{Recipe} Strawberry Banana Protein Pancakes

Don't forget to pin it!

I love breakfast food! It's so homey, and comforting, and full of carbs! Seriously, I could eat pancakes and waffles covered in fake syrup everyday. But then I'd have to buy a new wardrobe.

I didn't really give traditional pancakes much thought until recently. They are delicious. End of story. But then our quadruplets showed up, and Sean and I decided to lose some weight and somehow, refined sugar and the pointless calories in bleached white flour started to bother me. I decided I wanted to make those calories count nutritionally. Obviously, something had to be done about the pancakes as giving them up was not an option.

So I did some googling, pinning, and facebooking, and eventually snagged a protein pancake recipe from a friend.  I did tweak it slightly, but it is a total winner! And since we eat breakfast for dinner regularly, I don't have a problem serving these.

Okay, yes...these do have cottage cheese in them. But, before you go running off, hear me out. I was concerned about eating a big slab of baked cottage cheese myself, so I totally understand the warning bells going off in your head. The ingredients are pureed together so well, that unless you tell someone that these have cottage cheese in them, they won't even know it's there. Seriously, even die-hard cottage cheese haters won't guess what's in these. I promise. And it's an easy recipe, so just give it a try before deciding you won't like it.

Dump all of your ingredients into a food processor. 

Add your bananas and cinnamon on top.

Puree until smooth, dump in a bowl for easy scooping, and you are ready to go!

Cook these like any normal pancake. See? I told you this was super easy!

And serve up!

A couple of things:

• Get yourself some fresh fruit for the top of these. My go-to are strawberries. They are an absolute perfect combination with the bananas in the batter!
• Yes, it costs a little more, but buy the real maple syrup for this dish. You can use way less (just a drizzle!) by topping the pancakes with fresh fruit since the fruit is already sweet. Also, it tastes better. And it's better for you.
• The recipe goes easily from pancake griddle to waffle iron. I do it both ways depending upon my mood.
• These pancakes turn out slightly denser and more chewy than regular pancakes. If you are expecting super fluffy pancakes, you might be disappointed. But these are insanely filling and worth the slightly flatter eating experience.
• Each pancake has 48 calories and 4 grams of protein. Plus, there are only 6 carbs and 1 gram of sugar per pancake. Beat that!

So, I'd be lying if I didn't share one more little thing about these pancakes. I don't always stop at the fresh fruit and real maple syrup topping. Sometimes when I need something extra sweet, I ramp it up a notch and make these Chocolate Covered Strawberry Banana Protein Pancakes! "Oh my," is right! And yes, you're welcome! :)

Don't forget to pin it!

Strawberry Banana Protein Pancakes

Slightly Adapted from Marcia's recipe

Makes 19 three-four inch pancakes

• 2 cups Low Fat Cottage Cheese
• 6 Eggs
• 1 cup All-Purpose Flour (or other flour)
• 1 cup Old Fashioned Oats
• 2 Tbsp Ground Flaxseed (optional)
• 2 Scoops Protein Powder (optional)
• 2 Bananas
• Cinnamon

Throw everything in a food processor or blender, and blend until smooth. Cook on a pancake griddle or in a waffle iron. Make sure to use non-stick spray between every batch as there is no oil in these pancakes.

Top with slices of real fruit (strawberries and blueberries are awesome!) and real maple syrup!

Don't forget to pin it!

I love breakfast food! It's so homey, and comforting, and full of carbs! Seriously, I could eat pancakes and waffles covered in fake syrup everyday. But then I'd have to buy a new wardrobe.

I didn't really give traditional pancakes much thought until recently. They are delicious. End of story. But then our quadruplets showed up, and Sean and I decided to lose some weight and somehow, refined sugar and the pointless calories in bleached white flour started to bother me. I decided I wanted to make those calories count nutritionally. Obviously, something had to be done about the pancakes as giving them up was not an option.

So I did some googling, pinning, and facebooking, and eventually snagged a protein pancake recipe from a friend.  I did tweak it slightly, but it is a total winner! And since we eat breakfast for dinner regularly, I don't have a problem serving these.

Okay, yes...these do have cottage cheese in them. But, before you go running off, hear me out. I was concerned about eating a big slab of baked cottage cheese myself, so I totally understand the warning bells going off in your head. The ingredients are pureed together so well, that unless you tell someone that these have cottage cheese in them, they won't even know it's there. Seriously, even die-hard cottage cheese haters won't guess what's in these. I promise. And it's an easy recipe, so just give it a try before deciding you won't like it.

Dump all of your ingredients into a food processor. 

Add your bananas and cinnamon on top.

Puree until smooth, dump in a bowl for easy scooping, and you are ready to go!

Cook these like any normal pancake. See? I told you this was super easy!

And serve up!

A couple of things:

• Get yourself some fresh fruit for the top of these. My go-to are strawberries. They are an absolute perfect combination with the bananas in the batter!
• Yes, it costs a little more, but buy the real maple syrup for this dish. You can use way less (just a drizzle!) by topping the pancakes with fresh fruit since the fruit is already sweet. Also, it tastes better. And it's better for you.
• The recipe goes easily from pancake griddle to waffle iron. I do it both ways depending upon my mood.
• These pancakes turn out slightly denser and more chewy than regular pancakes. If you are expecting super fluffy pancakes, you might be disappointed. But these are insanely filling and worth the slightly flatter eating experience.
• Each pancake has 48 calories and 4 grams of protein. Plus, there are only 6 carbs and 1 gram of sugar per pancake. Beat that!

So, I'd be lying if I didn't share one more little thing about these pancakes. I don't always stop at the fresh fruit and real maple syrup topping. Sometimes when I need something extra sweet, I ramp it up a notch and make these Chocolate Covered Strawberry Banana Protein Pancakes! "Oh my," is right! And yes, you're welcome! :)

Don't forget to pin it!

Strawberry Banana Protein Pancakes

Slightly Adapted from Marcia's recipe

Makes 19 three-four inch pancakes

• 2 cups Low Fat Cottage Cheese
• 6 Eggs
• 1 cup All-Purpose Flour (or other flour)
• 1 cup Old Fashioned Oats
• 2 Tbsp Ground Flaxseed (optional)
• 2 Scoops Protein Powder (optional)
• 2 Bananas
• Cinnamon

Throw everything in a food processor or blender, and blend until smooth. Cook on a pancake griddle or in a waffle iron. Make sure to use non-stick spray between every batch as there is no oil in these pancakes.

Top with slices of real fruit (strawberries and blueberries are awesome!) and real maple syrup!

Adventures in Homemade Applesauce

Every now and again, I decide to tackle a new project just to keep my creativity alive. Generally, I combine my new project with an attempt at saving money too.

Our CSA (community supported agriculture) sent us apples in a couple of our recent produce bags. Lots and lots of apples. So many apples that we couldn't eat through all of them before they went bad.

So I decided that this was a good opportunity to learn how to make applesauce!

Our friends, Sarah and Wendell, make applesauce every year, so I asked Sarah for a few pointers prior to getting started. She gave me the run down on how to do it and offered to let me use her applesauce maker thingy (my name for it, not hers.)

It actually turned out to be super easy and fun! I think this will be a great project to involve the kids in in the future!

Lots of fresh apples, all rinsed and ready to go!

Any variety and combination of apples can be used. For this batch, I used 9 lbs of Jonathan apples and 3 lbs of Golden Delicious apples.

Cut each apple into quarters. No need to core or peel them!

And dump them all into a big roasting pan...skins, seeds, and all!

At this point, you can cook them until soft one of two ways:

I baked mine on the bottom rack in the oven for several hours. I didn't add any extra water because apples have quite a bit of water content on their own. I was doing some other baking at the time, so it didn't require extra energy to do it this way. I gave the apples a quick stir a few times just to make sure that they were cooking evenly. Once they were mushy, I knew that they were done.

Another option is to boil them for 20 minutes or so until they are soft. If you add water to your roasting pan and turn on both burners underneath it, you can boil them that way. Or if you have a large stockpot, that will work as well. Next time, I'll probably go this route since it's quicker.

Soft, mushy apples.

Once they have cooled a bit, you are ready to turn them into applesauce!

This is the nifty applesauce maker thingy that I borrowed. It's the most fun I've had with a kitchen gadget since Sean gave me my Kitchen Aid Mixer last Christmas!

B2B Food Strainer & Sauce Maker

Check this out!

The mushy apples go in the top container.

And then all you have to do is turn the crank! The apples funnel down into a cylinder that separates the apple skins, seeds, and stems from the apple flesh.

All of the apple guts come out and dump into a bowl...

And all of the strained and pureed apples pour into another bowl!

I added about 1/4 cup of sugar to the entire batch of applesauce, and it really didn't even need that! That's all there is to it! I really thought it would be so much more complicated, but it was pleasantly easy. I divided the batch up into quart size bags and put them in the freezer for easy grabbing. Thaw a baggy in some hot water for a few minutes, cut off the corner of the baggy, and squeeze into a bowl. Voila!

Ellie doesn't like store bought applesauce (the rest are okay with it), but I was happy to find that she really does like the homemade stuff! It's probably because the homemade version has far more flavor than what you can find on a store shelf. We have breakfast for dinner once a week (easy and cheap!), and the applesauce is a really nice addition. Sean even uses it in place of syrup on his waffles!

Every now and again, I decide to tackle a new project just to keep my creativity alive. Generally, I combine my new project with an attempt at saving money too.

Our CSA (community supported agriculture) sent us apples in a couple of our recent produce bags. Lots and lots of apples. So many apples that we couldn't eat through all of them before they went bad.

So I decided that this was a good opportunity to learn how to make applesauce!

Our friends, Sarah and Wendell, make applesauce every year, so I asked Sarah for a few pointers prior to getting started. She gave me the run down on how to do it and offered to let me use her applesauce maker thingy (my name for it, not hers.)

It actually turned out to be super easy and fun! I think this will be a great project to involve the kids in in the future!

Lots of fresh apples, all rinsed and ready to go!

Any variety and combination of apples can be used. For this batch, I used 9 lbs of Jonathan apples and 3 lbs of Golden Delicious apples.

Cut each apple into quarters. No need to core or peel them!

And dump them all into a big roasting pan...skins, seeds, and all!

At this point, you can cook them until soft one of two ways:

I baked mine on the bottom rack in the oven for several hours. I didn't add any extra water because apples have quite a bit of water content on their own. I was doing some other baking at the time, so it didn't require extra energy to do it this way. I gave the apples a quick stir a few times just to make sure that they were cooking evenly. Once they were mushy, I knew that they were done.

Another option is to boil them for 20 minutes or so until they are soft. If you add water to your roasting pan and turn on both burners underneath it, you can boil them that way. Or if you have a large stockpot, that will work as well. Next time, I'll probably go this route since it's quicker.

Soft, mushy apples.

Once they have cooled a bit, you are ready to turn them into applesauce!

This is the nifty applesauce maker thingy that I borrowed. It's the most fun I've had with a kitchen gadget since Sean gave me my Kitchen Aid Mixer last Christmas!

B2B Food Strainer & Sauce Maker

Check this out!

The mushy apples go in the top container.

And then all you have to do is turn the crank! The apples funnel down into a cylinder that separates the apple skins, seeds, and stems from the apple flesh.

All of the apple guts come out and dump into a bowl...

And all of the strained and pureed apples pour into another bowl!

I added about 1/4 cup of sugar to the entire batch of applesauce, and it really didn't even need that! That's all there is to it! I really thought it would be so much more complicated, but it was pleasantly easy. I divided the batch up into quart size bags and put them in the freezer for easy grabbing. Thaw a baggy in some hot water for a few minutes, cut off the corner of the baggy, and squeeze into a bowl. Voila!

Ellie doesn't like store bought applesauce (the rest are okay with it), but I was happy to find that she really does like the homemade stuff! It's probably because the homemade version has far more flavor than what you can find on a store shelf. We have breakfast for dinner once a week (easy and cheap!), and the applesauce is a really nice addition. Sean even uses it in place of syrup on his waffles!