Party, Pauly, Pancakes!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA YYYYYYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUU GGGGGUUUUUYYYYYSSSSS! The Goonies friggin rock, no questions asked. However, this movie was not gracing my sights this weekend as I am making plans to hold a little marathon for myself. So far the Set-List contatins: House (season 5), Up!, Flight of the Conchords (Season 2), The Hurt Locker and The Taking of Pelham 123. Man... thank goodness i've already been to the gym this weekend.

LOOK-IT! The last time i had Egg-Nog was in Freshman Year of high school when a friend invited me to their annual Holiday get together and i had never tried it before. Have to say... i liked it. How much? Well, lets just say there was a quart of it that i choose to carry about the house like it was a mug of Grog and i was dining in the Halls of King Arthur! Sword and the Stone friggin Rocks, no questions asked. Anyhoo, even though IHOP already got to them before i had a time to make a batch... there was only one thing to do with the wonder of Silk Nog

IHOP can suck it!!!!

Just so you know, the little one with the bites taken out of it? Yeah, i like to see one of you get through making a batch of Nog-Cakes without nibbling on somehing. Plus you have to test the griddle so - "This just in... the pigeon brothers have been killed. Authorities have found the weapon to be a single stone."

How were they? Well, lets just say that if the Terminator tasted like these... it would have been a LOT easlier to eat.

So, yesterday was friday the 13th, it was also my mom's birthday. I would like to take a moment of silence to appreciate this coincidence.

So, to celebrate, the family drove down to Coral Gables and had the most delicious dining experience in the friggin universe! Hole in the wall restaurant with a grandma cooking in the back room? Negative. We went...
Yes, its a chain and you can find like three in every mall in America. But you know what... they know how to make some cheesecake! Possibly of the Banana-Nut variety and garnished with banana slices and real whipped cream which was eventually licked off the index finger of yours truly. More about this in a sec, first i must hum a song in the tune of 'joy'.

After dinner the fun continued and we saw
the one
the only

WEASEL!
We laughed, we cried, then we laughed some more! All in all it was one of the better birthdays i can remember celebrating with my mother. The worst? Definitely when I lost my glasses and we had to go to the mall and buy a new pair. Not to mention the mall was a ghost town since it was after daycare and the stores were closing. Happy Birthday Mommy!

Okay, so earlier in the post and the other day i made a couple additions to my diet that weren't vegan. Why put yourself through this/How could you do that!, you ask? Well, long-time readers have seen my need for balance and I feel that when i went vegan cold turkey it was in a place that was, for lack of a better word, not. Therefore, in light of Truth Week i decided to do some reflecting and decided that i did not switch to veganism for the right reasons. I chose to do it so i could set boundaries for myself, limit what i could and couldn't have. Take a certain amount of control over my life by what i do/do not eat. Sounds crazy, but this is the mindset of the dieter and it is where my mind has been for awhile now; which, ironically enough, is the farthest thing from healthy I know of. Therefore... i have decided to take a page out of Sarah and Holly's books and make peace with food. Choose NOT to define myself by whats on my plate but rather what is on/in my heart. My drive to help others and to simply live. Granted, I love eating natural and whole foods and will continue to do so because I truly do want to. But i will no longer set boundaries because they dont work. As of now people at work have been calling me the 'part time vegan' or the 'artist formerly known as vegan'... I would rather be referred to as Clay (panClayke for long).

Lastly, as just mentioned, I have a drive to help other and am working to help the Daily Bread Food Bank , and have discovered an awesome opportunity to raise money for them. Not only is there a donation button at the tippy-top-o-da-blog, but i am have recently become a featured publisher on Foodbuzz (you can see the badge above the donation button) and, in turn, get a little money from foodbuz for every click on the pages of my site. Basically, its the same thing that my Chocolate Covered Princess
, which i thought was a pretty good idea. What does this mean for you? Well, it means more: Rideos, pan-creations and general musings altogether. All in all, there is going to be more for you all and, in turn, more for those in need. So... Click Away true friends, click and smile.

Well ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. Tune in next week for more Pan-creations, and a Promised Rideo (I already know what the subject is). Until next time, this is PanClayke, reminding you that IHOP can suck it... Bud-dy.

up UP and a-waffle!

Last post we ventured into the wonder that was Kodiak Pancake Mix but did i mention that the word mixes box also mentioned the word..... waffle? NO!? Well it did, which gave me the gung ho attitude of "Have iron will waffle". I immediately dove into the boxes littering my living room from my recent move and pulled out the waffle iron that I had not used since the the 'marsh-madness', note to self: marshmallows melt away into nothing when you cook them and WILL stick to the waffle maker.

That being said I also found a nice can of pumpkin puree next to the iron and thought... 'why not turn my waffles up to eleven?' Eleven, thy name is pumpkin waffle. Prepare the mix, add the nutmeg, cloves, little cinnamon sugar and the pumpkin and you have a disc full or flavor and beta carotene. So not only are you doing something awesome for your pallete but also for our overall health, kicking cancer in the face once and for all!

The taste, while awesome, was almost overlooked by the texture. When I crave waffles one of the first things i think of is a crunchy exterior which was lacking in todays concoction. I could not tell if it was due to the surprise ingredient or the fact that the mix was previously prepared, but much like a eunich watching hostel... there was a lack of firmness (yeah, i went there). The flavor, texture and overall joy of having some waffles ended up being triumphant, however, and a happy ending ensued. Next waffle will contain the addition of a little melted butter in hopes to crisp it up so definitely look forward to that one.

Speaking of happy endings (get your mind out of the gutter) it is time to unveil the second aspect of the 'PanClayke' blog, the passion of movie watching. This week out move excursion brought us to the latest brain-child of disney and pixar, Up! Not since Walter Matthau has an elderly man brought so much joy, and brought out an unlikely hero. The story is about a man who nurtures a childhood dream of being an explorer and shared said dream with his wife, Ellie. These two definitely win the award of cutest elderly movie couple since 'The Notebook', and also the most endearing. I am so elated that pixar is keeping the animated movie a staple in the cinematic world by not just regergetating the same 'fluff' over and over again, like a fat kid who found the hidden stash of Marshmallow Peeps. In this bloggers opinion Pixar has yet do make a mistake when it comes to movies (knock on wood) and has me looking forward to what theyre going to come up with in the future. This hopeful looking ahead was amped up even more when i remembered the sequel to 'The Incredibles' is still out there to look forward to. Until then though, Up will raise your mood much like it raises the home of the main character. There were definiely baloons tied to my ankles when i walked out of the theater (metaphorically), which floated me home to my computer which brings us to the present. In other words, whether it be by car or a boat or flying house... go and see this movie! Maybe even make it better and sneak in a few eggos for snacking (FULL CIRCLE!).

Until next time, this is PanClayke reminding you the regulat butter is both better tasting and better for you.