dinner with the pancake people ;)

I live in a shared house…this comment often leads the person I am speaking with to look back sympathetically and await the moaning. But after years of housemate horrors, I have found a beautiful home with 5 other people (yes 6 in total) that I think of as family. We are all quite different, but we come together and it just works really well. We met living in a large house that was once a vicarage. It was a great house with a lot of character. It was the perfect place to meet each other because it attracted a unique subset of people...those people looking for something special and out of the ordinary. A place where people wanted a lot of space but were happy to share it with each other. We recently had to relocate as the vicarage was sold, but we moved together. Our new house is bit more normal as far as houses go, but we still have the bond that living in the vicarage gave us...with the added bonus of a lovely kitchen! The kitchen, of course, is my favourite part of the house. We are all food lovers, and tend to all cook using fresh, healthy ingredients. So although we all have different preferences/specialties, there is definitely a common ethos in our kitchen.

We all lead busy lives so it is unusual when we meet up in the kitchen together. Pancake Day, brought us all together last week. This tradition was new to me when I moved to the UK. In Arizona, we call it Fat Tuesday and it is more about drinking and Mardi Gras beads than eating. The pancakes are the food of choice because they contain the ingredients (flour, sugar, fat) that are most associated with a last feast before a time of fasting as associated with Lent.

Our pancake day included a selection of sweet and savoury options…some attendees thought this “nontraditional” but they were too busy eating to complain too much! For savoury, we had leek/courgette and mushroom/onion mixtures and both of these were lovely topped with blue cheese. There was also a curry hummus with carrot. For sweet, we had the traditional lemon and sugar option, but also Nutella, honey, jam, and the highlight was some home mixed ice cream that included m&ms, shortbread, and salted cashews (a great combo).

The best pancake filling was a mix of Nutella, banana, and the ice cream…it was delicious!

 

This was our first house meal in our new home...I guarantee there will be many more to come! It was hardly a feast before the fasting for us...or at least for me :) I tried to claim I was giving up cake for Lent...but that lasted about a day.