Pancake Tuesday

What do you call it: Carnival? Shrove Tuesday? Mardi Gras? Fat Tuesday? How about...Pancake Tuesday?

Last night, Dear Husband and I gathered with our Bible study to celebrate the beginning of the season of Lent while wearing purple, green, and gold beads. No king cake for us, we all contributed ingredients to several patches of really yummy pancakes. Originally, the point of eating pancakes on the day before Ash Wednesday was to use up the remaining fat in the larder before six weeks of fasting and Fish Fridays. These days few Christians give up truly bad habits for the period before Easter, much less meat. I, for one, will continue to enjoy pancakes with creamy peanut butter and syrup every Sunday morning. But this time we went all out: regular pancakes with blueberries, with pecans, with chocolate and peanut butter chips, and with blueberries AND mango. Also pumpkin pancakes plain, with pecans, with chocolate and peanut butter chips, and with pecans AND chocolate AND peanut butter chips (upper left). The pumpkin pancake recipe is long if you are used to combining a mix out of a box with some water like I am, but the finished result cooks up wonderfully thick and tasty. Here is the pumpkin pancake recipe I used. There was yummy maple syrup with which to top them all off.

Then it was time for dessert: Bananas Foster, a quintessential New Orleans treat on a day that is nearly synonymous in this country with "The Big Easy."

Afterwards we played a game--Banagrams, of course!

The multi-colored sprinkles are a festive touch, don't you think?