Pancake recipes and giving up for lent

Hey guys- lent is upon us. Lent- which usually starts with eating pancakes (yummy) on Shrove Tuesday (or ‘Pancake Day’ as it was commonly known in our house growing up). Most of us have fond childhood memories of pancake day- Dad tossing the pancakes whilst the siblings gaze on, secretly longing that the half baked mixture will get stuck to the ceiling! When I was growing up the topping was always sugar and lemon.

When I left home and became acquainted with Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver I was introduced to all manner of posh alternatives like forest fruits and ice cream (I don’t get out much)! My all time fave topping now, is… (you’ve guessed it)- CHOCOLATE. The recipe goes like this- add a little co-co powder to your pancake mixture before you cook them- just to give them that extra chocolate-y look and taste, then spread Nutella (nice and thick) on the cooked pancake and watch it melt. Next roll your pancake and top with a quarter of a crumbled up Cadbury’s Flake bar. Mmmmmmmm. (For more serious addicts I find the adage: ‘Sod the pancakes- just bring on the chocolate’ helps.)

For some tasty alternatives to my chocolate pancake recipe visit www.pancakerecipes.net for inspiration.

Bearing this in mind- and that we are trying to encourage measure in all things, the most sensible (and difficult) thing I can do after this festivity is to give up chocolate for lent. I CAN do it- just because I love chocolate doesn’t mean I don’t love a challenge too- and as we try to ‘Change for Life’- I embrace this test- and look forward to Easter when I can one again engage in my favourite activity (don’t tell me chocolate is not an activity- because it is)!!! And believe me- I will make up for the lack of chocolate by gorging myself at Easter and probably being sick as a dog- which is my idea of fun … no, hang on- that was the old me- ‘Change for Life’ means just one Easter egg for me this year (though it will be enormous)!

So- lent begins the day after the (chocolate) pancakes, on Ash Wednesday, (an unfortunate and ironic name for those who are giving up smoking for lent!!) and ends the day before Easter Sunday, on Holy Saturday.

Lent, as you probably know, is the forty-day Christian tradition where fasting and prayer occurs before Easter. Forty days because that is the amount of time Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by Satan.
It has in more recent years become a time for abstinence for both religious and non religious people- who try to give something up and better themselves. Modern thinking behind it is that if you can give something like smoking up for forty days- then you’ve cracked it for life and broken the addiction! (Obviously this will not be the case with me and my chocolate- it is a temporary measure only- but potentially going without it for a time might mean that it is not such a major feature in everyday life!)

For those of you who find me an obsessive chocolate bore- I offer you alternative ideas for things to give up for lent:
-Credit card usage! Give up overspending and start to get out of debt, stop the vicious cycle that is overspend-payout-overspend again, where ‘payday’ simply becomes ‘paying out day’ and ‘saving for a rainy day’ is a mythical tale of days gone by told to us by our grandparents!

-Smoking. A tough one for all you smokers out there, but why not make Ash Wednesday the day you give up the ash for good? You know the benefits- better health, longer life, more money, bla bla bla. Yes we all know these things; it’s just not that easy, so check out www.nhs.uk/smokefree for some top tips for stopping for good!

-Alcohol… ha ha ha only kidding! Well, I suppose you could give it a go- or maybe just give up binge drinking- and become a more sensible consumer of alcohol?!

-Energy over-usage at home. Another credit crunch busting idea! Try stumbling about with candles instead of having the lights on- but try not to set yourself (or anyone else) on fire. Shower less- save water?! (This may be bearable if the aforementioned candles are fragranced?) Share bath water- this was a tradition in my house growing up- and in a house of four siblings you got a rough deal if you were forth in line for the bath water- cold and grey was the water by this time, accommodating unidentifiable floating objects a-plenty.

-TV- just think of all the things you might do instead- from getting on with that decorating project to spending more time with loved ones!

I guess the moral of the story is- try to give up something that is going to make your life better- be it for physical or mental health.

For those of you from the: ‘doesn’t giving up stuff just make you want it more?!’ school of thought, and those of you who are still scarred from all of the giving up you did at New Year- simply give up giving things up! Stop trying to stop doing things, don’t try not to do what you want to do, and definitely refrain from abstaining!