Last year, we rounded up eight great pancake recipes for a Fat Tuesday celebration, but even though eight new pancake recipes are enough to get you through several breakfasts without getting bored, there are always going to be more recipes out there to try. So, without further ado, here are eight delicious new pancake recipes to try:

• Nosheteria's Lemon Poppyseed Pancakes (pictured) are light and tender, with the bright flavor of lemon backed up with a little crunch from poppyseeds. They're a great alternative to lemon poppyseed muffins.
• Keeping the seasonal citrus, but moving in a slightly different direction, we have Lemon and Ricotta Pancakes, which are delicate and just melt in your mouth when eaten.
• Oatmeal pancakes are hearty, but perfectly satisfying on a cold winter morning - although with a fresh berry topping like the one Elise used, they will satisfy in summer, as well.
• A giant Baked Apple Pancake can be served as breakfast or as dessert, but due to its size and addictive taste, it is best to save lots of room for it.
• A little bit of zest and spice can take a plain, buttermilk pancake to a whole new level, as they did in these Orange and Cinnamon Buttermilk Pancakes. Use any spices you like (ginger would be nice)!
• For those of you who are health-conscious when it comes to breakfast, you might want to try making a batch of No-Flour, No-Sugar Crepes to start your day.
• Pork-lovers will probably get a kick out of having their favorite breakfast side inside their pancakes, rather than next to them, so Bacon Pancakes should be particularly appealing to them
• Nutella is often spread on top of pancakes or used as a filling for dessert crepes, but mixing it into the batter for Nutella Pancakes eliminates that pesky extra step before consumption. Opt for chocolate sauce as a topping if you like your pancakes for dessert, otherwise stick to maple syrup.

Happy Fat Tuesday, everyone.

The whole idea behind having pancakes on Fat Tuesday is to use up the butter, milk, eggs and other indulgent ingredients that you might having lying around the house so that you won't be tempted during Lent. But because everyone likes pancakes and not everyone observes lent, calling the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday "National Pancake Day" makes the tradition open to all - and I think that we can all agree that more pancakes are not a bad thing.

For my pancake day breakfast, I opted not to go with something decadent, but instead with something more wholesome so that I don't feel too bad about starting the day with a couple more pancakes (topped with maple syrup, of course), than I need.

I know that we had eggnog popovers yesterday morning, but I couldn't resist just one more eggnog-based recipe. Actually, it was the fact that the popovers were so tasty and reminded me so much of pancakes that I decided to try these.

Eggnog, especially prepared eggnog, is usually relatively thick, so it substitutes in equal volumes for buttermilk in a recipe. It does not have the same properties as buttermilk, however. Buttermilk is slightly acidic and recipes that use it often also use baking soda, which reacts with that acid to produce lift. Since eggnog is not acidic, I used baking powder and also added a beaten egg white to give the pancakes some lift. Overall, the pancakes were tender and tasted lightly of eggnog. You can add a little bit of rum extract, if you have it on hand, to jazz them up a bit, too.

While the idea of Nutella filled crepes is very tempting and crepes are not too difficult to make, they do take a bit more effort than more the thicker, American-style pancakes. Pancake batter is so adaptable that just about any ingredient can be worked into it, so I decided to work the chocolate-hazelnut spread into a basic pancake recipe for breakfast. There is just enough Nutella in the batter to give it a good flavor without being overwhelming or making the pancakes too heavy.

And yes, that is chocolate syrup on top of the pancakes in the picture, but I actually ate mine with maple syrup - I just wanted to emphasize the fact that they have an underlying chocolate flavor. By all means, use chocolate syrup if you are so inclined, but spreading the pancakes with a thin layer of Nutella or tossing a handful of chocolate chips into the batter might produce an even more decadent result.

The recipe is after the jump.

I always wonder how restaurant pancakes turn out so much lovelier than my home-cooked efforts. No doubt a large griddle surface and an industrial-sized spatula is the key to making such massive pancakes, and my home cook-surface is more limited. Ah well, I can always drive fifteen minutes down the road and have a fresh stack of these lovelies from my favorite breakfast hangout, the Monument Cafe. They're thick buttermilk pancakes filled with a smattering of sliced strawberries and whole blueberries. Quite delightful!

After watching the pancake video a few too many times, I couldn't resist mixing up a batch of my favorite pancakes. Buttermilk pancakes are light, fluffy and perfect for add-ins. You can stir in almost anything to make your pancakes a little more interesting. In the summer, blueberries (pictured) are a natural choice, as are any other fresh berries. Diced bananas and shredded coconut are also popular picks. The kid in you may want to relieve childhood memories by adding chocolate chips to the batter, though by using chopped bittersweet chocolate, expensive chocolate, you can make them a little more grown up.

Speaking of kids, making pancakes in the morning is a great way to bond with your children and get them interested in cooking. Just set out little bowls with plenty of good things to add in to the pancake batter and let them make their own selections while you supervise the griddle. Banana chocolate chip? Raspberry coconut? Orange cinnamon?

Sounds good to me.

It is easy to get into a breakfast rut. Cereal, fruit and toast are so ridiculously simple to prepare that even on weekends it seems like doing anything else is a bit of a pain. But foods that take slightly longer than opening a box of cereal are also much tastier than cereal, so what we need here is some motivation to get our culinary juices flowing on this morning. The above video is a well put-together music video of pancake making, complete with a pancake-making song that could very well have you singing along as you cook. The pancakes are the thin crepe-like British style of pancake and are served in multiple - tempting - variations that will definitely get you craving a plate of them yourself.

It doesn't include a recipe, so you might want to try out one of our eight favorite pancake recipes or some crepes, so you can experiment with different fillings as they do in the video.

Of course, if you're content with cereal for breakfast, you might just want to skip the video and go pour yourself a bowl right now.

Everyone likes sushi.  Non-foodies of all races happily dig into spicy tuna, cooked eel cutlets on rice, and ubiquitous American variations like the California roll.  Quick lunch during work?  Pop over to a nearby deli and get a mini-bento box of salmon maki for $6.95.  Got a date?  Coyly feed your lover sea scallops over a large lacquered bowl of chirashi zushi.  By and large, sushi is now an American tradition-as imports go, it's topped their cars.

But what do our cohorts across the Pacific pond think of this?  According to my dear half-Japanese friend Yukari Rymar, it's terrific; she even likes the new sushi we've created here, said California roll implied.  However, all this joy does come with a dark side: Yukari bemoans American ignorance of what she calls "real, down home Japanese cooking."

  "If you ask any American if they like Japanese food, they'll say they love sushi," says Yukari.  "Which is great.  I like sushi too.  But sushi isn't what Japanese people are making everyday at home."

 

Sarah may have wanted to attempt the Taco Town Pizza-Crepe-Taco-Pancake-Chili Bag that was made famous in a memorable SNL sketch, but it looks like someone beat her to it. Over at a guy named Drew’s MySpace blog, he and his friends documented their entire process of making the “taco” for Drew’s birthday. Layer upon layer was stacked up, pinned together, dipped in batter and deep fried. Since they didn’t need to take it “to-go,” they skipped the past step of trying to put it in a bag in favor of simply digging it. It actually looks like it wasn’t bad, though the guys don’t look like they felt all that well afterward.

The original SNL sketch is after the jump.

Who could resist seeing a couple of adorable bunny pancakes on their plate of Easter morning? Best of all, these little guys take no longer to prepare than ordinary pancakes - which is to say that they take about 5 minutes from start to plate. I used this recipe for buttermilk pancakes and, instead of dropping the batter into one large round, I used a smaller spoon to "pour" the batter into shape. Bunnies are a fairly simple shape, so there is no need for a mold to form them. I used chocolate chips to make eyes and noses, but fruit slices would work just as well. If you do want chocolate chips and three isn't enough for you, you could always try adding a few chocolate chips into the batter. And, of course, serve with maple syrup!

Baby, you look fabulous, even after partying all night on the Sunset Strip.

The best way to blast that hangover for good so you can do it all over again tonight, though, is to go out for breakfast. Not eat breakfast, for how do you expect to shimmy your svelte little self into that strappy, form-fitting thing? Go out for breakfast. Pull back your hair and put on your Prada sunglasses. We're getting pancakes in LA.

Now, for the LA-uninitiated, the above scenario might well seem the standard, taking place right in front of The Standard. I mean LA couldn't possibly know how to make a mile-high stack of thick, fluffy, hot pancakes glistening with butter and dripping with maple syrup; and even if it could, no one would actually eat them, right? 

Ha. Uninitiated.

There are lots of places to get pancakes in LA, and not all of them serve paper-thin, fruits, nuts, and flakes tenuously held together with non-fat soy milk and garnished with low-fat air. LA joints know how to make not only plain Jane buttermilk pancakes, but pancakes that are all dressed with everywhere to go: laced with Kahlua and Bailey's, filled with Oreos, or covered with caramel. And the breakfast/brunch set certainly knows how to dive fork-first into a stack. With their Prada sunglasses on, of course.

Somebody triple dog dared me. Do you know what that means? I'm going to Trader Joe's in a few to get the ingredients I don't already have for the pizza crepe taco pancake chili bag. In case you're following along at home (and I truly hope you're not cooking this along with me):

• Crisp taco shell (check)
• Soft flour tortilla (check)
• Corn tortilla, bigger than the flour tortilla
• Gordita shell
• Pizza dough
• Ingredients for crepes (flour, egg, milk, butter, brandy)
• Ingredients for pancakes (same deal, plus buttermilk, baking powder and blueberries)

My friends over at TV Squad think I should make - and eat - the pizza crepe taco pancake chili bag from the fictional "Taco Town" as memorialized in a Saturday Night Live skit. What is it, you ask?

• A crunchy all beef taco, slathered in nacho cheese, lettuce, tomato, and our special southwestern sauce.
• Wrap it in a soft flour tortilla, with a layer of refried beans
• Wrap that in a corn tortilla, with a middle layer of monterey jack cheese
• Wrap that in a deep fried gordita shell, smear on a layer of special guacamolito sauce
• Bake it in a corn husk, filled with pico de gallo
• Wrap that in an authentic Parisian crepe filled with egg, gruyere, merguez sausage, and portabello mushrooms
• Wrap that in a Chicago-style deep-dish meat lovers' pizza
• Roll it up in a blueberry pancake, dip it in batter, deep-fry it until it's golden brown
• Serve it in a commemorative tote bag filled with spicy vegetarian chili.

I don't know how this is going to work and what is guacamolito sauce? But I have to know: do you double dare me?