Chocolate Chip Pancakes

I have had my fair share of pancake fails.  Miserable fails usually dealing with add ons (i.e. bananas) usually result in an awkward mess and some cursing.  With a baby that slept in for once in a blue moon, I woke up with a spring in my step and walked over to the kitchen to start our Saturday morning right.

And, it cannot get more right than chocolate chip pancakes.  Binks’ favorite breakfast food has now become one of mine.  While I am partial to eggs benedicts whenever I get breakfast, I always steal a couple of bites of Binks’ chocolate chip pancakes.  I deem it the breakfast dessert to my savory eggs.

Although this dish is perfectly sweet and satisfying as it is, top it with pure maple syrup and the only thing lacking would be crawling back in my warm bed to eat more pancakes.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

•  1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp granulated sugar
• 1 and 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp butter, melted and cooled.
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together milk, egg and butter.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to thoroughly combine.  Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Heat lightly oiled pan over medium heat.
5. Pour about 1/4 cup of the pancake batter and cook until golden brown on both sides.
6. Serve hot with or without syrup.

 

Cardamom Clementine Pancakes

Try saying that name five times fast.

Let’s say this together – hiatus. This is the longest I have ever not blogged. Why? Many reasons. Mainly, it’s been a whirlwind around here. In addition to the craziness that happens with running a business, house, husband, baby, extended family and my own sanity, we had to put down our family dog of 18 years and, for the first time ever,had a judge dismiss one of the most important cases of my career. So between Monday through Friday, I was doing damage control upon damage control, while maintaining as much control as possible.

Then, Saturday morning came. And, per usual, I embarked on my pancake project. One may guess that I was setting myself up for failure. However, this Saturday, I put aside the worries and disasters of the week for our now-typical Saturday breakfasts.

I therapeutically mixed the ingredients with hopes of nothing more than avoiding another failure. The pancake stars aligned and we have another winner. Starting with a solid recipe for a base and adding ingredients purposely yielded a beautifully light and flavorful pancake.

I absolutely adore cardamom and drink it often with my regular cup of chai. I was inspired to the same flavor and combined it with the refreshing juice of clementines. The pair work wonderfully together and the proportions of each allow you to enjoy the flavor of both without being overpowered by one.

Cardamom Clementine Pancakes
adapted from Barefoot Contessa

– Makes about 10-12 pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/2 cups of flour
• 3 tbsp turbinado sugar (you can use regular sugar)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
• 1 and 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup almond milk (you can use cow’s milk)
• 2 extra-large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• juice of one clementine
• zest of one clementine

Directions:

1. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cardamom powder, and salt.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream, almond milk, eggs, vanilla extract, clementine juice and zest.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.
4. In a non-stick skillet, melt butter over medium heat.
5. Ladle 1/4 cup worth of batter onto the skillet. Cook each pancake 3 minutes on each side.

I’m Back!

It seems that ever since the pancake crisis, that I have been MIA.  I have.  Work has been dreadfully busy!  With 8 depositions under my belt in the past 2 weeks and 5 more to go for the next two weeks, I’ve been a bit pre-occupied.

I finally found some room to breathe this weekend.  Although yesterday seemed like another repeat of last.  I attempted to attempt a new recipe on a Saturday morning – for none other than pancakes.  And I need to do a bit more research on cooking with coconut flour because this was a solid disaster.  Curse words were spoken and Binks went into hiding.  By now the time was 11:45 a.m., (you don’t even want to know when I started this pancake experiment) and I even knew to call in the towel.  We went to Chipotle for lunch.  (Side note:  Chipotle really does offer a variety of diet-eating-style friendly foods – go Chipotle!)

I spent all of yesterday at consignment shops.  Got pretty good deals, got mildly ripped off with a fake (but still cute) faux-Chanel sunglasses, and found the mirror my fireplace mantle was looking for.  I fully intend on letting you in with a home improvement post coming soon.  Shopping wore me out!

Now, when Sunday morning came, we knew we couldn’t go out to eat again.  So, I tried pancakes for the third time.  And, alas – the heavens opened and I’m sure some birds came down and sang.  Because for all the discouragement during the previous times and the mindless, useless yelling at Binks, we finally have SUCCESS!!

Success to call my own, in fact.

Whole wheat, low sugar pancakes.  Heck yeah!

Holy moly were these good.  I was borderline on the throwing-a-fit side as they were browner than I prefer, but with a tastes-great recipe and a pancake that looks like a pancake instead of mush or scrambled pancakes, I was more relieved than anything.

Served with a slice of pineapple.  I went fruit shopping yesterday at Tom Thumb.  Usually I am opposed to buying pre-cut fruit because I think I could do it myself and I refuse to pay for labor.  But, with pineapples (for me) it’s different.  Binks usually cuts them and it’s so difficult and we hack at it so much that we have less than 1/3 of the fruit left.  For just a little more, I saved myself some time and some sanity and maybe some fingers and bought pre-cut slices.  And it was organic – all for $3.99 – go Tom Thumb (or Randalls – depending on where you live)!

Meet one of my new favorite foodie finds.  I always see this when I go to Ikea but I finally bought it when I realized the amount of sugar in this jam is significantly lower than almost all other preserves and jams I have seen.  And, one teaspoon goes a long way for the pancakes!

Sometimes, you are hit with a lot of failures when you try, but eventually you’ll get it and it will be great.  And, by then you’ll appreciate it that much more.  That’s as deep as I can get over pancakes.  🙂

Whole Wheat, Low Sugar Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp agave nectar
• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 cup almond milk
• 3 tbsp yogurt
• 2 flax, chia, or egg eggs

Directions

1. Mix vanilla, agave nectar, coconut oil, yogurt, almond milk and chia egg.
2. Add in flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Mix to combine.
4. The mixture might be a bit thicker than your usual pancake batter.  If you want, you can add more almond milk, 1 tbsp at a time.
5. Cook over medium heat on non-stick pan.

How have you been?  What’s something you’re working on fixing these days?  Ever learn important lessons from cooking?  Or something random?  Do you buy Ikea food?  Do you buy pre-cut fruit?

I Get Ideas.

On weekdays, what gets me up is the alarm clock (with continuous snooze button problems), and the need to get to work on time to send out e-mails, briefs, discovery and the like.

On weekends, mornings slow down just a little.  Even when the world springs forward, I remain in bed and make up for that extra hour.  On weekends, what gets me up is an idea.  An idea that if I were to get up, I will have enough time to make this.

Yes, I do have an obsession for all things breakfast.  Yes, I have made pancakes before.  But, I haven’t made these before – buckwheat pancakes.

In bed, the idea of these were magnificent.  In execution, these took the (pan)cake.

Buckwheat Pancakes

Adapted from here

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup ground raw buckwheat groats
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 tbsp ground flax seeds
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 cup Lucky Layla Farms drinkable yogurt (you can use buttermilk or almond milk)*
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg [ or 1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp warm water)]
• 2 tbsp coconut oil

Directions:

1. In a blender, mix together all ingredients.
2. Heat non-stick pan over medium heat.
3. Once hot, spray with cooking spray.
4. Pour 1/4 cup at a time onto hot pan.
5. Heat until golden brown on both sides.
6. Serve with your favorite toppings.**

*Because I used the drinkable yogurt, which was sweet already, I omitted sugar altogether.  Same goes for sweetened almond milk.  However, if you use buttermilk, or would just prefer a sweeter pancake, use 1 tbsp sugar or up to 2 tbsp turbinado sugar.

**I topped mine with coconut butter and some dulce de leche.

Then, when breakfast was over, what got my butt off my dining chair was the idea of house cleaning, starting my veggie garden, and chores.

What did you do this weekend?  Do you cook with buckwheat?  Have you had any cooking ideas that you executed?  How did it turn out?  Do you know where my title comes from?

Indulge Me

So it’s snowing/icing in Dallas.  You obviously know what that means?  Schools closed.  Empty roads.  Cancelled appointments.  Waking up at 9:00 a.m.  And…most importantly.  Pancakes!

I used to make pancakes a lot.  But, these days, without the time to prepare anything but oatmeal or smoothies or quinoa in the morning, pancakes have fallen by the wayside.

But, not this day!

This day calls for pancakes.  And I’m kickin’ it oat-style!

Look at that fluff!

And I thought – why not indulge a bit with the mini chocolate chips, raspberry drizzle, sunflower seeds and chia seeds.

I started on this side:

Ohhhh  yeaaaaa…

 

Oatmeal Pancakes – Vegan

adapted from here

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp turbinado sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup almond milk (or buttermilk or milk of choice)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax-seed and 3 tbsp warm water)

Directions:

• Put all ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth consistency.
• Heat griddle/non-stick pan over medium heat.
• Lightly oil or spray with cooking spray.
• Pour about 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup (depending on your preference) into the pan and cook until golden brown on both sides.
• Serve with your favorite topping.

Raspberry Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 – 12 oz bag – frozen raspberries
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Directions:

• Pour entire bag of raspberries, sugar, lemon juice and water into saucepan.
• Heat over med-low heat until simmering.
• Simmer for 8 minutes, until the raspberries have broken down and the sugar has dissolved.
• Remove from heat.
• Allow to cool (can be done the day ahead).
• You can strain it through a medium sieve/strainer or serve with the seeds. 

I don’t mind the seeds.  I use this sauce on my cheesecakes too – delicious!

What are you indulgences on a snow-day or a weekend morning?