I'm Not Fooling Anyone Good-For-You-Pancakes

I'm Not Fooling Anyone Good-For-You-Pancakes

I'm big into making a game out of making food healthier by either adding a secret ingredient (there's wheat germ in your smoothy-ta da!), substituting an ingredient for something healthier (like smurf farts for oil), or just plain making something good out of a shocking ingredient (like the chocolate cupcakes I made out of black beans). I love watching someone enjoying something I've "secretly" made healtheir and then delivering the big reveal after they've finished it--There I sit, on the edge of my seat waiting for some sort of outlandish reaction that I never get because my husband likes pretty much everything, and my kids think broccoli and endamame are special treats. Kids: There's black beans in the cupcakes? Hooray, we love black beans! Me: Damn it. Husband: I don't know why you take so much pleasure in trying to trick us. We don't care. One of these days I'm going to trick you by making chocolate cupcakes out of the cat and wait to see if you notice. Me: You can't make me cupcakes out of the cat because eating the cat is not vegetarian, so there. (real conversation)

These pancakes aren't fooling anyone, though--they're made out of oats, for christsake. So here it is ahead of time: They're full of fiber, have a considerable amount of protein, are low in sugar, have added Omega 3s, and no cats were injured in the making. So there, I've said it. Eat up.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Pancakes

Here's What You're Gonna Need:
1 1/4 cups Old Fashioned Oats (not instant!)
1 1/2 cups skim or 2% milk

1 egg
3/4 Tbs canola oil

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (if you can't find whole wheat pastry flour, regular whole wheat flour is fine)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground flax seed
1/2 tsp cinnamon

optional: no sugar added mixed berry or plain applesauce

And Here's What You're Gonna Do:
Combine oats and milk in a medium sized bowl and let sit for five minutes so the oats have a chance to soak up some milk and soften a little. While you're waiting, preheat your griddle or skillet over medium heat.

Beat the egg and milk in a separate bowl, then mix into the the oats. Add the dry ingredients (the last group) and mix until they're just blended (over-mixing = sticky pancakes).

Spray a skillet preheated over medium heat with a little pam, cook 'em, flip 'em, and cook the other side (about 3 mins per side, depending on thickness). The flax seed in these pancakes is going to make them brown faster, so spread the batter thinish and be sure to smash your pancakes down with the spatula when you flip them if yours are on the plumper side so the interior cooks as quickly as the exterior.

I usually top oatmeal pancakes with some sort of applesauce (berry or regular) instead of syrup. It tastes great and keeps the blatantly healthy theme going.

Post Script: As it turns out, I have been poisoning myself with apples here when I could be injecting good-for-you maple syrup. See Anna's comment below. Phew-glad she loves my health almost as well as she loves biology!