Pancakes

Pancakes are a wonderfully cheap and tasty meal. My favorite dinners growing up were when we had "breakfast" for dinner. Here is a great, basic pancake recipe. Double or triple recipe to serve more if you need to.

• 1 egg (12 cents)
• 3/4 cup milk (13 cents)
• 2 tablespoons margarine or butter, melted (7 cents)
• 1 cup flour (half wheat and half white is what I do)(5 cents)
• 1 tablespoon sugar (1 cent)
• 3 teaspoons baking powder (3 cents)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (1 cent)

Beat egg until fluffy. Add milk and melted margarine. Heat a heavy griddle or fry pan. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix briefly to combine. Do not over mix or you will have heavier pancakes. It is supposed to be a little lumpy. Also, try to mix wet and dry ingredients together right before cooking for a lighter pancake. The pan is hot enough when a drop of water breaks into several smaller balls which 'dance' around the pan. Grease pan with butter or spray. Pour a small amount of batter (approx 1/4 cup) into pan and tip to spread out or spread with spoon. When bubbles appear on surface and begin to break, turn over and cook the other side. If you are making for a crowd- preheat oven to a very low temp and shuffle into oven on an oven-proof dish. Serve with maple syrup and ice cold milk!

Makes approximately 9 small pancakes.

Total cost: 42 cents

Total cooking time: 20 minutes