Healthy Pancakes? Nooo... YES!

Healthy Pancakes? Can it be!? Yes! And no, they don't taste like cardboard, they are actually delicious! The secret? Oatmeal, greek yogurt and bananas. Abbey and I had these for breakfast yesterday and they were too good not to share. I got my inspiration for these delicious pancakes from Pinterest but made a few tweaks with what I currently had in my Fridge. Follow this link for the original Biggest Loser recipe, or read on below for mine.

German Pancakes!

So this past weekend I had a craving for pancakes. It didn't really matter what kind of pancakes, but I knew I needed some. After much hemming and hawing, I convinced Gary to make the trek up to Kearney Mesa so we could go to the Original Pancake House. (It's a chain, so look it up please!)
After scoping out the menu, we ordered what he affectionately called "The World War II Special"; German Pancakes and Potato Latkes, with a side of Green Tea for the Japanese influence.

We both agreed that the only thing that would have made it better would be to violently tear apart some French Toast and make it submit under the pancake. Taking it a bit too far eh?

I had never had a German Pancake, I had only seen it ordered here, and over my salivation had vowed to order it one day. It's basically a HUGE oven baked crepe that you eat with copious amounts of butter, powdered sugar and lemon.

The best thing about German Pancakes, is that almost, if not all of the ingredients required for it, are already in your kitchen! I had yet another craving, so I scoured the internet for a recipe, and now I bring it to you.
If you wanna get all fancy and make the latkes too, there is a great and hilarious YouTube show called "Feed Me Bubbe" and they do it step by step. You can find the video here.

German Pancakes, adapted via. Living in the Kitchen with Puppies

Pancake:

3 large eggs

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp Vanilla extract

2 Tbs butter

In a big skillet on the stove, heat the butter until melted and hot.
In a blender (or something similar) blend the remaining ingredients, pour into hot butter and throw into a 450* oven for 15 minutes.

Turn the heat down to 350* and cook for 10 more.
When it's done it should be all puffy and fluffy like above. Make sure you use oven safe pans, and a heavy duty oven mitt when taking it out of the oven. This seems like a no-brainer, but I assure you, it's FREAKING HOT.


Carefully transfer to a plate and fix it up. You can really put anything you want on it, syrup, jam, jelly, but I like to garnish with butter, powdered sugar, and fresh squeezed lemon.

Oatmeal in the SDUT

Yesterday mornings food section of the San Diego Union Tribune had a huge tribute to Oatmeal.

If you get the UT, check out the paper, if not you can click here.

I perused the recipes submitted by readers and have included some of my favorite variations below. Enjoy!!

FLUFFY FLAPJACKS

Easiest recipe ever. Follow recipe for Bisquick pancakes (healthy version) on the box. Substitute 1 cup of oats for one of the cups of Bisquick. Fluffiest, lightest pancakes!

– Harriet Wolpoff

FOR CHOCOLATE LOVERS

My favorite, almost daily, oatmeal routine is to cook a single serving of quick oatmeal, then stir in a small spoonful of almond butter and toss in a small handful of chocolate chips and cover for a minute. This is very addictive, but my justification is there is no added sweetener, salt or cream.

– S.L.

BREAKFAST PUDDING

Our favorite oatmeal recipe was actually from the Union-Tribune. It's Apple Cranberry Breakfast Pudding. I add coconut, which is obviously optional, but we like it. Also, I have made it with dried cranberries when the fresh were not in season.

– Andi Kosnar

The BEST BREAKFAST in Atlanta

Every time I'm ever in Atlanta I have to go to The Flying Biscuit Cafe for breakfast. It's a rule I have. I make no exceptions to this rule. Ever. It is literally THE BEST BREAKFAST in Atlanta for the price, selection and overall yumminess of it. Even before I had ever moved to the ATL, I had friends and clients tell me that when I visited to make sure I stopped into The Flying Biscuit for breakfast, because it shouldn't be missed. Ever. They had no idea how right they were.

One of my favorite breakfasts there is the Egg-stravaganza. This time I opted to switch it up a bit and get The High Flyer instead. Oddly enough, Brian went for the Egg-stravaganza instead of his usual High Flyer. We know what we like, and we hardly stray.

The High Flyer; two eggs scrambled served with their signature chicken breakfast
sausage (OMG!), their AWARD winning grits, a FAMOUS FLYING BISCUIT...

...and an organic oatmeal pancake with warm peach compote

Egg-stravaganza; two eggs scrambled (with cheese) served with their signature
chicken breakfast sausage, crisp turkey bacon, grits and flying biscuit...

...plus whole wheat french toast topped with raspberry sauce & honey creme anglais.

ETA//
Brian reminded me that I forgot to mention those little tubs of what looks like BBQ sauce. That's their nummy Apple Butter and its so insanely good. It tastes like Christmas. I bet you're looking at the screen thinking WTF? But when you try it, you will totally agree. It's all appley, and cranberryish with cinnamon and nutmeg and all those yummy flavors of the holidays on a big giant fluffy biscuit. Mmmm!