Have love will cook...

So newly in love and all consumed by it, I am trying to redirect all of this loving energy into cooking for the one I love. While food has been my first and lasting love since childhood, me and cooking have had an on and off again relationship. We have good time and we have bad times. We can never agree on how things should be, but in the end when all is said and done we remember how much we love each other. I have never loved cooking for myself, but now that I have someone to cook for I can begin my love affair again.

R left today for the weekend so I thought what better way to say I love you (*remember how much you love me*) than ricotta blueberry pancakes. Best part of the recipe was that we made them together. I never considered making pancakes from scratch, I have always been a buy the mix and throw a little something in it kinda girl.

We gathered our ingredients and began the difficult process of dividing the recipe that makes 16 pancakes in half. I mean there has got to be an easier way to divide recipes than fractions! Obviously the math section was left for R and I began the mixing. We separated, combined, folded and fluffed. We whipped our egg whites into semi-stiff peaks and R exclaimed 'I didn't know thats what happens to egg whites'. I smiled. The end result was perfectly delicious. We savored our breakfast and our morning together. Now I will spend the weekend thinking of what to make him next!

Recipe from BLD restaurant:

3 eggs, yolks and whites separated

3/4 cup ricotta cheese

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/4 cups milk

1 3/4 cups flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 pints blueberries

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and ricotta cheese so that there are no large lumps of cheese, but make sure the mixture does not become too smooth (this will make the pancakes wet and grainy). Whisk in the sugar, salt and vanilla, then the milk.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder. Fold this into the egg batter just until no lumps remain.

3. Separately, whip the egg whites to medium-stiff, shiny peaks, about 4 minutes. Gently fold these into the batter just until uniformly combined.

4. Ladle a generous one-fourth cup of batter onto a medium-hot, lightly greased griddle for each pancake. Place 10 to 12 blueberries on each pancake and cook, about 2 minutes per side, until the cakes are golden-brown and cooked through. Serve immediately with maple syrup on the side.

Each serving: 276 calories; 10 grams protein; 41 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 8 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 98 mg. cholesterol; 369 mg. sodium.