Sky High Fluffy Pancakes aka Greatest of All Time Pancake recipe

Happy Shrove Tuesday aka Pancake Tuesday 🥞 !

This is the my GOAT pancake recipe.

Perfect incredibly fluffy and soft pancakes every time. Easy enough to whip up with a toddler insisting on “helping” out in the kitchen and an infant on one hip.  Pancake perfection.

Bali Banana Pancakes: A Bit of a Fail

Baby you hardly even notice 

When I try to show you, this 

Song is meant to keep you 

From doing what you're supposed to 

Waking up too early 

Maybe we can sleep in  

I'll make you banana pancakes 

Pretend like it's the weekend now 

~ Jack Johnson

Bali holds a special place in our hearts.

Bali was the very first place C and I travelled together way back in 2005.  Our first South East Asian adventure.  C's first taste of my travel organizing spreadsheets and the lists-monster that is Travelling Nessie.

It was a bit of a culture shock to start off with: getting grabbed at walking down the road by street hawkers yelling "plait your hair", getting ripped off at a dodgy currency exchange place down an alley, but once we adjusted we couldn't help but fall in love with the place and the incredible people.

Four weeks of surfing (C), sun bathing (me) and banana pancakes for breakfast overlooking the beach.  It's a hard life I tell ya.

So when I heard about the earthquake in Indonesia earlier last week, my heart went out to all those beautiful people in Bali and Indonesia who have gone through so much and also to our friends traveling over there at the mo.    Tetaplah Kuat, stay strong, we're thinking of you.

Remembering that amazing Bali trip got me craving Bali Banana Pancakes.  Anyone who's done any travelling in Indo knows that this ubiquitous breakfast meal deserves its place in the food hall of fame.

We had them everyday for brekkie.  Without fail.  And be you in the bustling back streets of Kuta, or a lazy warung on the cliffs overlooking Uluwatu, they were always amazing and somehow always exactly the same: sliced bananas embedded in a thick slightly-chewy pancake drizzled with a sweet maplesque syrup.

And when washed down with a steaming super-sweet mug of kopi while watching one perfect peeling wave after another, they are quite simply spectacular.

Breakfast of champions.

A week in para para paradise: The Piha Cafe, Piha

We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow ~ The Beach Boys, Kokomo

Ahh Dunedin.  I've been back down south for a whole week now and already it feels like I'd never left.

Not without the initial adjustment pains mind you: adjusting to going to lectures, adjusting to the freezing cold, adjusting to doing the whole long distance relationship thing again.  It's been like getting back into a pair of jeans that have just gone through the dryer.  A bit tight and uncomfortable to start off with but comfy again with a bit of wearing.

It definitely helped that we hit the ground running.  Lectures, labs, and miserable weather galore.  In fact, it was just our second day back and we were already performing our first craniotomies.  I was literally holding someone's brain in my hands.  Once the centre of their personality, all their thoughts, hopes, and dreams.  Incredible, awe-inspiring, just wow.

Despite all that excitement, I couldn't help but long for the balmy summer days back in Auckland.

Just before I headed back south, C and I took a week vacation at his family bach in Piha.  It was the one week over the entire summer when Auckland had amazing weather.  Score.  A whole glorious week of lazy mornings, nana naps in the arvo, and strolls through the beautiful Waitakere Ranges.  It was our little place like Kokomo.

The boys came and stayed for a couple of the days and since some of them were heading back to the UK and Australia, for their last morning in Piha we treated ourselves to brunch at The Piha Cafe.

Originally, there was a bit of controversy over the opening of the cafe.   Local Piharians are staunchly protective about keeping their slice of paradise pristine and uncommercialized.  Awesome for us visitors wanting to admire the scenery, not so awesome for businesses wanting to get a foot in the door.  After years of wrangling with resource consent shenanigans, fast-forward to 2012 and The Piha Cafe is a firm fixture on the Piha scene, offering some of the best views a cafe can offer, along with great tucker at very reasonable prices.

{via thepihacafe.co.nz}

Takapuna Beach Cafe, Takapuna, Auckland

{house hot chocolate}

The three most important things in real estate is location, location, location ~ Unknown

You would really be hard pressed to find a better location for a cafe than the Takapuna Beach Cafe on Auckland's North Shore.

It sits literally metres away from Takapuna Beach with it's golden sand and sprawling pohutukawa trees, overlooking the ocean with Rangitoto Island in the background.  Combine that with the grandiose floor to ceiling windows and the uber stylish decor, and you've got the recipe for a cafe you just want to while away the day in.

When the Takapuna Beach Cafe (TBC) first opened, it was the place to be.  Be you a celeb, a lady who lunches, muso or suit you wanted to be seen having a coffee at the TBC.  Best people watching spot ever.

We used to go to the TBC all the time when I was living in Auckland, I loved the consistently excellent coffee, the impeccably attentive service and most of all the exceptional restaurant-quality food that was always creative and always delicious.  So when my cousin and his girlfriend were over for our wedding, I couldn't think of a better place to show off Kiwi cafe culture.

The question was, would the TBC still be as good as I remembered? Would the setting, coffee, service and food still be as good? Well...turns out 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

Cinnamon & olive oil pancakes with salted butter caramelized bananas

That's why I'm easy...I'm easy like Sunday morning ~ Lionel Ritchie

Lazy Sunday brunches are one of my favourite meals. 

I would go so far as to say my husband and I are brunchaholics.  We used to brunch it up every weekend making our way round the plethora of cafes in Auckland (how we managed to afford to as poor students I have no idea!).

These days though, we tend to have our brunch dates at home.   I'd like to think it's coz we are just more comfortable at home but really it's probably coz we're just too lazy to go out.

Having said that, there are few things more satisfying than whipping up a massive stack of pancakes, fluffy french toast, super quick eggs bene, creamy balsamic mushrooms or fruity bircher muesli and getting to enjoy it while still in the comfort of your jamies and ugg boots.  Why go out when you can laze around at home, test each other with the brain teaser quiz in the newspaper and have as much delicious brunch food as you like for a fraction of the price?       
 
And if these Cinnamon & Olive Oil Pancakes with Salted Butter Caramelized Bananas don't completely convince you to give the at-home-brunch-date a go then I don't know what will!

Brunch at Savour and Devour, Grey Lynn, Auckland

There's something about the name 'Savour and Devour' that makes it really fun to say out loud.  Go on, say it with me: Savourrrr and Devoooouur.  You can't help but say it in your late-night-radio-DJ voice, sporting your best come hither look.

But the cool name is not the only reason to go to Savour and Devour, the food was pretty incredible too.