Pancake Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday, Mardis Gras (literally translates as fat Tuesday)... Thank goodness tonight's supper was a no-brainer. I've been reading other bloggers' ways of eating and preparing pancakes, and many of these people live in England, or Wales. Some of them wrote about eating pancakes with lemon and sugar, or even orange juice and sugar. This is a completely foreign (literally) concept to me. Here's how this Canadian does a pancake supper (or breakfast for supper). Please understand this is NOT a typical breakfast. It might be a weekend brunch, but nobody I know eats this much for breakfast.

First, the best way to make bacon is not on the stove, where grease spits and flies around and makes a ridiculous mess of your stove top. Instead, cook it in the oven. Line a big cookie sheet with foil and create little walls around the edges.

My cookie sheets are old and ugly. I have not attempted any of the Pinterest methods of using hydrogen peroxide and Dawn dish soap, or whatever the concoction is.(And why does it always have to be Dawn?)  My cookie sheets have the patina of love and overuse.

Next, get the bacon. Bacon that is cut in strips. Let's clear up this whole Canadian bacon thing. In Canada, nobody calls it Canadian bacon. And what other countries refer to as Canadian bacon, is, I think what we would call back bacon, or peameal bacon which is more like ham. This particular bacon that I bought is "thick cut". I prefer the regular kind, but there seems to be some sort of scammy thing going on with bacon (oh the horror!) where we pay just as much, but the slices are much thinner, to the point of ripping them to shreds when you try to separate them. So, I went for the thick slices this time.

Lay the bacon on the tinfoil trying not to overlap. Put it in the oven and turn the oven to 400 degrees, or 375, or 425, it doesn't really matter because you are going to be watching it carefully anyway. Soon your kitchen will smell like bacon heaven.

At this time, I also opened up a can of beans. I'm not a huge fan of beans, but the husband likes them with "breakfast for supper."

This was from the CASE of beans he bought when we went to Costco. Who needs a case of beans?? We'll be eating them throughout 2018!

Yes, yes, I have made pancakes from scratch. But it's Tuesday and I work and all I had to do was "just add water" to this!

Husband was in charge of eggs while I took care of pancakes and watching the bacon in the oven so it was cooked to perfection (i.e. nothing too wobbly). You would think pancakes would be the easiest thing in the world, but I'm often not great at them. I either flip them too soon, or they're too flat, or not fluffy enough or the pan isn't hot enough. The first couple are always worthy of throwing away.

Not even round, and I'm pretty sure I can see the face of Christ in one of them!

Ahhh, but you can forgive me my pancake sins, because here is the bacon, resting on its blanket of paper towel to soak up the grease thus making it even crispier.

This is some super hefty bacon. Again, it would have been crispier if it was the "regular" slice and not the "thick" slice. But it tasted fine.

And there you have it. Egg with ketchup, pancakes with butter and maple syrup, bacon, and orange juice. I'll pass on the beans, thank you. Fat Tuesday.