Monday, September 26, 2011

Oakton Street Road Diet Follow Up Meeting - September 27, 2011

This in from the Skokie Chamber of Commerce...

On Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 3 p.m. the Village will host a meeting for Downtown Skokie business and property owners to present the results of the "Road Diet" test conducted on Oakton Street in Downtown Skokie during May and June 2011. The meeting will be held in the Petty Auditorium at the Skokie Public Library, 5215 Oakton Street.

In addition to presenting the test results, the Village seeks comments and recommendations in order to provide the Village Board with a sense of the business community's perceptions of the program.

RSVP to info@skokie.org or call 847-933-8257 with the number of representatives attending from your business or property. 
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Adaptable Baked Apple Pancake

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Nothing beats eating an apple immediately picked from its tree, but with apple-picking season upon us, now's a good time to get lots of apples, pull out some favorite apple recipes, experiment with some new ones and have some fun.

Similar to the one's made at Walker Bros., this apple pancake is a treat. Friends and family will be grateful to you for making this dish, assuming you are willing to share.

Here we go...

2 tablespoons melted butter, or as much butter as you prefer
4 tablespoons brown sugar, or as much as you prefer
1 teaspoons cinnamon, or as much as you prefer

2 apples, peeled and pared

2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup flour, or slightly less if whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon vanilla, optional

Preheat the oven to 400 or 415 degrees F.
Pour melted butter into a pie pan or a small baking pan, allow the butter to coat the sides of the pan
Sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon on the butter
Place apples on top of the sugar and cinnamon
Whisk together eggs, milk and flour and pour over apples
Bake for 25-30 min. Inhale through your nose for the last 25 minutes.

The pancake will come out of the oven puffy and sizzling. You might enjoy watching it deflate. While Walker Bros. serves their pancake upside down, with the apple and sugar side up, you might like yours with the baked top up. The annoying part will be waiting for the pancake to cool enough so that you can eat it.

Prepping the apples is the most time-consuming part of this recipe, so sometimes I peel and slice them up the night before and store in a air-tight container in the refrigerator.

This is a great recipe to experiment with. Consider substituting the apples for raspberries and blueberries, or even bananas, all of which require less prep time. Consider doubling or tripling the batch depending on the size pan you use and your personal prefer. Consider adding cinnamon to the batter, or skip it all together.

The batter is the same one some cooks use to make crepes and a dish my family has made for generations, schmorn.

About Schmorn...

Schmorn is made by frying the batter in a frying pan generously lubricated with corn or olive oil and sliced into marble-sized pieces with two dinner knives and stirred as it fries. My mom and grandmother usually served it savory, seasoned with salt and pepper, but consider powdered sugar.

If you experiment this recipe, and try some variations, I'd love to hear how it worked out for you.
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