pancakes recipe

Hmmm,so I chose this as the first recipe to post on because my friends love, love, love pancakes. I remember one Saturday not too long ago when we made a batch of almost 40 pancakes, did I hear you say wow, yes. Did I hear the cynical ones say what's the big deal? Well the big deal is we are medical students, final years for that matter so time is scarcer than fuel (if scarcer is correct english) so u can understand now the effort it took. But it was worth it because apart from being a filling breakfast it really helped us to bind. I really enjoy times when we get to sit, jist and just kick back cos such times are quite few and seeing that we will soon part ways... I think I'm getting too emotional, now back to the post.

Materials

• A frying pan
• A Bowl
• A big spoon (soup spoon for scooping), a tablespoon and a flat spoon
• A spatula/ turning stick, or whatever else you call it
• A plate lined with seviettes to put the pancakes when ready

Ingredients

This is where I will have to really work hard if I am truly going to be of help to clueless bachelors and students here (make una no vex oh, na joke abeg).

Being an experienced cook (*winks, agama lizard like me), I hardly measure, I just gauge from experience and toss into bowls, pans etc and voila my food is at least GOOD!  But I'll try my best

so here goes: 

• 5 heaped normal tablespoons of normal flour
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of sugar I'll go with or if you are trying to work on your weight like me
• A tablespoon of powdered  milk
•  1 egg 

• A teaspoon vanilla essence (liquid)
• Pinch of salt

•  water (sorry but can't quantify this right now, maybe when I make pancakes next, I'll modify it)

Serves 2 comfortably depending on your stomach size.


Method

• Pour the flour into the bowl
• Add the sugar, salt and milk
• Mix all together well
• whisk the egg and add it into the bowl with the flour and others. Mix it together, it may be thick and strong so use a turning stick. If you don't mix it well, your pancakes may start having lumps from this stage
• add water little by little, it should not bee too thick yet not too runny. This is the tricky part, I suggest you don't make it too watery so that if it's too thick by the time you start frying  you can adjust the consistency. If the consistency is not right, you may not get the flat pancakes that will make you proud of yourself, you may just get a gooey mess, once again I promise to send accurate measurement of the water to add once I make another batch. 
• Add your vanilla and mix again.
• put on your stove, gas, firewood etc (*winks)
• Heat the pan and then reduce the heat under it, so I guess firewood will be struck off the list above, he he, or if you know how to reduce/ regulate firewood to a constant level let us know
• pour in just about a tablespoon of vegetable oil, it will be enough to fry the pancakes on both sides
• ensure oil is hot enough and scoop a soup spoon full of the batter into the pan
• hold the handle of the pan and spread out the batter  round it
• once it starts bubbling on top i.e you see air bubbles on top, you can now use your flat spoon to flip it over
• fry adequately till well browned if that is how you like it 
• should take approximately 3 minutes to fry both sides, a minute and half for each side, but hey, cooking is a fun experiment so you don't have to strictly follow the rules, use your discretion  too.
• repeat till the batter is finished 
• pile on your  serviette  covered plate to drain out excess oil
• serve like that or with pancake fillings
• did I hear someone say what are pancake fillings again? They are things you can use to make your pancakes a whole meal, more interesting and more filling. You can either add them before frying  or after. Here's where my friends will say I have come with my 'grass' again because most of my fillings have veggies which my friends call grass
• I promise I will do another post on various pancake fillings much later but as I mentioned earlier, I am a  medical student so I have to run back to my books, enjoy your meal, remember  to share with someone if you don't want to start Pilling on the stomach fat.

• let me know how your trial went as you kindly leave a comment 
• beware, if the recipe helps you and you don't leave a coment heeeen, that's a recipe for running stomach oh, he he, just kidding.

CIAO!!!

The life of a medical student

Just lying on my bed after discussion thinking of how tomorrow will be. See, I'm embarking on the last lap of my journey as a medical student. Postings start tomorrow and I'm reluctantly eager....what an oxymoron. Well, I'm eager because I just can't wait to be a doctor, fulfill my dreams, help those in need blah blah blah. But I'm reluctant because any medical student will definitely tell you postings can be a pain in the *** sometimes.  Typical scenario:
Consultant: so, what is boehaave's syndrome?
1st student: sir I don't know
Consultant: 'eziokwu' ehn hen, next student
2nd student: sir, I can't really remember (me in my head, 'I bet he never knew')
Consultant: I don't believe this, and you all say you are in final year? Are you sure you will become doctor's in six months?  You know it's not about when you start your last programme but when you pass your papers. Well, if you don't know I won't tell you, look it up. Hmmm, final year. Biko,  keee the next patient.
Hmmm, another wash down, but at this stage, I guess we would be all used to it but the difference is, while 2 years ago I would have felt like entering the ground because I was embarrassed during the rounds because I didn't know a question, this time around I am challenged to go read that thing up and more because after the next six months I would no longer be dealing with mannequins or cadavers but with real humans with families hopes, so any mistake could mean changing others people's lives forever and most likely, negatively. I vow, I have to know what I'd be asked next time so I've got to read....but forget sha, e no too easy. Speaking of which...gat to go, tomorrow is conference. May come back with stories but hope it won't be like the above.
Ciao.

Sooo, I saw 'when love happens' yesterday,  by the way, it was a very beautiful movie and apart from leaving me smiling from ear to ear after leaving the cinema it had me wondering : does this really happen? Can things turn out to be that good in life after all? I have a very good relationship but sometimes I feel reading ' mills and boons ' when I was young has ruined me. My fiancé has really changed since I met him, he's more romantic, more caring, more everything but sometimes I wonder if I could have the whole fairy tale life, the perfect man who knows how to treat a woman like an angel and make everyone around her jealous. But then I look at myself in the mirror and I smile and say : since you want him to be the perfect man, where is your perfect figure 8? Are you also the ideal woman a guy would call his perfect woman? Hmmm, after thinking long and hard I just concluded, everybody wants that person who makes them feel like a million bucks, every woman wants to be a cinderella but the bitter truth is : life is. ........well, life is life. I really doubt if such things exist...my favourite, Anastasia in fifty shades of grey. I think they are merely a way people who have imperfect lives write out what they fantasise about and how they want their lives to be in the hope that someone out there may act it out and end up giving them that perfect life. So, I decided that instead of  killing myself about wanting a fairy tale life, instead of making my man unhappy by putting too much pressure on him, someone who has already morphed so so much to make me a happy woman by becoming a better person, I'd just enjoy what I have, improve myself, pray to God for his presence in our lives....and who knows, I may eventually end up with ' my ' own fairytale. Who has ever been in such a position? Care to share how you coped? Or do you believe the fairytale is really out there and you will experience it? Or, are you already living that fairytale? Share with us. Still working on my signature sign out.

The birth of a new child

Are you one of the many Nigerians who stay up at night thinking of how to make a better life for themselves? I am too, so maybe we should form an association. I'm sure we will only be able to hold our meetings in large spaces like eagle square or the 'uncommon'  Akwa-Ibom international stadium and  there will still be a large number of people waiting to get in after the place is filled to capacity. I happen to be one of the people who wake up a lot in the night and during one of those episodes, I couldn't go back to sleep and I started indulging in one of my most frequent habits: how to make my life better. I'm sure so many people out there think about it every single day, I was thinking: 'how do I go from just wishing to achieving the things I've always dreamed of doing?' And BAM: easy oak came to mind. So what is easy oak all about? I'm sure everyone will get to find out soon enough. It's not an ingenious idea, I'm not claiming to be Einstein,  but it's an idea I see as a stepping stone to where I really want to be in future. So....keep checking in to find out what easy oak is all about while it's preparations to face the world go on behind the curtains. In the mean time, feel free to rant about all the many times you have stayed awake thinking of how to be the next 'Dangote' of your generation. Now I'm thinking...I need a signature way of signing off in this blog but let me work on that before I start getting more criticisms than critique if I happen to use something too cliché.  Have a wonderful day all.