Pancakes - my confession & recipes

Published: Tue, 02/09/16

Today is pancake day, the day before we are encouraged to give something up for lent.  

Generally something that we enjoy.

I'd prefer to add something in that is going to benefit me, rather than removing something that I enjoy.

There is too much deprivation in the world and too many people punishing themselves for the decisions they have made (in my field, food choices).

I'm going to aim to hit my 10,000 step goal for the next 40 days.

I've already put somethings in place to make it more likely to happen.  

The first being that I've changed my personal run day to Thursday. 

Thursday is the day I barely make 5000 steps, I have a lot of time in the office, I've arranged a regular lunchtime run to add some steps in.  

I am going to give up one thing though - cheap chocolate.

The standard bars you get in the shops, star bars, m&m's, dairy milk etc.  I'm not enjoying it lately and seems like a waste of a cheat.

I'm going back to the decent green & blacks stuff if I fancy some chocolate.

If you're following a clean nutrition plan at the moment and aiming for 100% I'll post a couple of our recipes for healthy pancakes below.

If you are pretty happy with the way your nutrition plan is going, having a couple of 'real' pancakes isn't really going to make much difference to your results.

Here's my confession - I've bought some ready made mix from M&S.  My mum really wouldn't be happy if she knew I didn't simply mix some eggs, flour and milk in a dish for myself.

Here's the reason - we generally don't have flour or milk in the house, if I bought some to make pancakes I would have spent more money and have a lot more mix available.  That way I would eat a lot more pancakes and going to bed feeling overfull.  

We generally don't go for reducing the amount of food you eat, unless the nutritional content is low.  With pancakes that is the case.

Darren 'add, don't take away' Checkley

PS Recipes
Gluten-Free Pancakes
Ingredients
2 organic free-range eggs
½ teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
60ml water
sprinkle of sea salt
180g rice flour
150ml pot plain, active-culture yogurt (We use Yeo-Valley Organic Bio-Yogurt)

Method
Whisk all ingredients until there are no lumps. 
Drop batter by spoon onto a lightly greased (butter) pan until 1 side bubbles. 
Flip pancakes and cook until golden brown.
Prepare the night before, cover and chill overnight to save time in the morning. 

Serve
Top with fresh fruit and berries, or mix in with the batter (goji berries are good mixed with the batter).
Makes enough for about 18 pancakes, I tend to cook the whole batch and use for snacks throughout the day.

Banana Pancake

Ingredients
3 organic free-range eggs, beaten
1 banana
1⁄2-1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

Butter or coconut oil


Method
Melt butter or coconut oil in a pan on a low-medium heat.
Mash up a banana until soft and whisk in the eggs and cinnamon until combined, I use a mini-blender to do this.
Pour the eggs in to the pan and leave until the eggs are firm on top; 4-5 minutes. Carefully flip over to brown the other side.


Serve
Fold and serve, I like to add berries.


Almond Pancakes

Ingredients
1 cup almond flour
2 eggs
¼ cup water
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
A pinch of ground cinnamon
Coconut oil, butter or ghee for cooking
A pinch of salt

Method
Combine the eggs, water, honey and vanilla extract in a bowl and whisk everything together.
Add the almond flour, cinnamon and a pinch of salt and combine well.
Heat a large pan over a medium heat, add a bit of coconut oil or butter to coat and pour ⅛ of the pancake batter, quickly turning the pan around to spread the pancake over the whole pan.
Cook until brown on the underside, about 1 minute and then flip and cook for another minute on the other side.

Serve

With fresh berries.

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