My youngest son had a sleepover last night. Usually his breakfast of choice is poached eggs, and he is usually the chef. But, he and his friend were involved in a videogame battle when I can downstairs, so breakfast wasn't yet a thought. I started the bacon, and asked what they'd like for breakfast, the friend asked for pancakes. Great! But, I had no pancake mix, not great. My friend, Lynne, and her family, always makes her pancakes from scratch (stems back to when her son had a milk allergy and this recipe worked for him). When her husband has made these for me, they were the lightest, fluffiest pancakes ever. But when I try them myself, they just don't work. So, I went (not too optimistically) to allrecipes.com this morning. I found a recipe that started with self-rising flour, which I don't keep in, so I searched for how to make my own self-rising flour (very easy, in fact, for each cup of all-purpose flour, add 1½ t baking powder and 1 t salt—thus the measurements below). Then I made a few pancakes, the batter was a little thick to work with, so I added a little more buttermilk (the original used just milk, but I love buttermilk pancakes). They also needed a little sugar. The resulting pancake recipe appears below. Really, it wasn't much more work than a traditional pancake mix (yes, more work than the "just add water" ones). I would usually add blueberries or chocolate chips while they're cooking, but I was out of blueberries and we used up the chocolate chips in cookies last night—gotta love the eating that goes on at sleepovers! Buttermilk pancakes

1 c flour
1½ t baking powder
1 t salt
1-2 t sugar
1-1¼ c buttermilk*
1 egg
2 T vegetable oil

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar, and set aside. Beat eggs, oil, and milk together, and add to flour. Stir until just combined, pancake batter should always be a little lumpy. Heat a greased griddle until drops of water sprinkled on it evaporate noisily. Pour 1/8 to 1/4 cup batter onto the griddle. Turn over with a metal spatula when bubbles begin to form on top. Cook second side to a golden brown color.

*If you do not have buttermilk available, you can combine 1 c milk and 1 T white vinegar and let stand for 10 minutes.