We had a great weekend me and the kids, on Friday I made them a fancy breakfast, lemony pancakes, hash browns and omelette. It was actually an attempt to recreate the breakfast we had at Le Mirabelle on my birthday but I will get back to the breakfast and the recipes in a little while

Later in the day we took a road trip to Jerash, a city north of Amman that has the ruins of one of the best preserved Roman.The road to Jerash is one through beautiful  mountains, and scattered little villages on both sides.

Along the way you’ll find farmers selling their vegetables and fruits for the people who pass by.This time of year, it is mostly beautiful pomegranates with the colors of the sunset and all kinds of figs from green to  purplish blue.

I really wanted to take a couple of pictures of the beautiful fruit displays along the road but by the time we went to Jerash and came back it was already dark and I knew the pictures wouldn’t do them justice in such a light so I decided not take any. Sorry!

I did however take a few pictures of the city

The kids had a blast running around wild-eyed asking about everything lol.The part they liked the most according to my eldest is watching the man draw with the sand and write their names inside the sand bottles

The drawings in the bottles you see are made by carefully layering colored sand into the glass bottle to create these enchanting patterns and drawings

The day ended with a beautiful sunset, two happy kids and loads of great memories 🙂

Back to the pancakes. Over a month ago Kristy from Eat play love posted a wonderful recipe for peach and ricotta pancakes that I knew at once I had to make. Eat play love is one of my favorite blogs that chronicles the journey of  a family with a passion for food and good travel. I love following their cooking trips around the world and their quest for the perfect banana bread recipe.

I tried making the recipe for the first time with peaches but thought it would be smart to add chopped peaches to the batter

Big mistake

The fluid from the peaches made the batter to runny and impossible to flip, I poured it into a cake pan and baked it. The result was a delicious cake /pancake hybrid.I was determined to try this again but this time without the peaches.

 The changes I made were to double the sugar because my kids like eating their pancakes plain and I reduced the baking powder in half because I felt that there was a slight baking powder taste still evident in the pancakes after cooking (the recipe below is the adapted one). I also used the blender to mix the ricotta with the eggs, butter and sugar. I wanted the ricotta to be smooth and evenly distributed in the batter.The result: Perfection!

The ricotta makes the pancakes fluffy and light, almost like eating clouds. The double dose of lemon from the lemon zest and juice adds so much freshness, a distinct lemony flavor and a heavenly smell that fills the house. I have made these lemony pancakes 2 times since then and my little one declared them her ultimate pancakes taking over from the carrot cake pancakes.

Lemony Ricotta pancakes

adapted from  Eat, Play, Love

1 and 1/2 cups all‐purpose flour

4 tablespoons  sugar

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup  ricotta cheese

1 cup  milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

2 Tablespoons butter

In a large mixing bowl whisk the eggs with the vanilla, butter, ricotta , milk,lemon juice, lemon zest and sugar until pale in color (I usually do this in the blender)

In a separate bowl whisk the flour, salt and baking powder

Next add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients

in the large mixing bowl and stir to combine. The batter should be lumpy, do not over mix.

Heat a large skillet or griddle over medium heat and add a little butter to grease the surface.

Add one ladel ful per pancake and wait until you can see bubbles all over the pancake then flib it to cook on the other side