick, ok, really thick so I thinned it out with more milk. The recipe told me to!! Then I had to take care of Carson for awhile so the batter sat. And sat. The pan got hotter and hotter. When I was finally ready to cook the pancakes, I burnt the first batch. No problem, I've VERY used to burning things. I threw those out and tried again, this time with a cooler pan.

The next two batches proceeded to burn while the insides of the pancakes remained a solid gooey mess. On the third attempt, I even tried (don't laugh) microwaving them to get the insides to cook. No good. Microwaving chocolate chips is a BAD idea. Then I added more milk to the batter thinking it was still too thick to cook. By this time Carson was in full on melt-down due to low blood sugar levels and Jeremy was in partial melt-down due to screaming child and his own low blood sugar (because at this point, I've put our dinner on the back burner-where it proceeded to get dried out and rubbery).

I finally put the remaining batter aside, fed Carson a cereal bar, and fed us rubbery, dried out Thai noodles (of course they were out of a box). Stop feeling sorry for my family please, we get by just fine.

With everyone more or LESS satisfied, I got out the griddle because Jeremy told me it makes perfect pancakes every time. I kept the heat low, and low and behold, the outsides got brown. But after 30 minutes of cooking, the insides were still gooey messes. No pancake should have to cook for 30 minutes!! I gave up when I ran out of batter and the clock struck 10. Hopefully I saved the receipt for that darned book!