Blueberry Buttermilk Oven Pancakes

When Thomas and I recently went to the Pentwater Abbey Bed & Breakfast for our one year anniversary, I remember snooping around in the "Rose Room's" guestbook and seeing comment after comment about the innkeeper's delicious blueberry pancakes. I'd hoped the innkeeper had the pancakes on one of our two mornings' menus. To my delight, we were served these mysteriously delicious pancakes on our final morning!

When I remarked to the innkeeper how happy I was to try these famous pancakes of hers, she quickly offered me the recipe. And yes, the hype surrounding the dish was well deserved!

For your consideration, I present:

Blueberry Buttermilk Oven Pancakes

When you head to the store, here's what you need!

Ingredients: (Split into three different parts, based on the different parts of the recipe)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 beaten egg
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 tablespoons cooking oil

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Here's what you need to do with the ingredients!

1. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, soda, baking powder and salt (part 1 of ingredients above).

2. In another mixing bowl, combine the egg, buttermilk and cooking oil (part 2 of ingredient list above).

3. Add all at once to dry ingredients. 

4. Spread batter evenly in a greased and floured 15x10x1 inch baking pan (the rest of the steps are from the third part of the ingredient list above).

5. Sprinkle blueberries over top of the batter.

6. Combine sugar and cinnamon. (Who else made this concoction as a kid to sprinkle over their buttered toast?? ) 

7. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar mix evenly over fruit.

8. Bake in a 350 oven for 16 to 18 (my oven runs hot, so I only did 12 minutes) minutes or until the top springs back when lightly touched and the top is lightly brown around the edges.

9. Cut into 12 square pancakes. Serve with syrup (and OJ in a champagne glass!) if desired!

Beware, this is dangerously delicious in my humble opinion and the whole pan can be eaten quicker (especially when the husband loves it) than you could imagine. Oops!

Cheers,
Samara

Bed & Breakfast Love

I've long wanted to go to a bed & breakfast and it's just one of those things I never got around to booking or even planning for that matter. Our recent one year wedding anniversary was a perfect time to act on this "wish list" item.

Of course, I had no idea I was going on a bed & breakfast trip as Thomas surprised me with the trip. All I knew was that after my brother and sister-in-law's graduation, we were hitting the road. I was given the type of clothing to pack and off we went. My only wish for our anniversary destination is that it not be very far from Lansing and be very low-key as I was dealing with first trimester pregnancy blues (oh nausea, how I hate(d) thee, let me count the ways...).

Thomas took me to THEE most adorable bed & breakfast--The Pentwater Abbey--in a teeny tiny little town called Pentwater. Luckily, we were the only guests there so we had the whole place to ourselves, save for our adorable inn keeper, Karen.

When we arrived, we were greeted with this adorable, handwritten note on Karen's front door:

From that point on, we were treated to a wonderful, relaxing weekend with the most considerate, thoughtful host ever! I wanted to bring Karen home with us to make breakfast every day and be our live-in aunt who takes care of everything we need. She was wonderful!

Quaint view from our room of a portion of the garden

Cute little details :)

Our breakfast table

She made tons of delicious breakfast food.

 

While in Pentwater, other than sleeping, relaxing, spending quality time together and EATING, we strolled along the quaint, little town streets talking with the shopkeepers and doing some light shopping.

I loved the local barber shop's hours:

The best part about our stay is that our bed & breakfast was two blocks from the shore of Lake Michigan. 

And since we stayed through a Sunday night, we had the lovely shore front ALL TO OURSELVES. It was such a romantic weekend.

On our anniversary, we sat out at the table in Karen's garden, had a piece of cake from the top layer of our wedding cake and wrote eachother sweet notes, reflecting on our first year of marriage.

OK, we cheated a little on the cake thing. We both agreed that frozen cake is always disgusting and thusly ordered a small cake with the same exact flavors we had on our wedding cake from the same cake maker. And, I have no shame in saying it was simply delicious, darlings!

Me walking along the shore

Our bed & breakfast trip made me fall in love with the whole bed & breakfast thing. It doesn't seem like anything big or exciting when you first think about it, but that's exactly the beauty of it.

We all run around in the rat race of life and this kind of a getaway lets you decompress and truly get away and relax. This just may be my favorite new thing.

Some of my "dream" bed & breakfast getaways include a couple on the east coast, one of which is located in Martha's Vineyard and another in Peabbles, Maine:

Do these places not look dreamy? 

Cheers,

Samara 

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July, friends! I can't believe how different this 4th of July is from last year. Last year was hot like I'd never felt--over 100 degrees--in Michigan and we didn't even want to go outside. This year, we're barely breaking 70 degrees.

Hot or cold, 4th of July always means good food, sparklers, fireworks, a day of lazing around and doing exactly what you want to do, and.... lots of red, white and blue! 

Every year, my family gets together at my Aunt Margaret's house to eat delicious food, play games and watch the city fireworks from the comfort of my aunt's backyard. (She has an AWESOME, unobstructed view of the city fireworks, and..NO TRAFFIC afterwards!) 

Picture taken from my aunt's yard last year

While shopping for some office items at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago, I happened upon a few adorable 4th of July items that I couldn't resist! 

These look like little sparklers on a stick.

There is always a purpose for fun straws.

Patriotic stars for hanging!

I also found these decorative items and scattered them around candles in our livingroom. (You can see from the very melted candles that we've been enjoying the ambience of this little set-up!) 

At night, in person, having the candles lit and hearing the gentle crackling and popping of the fireworks in the back makes our little patriotic scene look very nautical. I just love it! 

And of course, I hung the stars from--where else--our tree!!

I hope you all have a beautiful 4th of July holiday filled with sparklers, delicious eats, enjoyable company and lots of relaxation. 

Cheers,

Samara