Here's the kick-off!

Halloween is a fun holiday- in my opinion there aren't enough days in the year where people get to dress in costume. Honestly though, I have much bigger things to look forward to, and the main reason I anticipate Halloween is that it is the start of all of the end of the year fun! First comes Halloween, then my birthday, then Thanksgiving, and then the Christmas season where I can eat seasonal treats and listen to Christmas music 'til my ears are bleeding eggnog! I reserve those two things, by the way (Christmas music and eggnog), for only the days between Thanksgiving and New Years, so I usually totally overindulge when the time comes.

Anyway, back to Halloween... I figured you are getting enough candy and sweets, so I thought today I'd give you something healthy, comforting, and digestible. Not to mention easy, since usually during the holiday season things tend to get a little CRAZY when I can't control myself and end up staying up all night baking, sewing aprons for Christmas presents, and listening to John Denver and the Muppets.

Anyway, back to Halloween....This recipe is especially good for tomorrow night, when the kids are itchy in their costumes and too hopped up on sugar to actually sit down and have a meal. I found it when I was searching for something that resembles these vegetable-type pancake thingies that I had when I was in Japan. They were amazingly tasty and I wanted to recreate them, so I went to foodtv.com and hopelessly searched for "vegetable pancakes." Well, to my surprise what came up but a recipe by Paula Deen- the queen of fatty (but pretty darned good sometimes) middle America food! It'd not quite the same as what I had in Japan, but it's almost better for me since I don't have to make a trip to Uwajimaya for my ingredients.

I now make these quite often. I don't even think I make any changes to the recipe. Just make sure you cook them all the way through- sometimes it's hard to tell when they're done.

Vegetable Pancakes by Paula Deen

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 cup grated carrots
1 cup grated zucchini
2 green onions, sliced
2 tablespoons oil
In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. In another bowl, beat together the egg, milk, carrots, zucchini, and onions. Add this to the dry ingredients and stir until combined.
Using a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium heat. Pour the batter by tablespoons into the pan, making a few pancakes at a time. Cook about 2 minutes on each side and golden brown. Add the remaining oil to the pan as needed. Serve pancakes at once.

And just in case you haven't seen the "Halloween Moon" yet: