Tag Archives: pancakes

“Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.”

Posted in Health by

September has arrived, and as sad as it is to see summer go, who doesn’t love fall? The colours, the smells, the fall baking!? My dream climate would be a long summer, a long fall, about a month of snow for Christmas, New Years and hot chocolate drinking season, then a long spring and back to summer!

Since fall is here, we all know that means baking with pumpkin! I made the amazing wannabe Starbucks pumpkin scones the other day with my girlfriend Breanne, you can see them here with a link to the recipe we used. Ryan and I have been eating really clean to get ready for our trip to Paris but I really wanted a pumpkin pancake or waffle. So here we have Clean Pumpkin Protein Pancakes. They are so dead easy!

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What you’ll need…

  • 1 scoop vanilla protein powder (I  used Kaizen Nautral Isolate)
  • 3/4 of a cup of pure pumpkin
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp all spice
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 egg whites
  • 1/2 cup oats
  • 1/4 cup bran
  • 2 tbsp water
  • 1/2 tbsp splenda

I like mine pretty spicy, you can definitely tone down or up the cinnamon, all spice and nutmeg to your preference. Blend all your ingredients together in a food processor, this will help smooth out your oats. Using a non stick pan, pour out about a quarter cup amount and cook low and slow. These are more dense pancakes because of the pumpkin, you’ll find they take longer to cook through and you don’t want to have your heat too high or it will burn the outside and the inside won’t be done. So, cook them at medium low heat about 4 to 5 minutes a side. Top with all natural maple syrup and cinnamon, even a dollop of whip cream if that suits your fancy! Enjoy!

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Quote is from William Cullen Bryant.

Chai Latte Pancakes!

Posted in Health by

These pancakes were a little more of an undertaking then my usual blueberry or chocolate chip ones. I told our breakfast guests to be prepared for them not to work out and be having toast for dinner. I also served them with a maple cranberry compote, which is something I have never made before, but it was really good and now I’m inspired to make my own jam! I found the original recipe on The First Mess, a site with a lot of amazing recipes.

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What you’ll need…

Compote

  • 1 cup frozen cranberries
  • 1/3 cup water (you may need to add a little more as you heat it)
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup
  • 3 tsp vanilla

Pancakes

  • 1 1/3 cup vanilla soy milk
  • 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
  • 3/4 cup spelt flour
  • 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tbsp ground coffee
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp all spice
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp melted coconut oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Combine your soy milk and apple cider vinegar, stir to mix and let sit for ten minutes, this will curdle your milk which is what you want!

While that ten minutes is passing you can work on the compote. Put cranberries, water and syrup in saucepan and boil, stirring frequently. You will need to mash up the cranberries as you go to get the jam texture, once you see the mix start to resemble a moist jam, stir in the vanilla and mix. I left the compote in the pan on the lowest heat to keep it warm for serving while I made the pancakes and stirred occasionally.

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I strongly suggest you mix your dry ingredients and your wet ingredients separately. If you add the syrup and coconut oil directly to the dry ingredients it will clump up and not give you the texture you need. So, mix your flours, spices, coffee, baking powder and soda in one bowl, then your milk mixture, oil, syrup and vanilla in another.

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Fold the wet ingredients into the dry and be careful not to over mix because these can easily get runny. You really have to keep an eye on them while frying because they’re not quite as thick as some pancakes and you don’t want them to burn. Flip them when you see some bubbling on top and browning on the sides.

Top with cranberry compote and additional maple syrup. I also served them with lean ham and fresh fruit. They really did end up having a spicy coffee taste and were a hit! Good luck!

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Road Trippin’

Posted in Style, Travel by

My friend Erin was heading to Calgary to see Russell Brand with her cousin last Friday and since we have our good friend Lindsy who lives down there, I thought I would tag along. I ended up luckily getting Friday off so we had all day to get there and have a fun drive. It’s only a 3 hour drive so I don’t know if it constitutes a real road trip but I treated it like one.

Er bear and I hitting the road!

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Sustenance

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I’m a traditionalist with coffee, just drip medium roast and milk – that’s all I want. Now I don’t know if I’m just a bimbo and I totally missed this or if it’s new and weird like I think it is, but Starbucks is doing this thing where if you order Iced Coffee they automatically sweeten it with a syrup. This has happened to me twice now and when I say something to the “barista” (please), they seem to think I’m a total idiot for not ordering unsweetened. Like, WHY would they do this. Why  would they serve cups of hot coffee like normal people, just black and ready to go, but when you ask to add ice just throw 18 pumps of syrup in it? It’s gross and I don’t like it! Help me understand someone. Also, did you know that iced coffees are more expensive that regular hot coffee? How dumb is that? You’re charging me more for ICE and LESS coffee. Do not tell me it’s for the cups because they have to be one of the most profitable companies in the world and their coffee prices are already outrageous. Starbucks is trying to take us for a ride and I’m not gonna let ’em! Starbucks was already on my list of places I try not to go to  and it is rapidly rising up to first place!

When I travel I am Queen Casual. I always wear the same uniform, Lululemon wunder unders (I have six or seven pairs of them – it’s a sickness), some sort of loose tee with a sweater and flip flops. Maybe I’ll change it up if I’m leaving for somewhere during the winter and put some toms on so my toes are covered. I don’t want to have a bunch of bulky stuff on when I get to the hot place! No room for jackets. I’ll always be freezing when I get home and the car will have been sitting in the lot for a week turning into an icicle, but that’s why we have husbands!

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Leggings: Lululemon

Tank: H&M

Sweater: Hurley (no longer available, and a smidge wrinkled!) Similar here.

Sandals: Havaianas

Ring: Louis Vuitton (Black no longer available, but other colours are and they’re cute!)

My friend Lindsy has the cutest baby I have ever seen! He was an angel while I was staying there and I am full in love with him.

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Angel! Looks like he just binged on sweet potato. He was drunk on Vitamin A. The weather was great while I was staying with her that weekend so we would walk to coffee and the grocery store because we wanted to do a delicious fancy breakfast! Cinnamon Sugar Pancakes. Yesssssss.

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Very easy!  This recipe fed 4 people.

Stir together 1 1/4 cup of flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda and a pinch of salt.

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Mix an egg with 1 1/4 cup of buttermilk separately and add to the flour mixture, mix until smooth, if using an electric mixer don’t over beat. Add two tbsp of melted butter and 1/4 cup of sugar all to the mix.

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I made the pancakes about silver dollar size, they expanded when they were cooking so they ended up being a good size to do they cinnamon sugar portion. An ice cream scoop was the right size tool for this.

I like to cook things over long and low heat, that way it never burns and they’re easier to flip and cook consistently throughout. It takes a little longer, but I did them on medium low heat and I think they turned out just right.

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While you’re doing the pancakes you can mix 1 cup of white sugar with just over 1/4 cup of cinnamon. When you’re almost done making the pancakes (we made 16 pancakes so lots were keeping warm in the oven while we made more), you can melt 3/4 cup of butter.

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Now take the butter and paint both sides of the pancake (you can use one of those rubber ones or hair ones for barbecuing, if you don’t have one you can pour it but I think it makes the cinnamon sugar too saturated with butter, you want it to loosely cling onto the pancake) and dip both sides of your pancake in the cinnamon sugar.

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Sprinke however much more you want, and I put the mixture out on the table so everyone could add what they wanted.  So good, so easy!!

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Two little breakfast chefs!

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Yum!

We also went to see The Butler while I was there, so awesome – I loved it. Then back to work but I’m loving my new job and its so nice because the office is five minutes away from home so I can go home at lunch. This is what my lunch break looks like….

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Enjoying the last days of summer. Have a great long weekend!