Pancakes and Blueberry pancakes

1cup flour

1 tbs. baking powder

2 tbs. sugar

½ tsp. salt

1 cup milk
1 egg

2 tbs. salad oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar, salt, milk, egg, oil, and vanilla together.  Add baking powder and flour and mix until smooth.  If batter is too thick, add water.  It's better to have batter a little too thin than have it too thick. Cook on greased hot griddle.   To make Blueberry Pancakes:  Use a little more sugar in the batter, and after you ladle the batter on the griddle, sprinkle fresh blueberries on each pancake.  

To cook on griddle:  Heat griddle to 375 or 400 degrees, depending on griddle.  Lightly grease griddle and wipe with paper towel.  Ladle batter onto griddle (about 1/4 cup per pancake, maybe a little less, especially with thinner batter.)  Pancakes will form bubbles.  This is NOT the time to flip them.  Wait till the majority of the bubbles have popped and the edges of the pancakes look a little bit dry.  Flip one time only.  Let cook on second side till done.  If the pancakes are too brown, lower the heat.  

When the kids were little I used to make pancakes with their initials on them.  Make a capital letter backwards (easier for some than for others!) and let it cook a few moments, then fill it in with batter till the batter spills over and makes a circle, looking as close to a "normal" pancake as possible.  Then when you flip it, you can see the initial in the middle.  It'll be a slightly darker shade than the rest of the pancake, but even if it's the same color you can still see the outline of the initial.  This used to really tickle the kids.  It's also fun to do shapes like Mickey Mouse for them.  (Okay, I admit I got the biggest kick out of the Mickey pancakes...)