Blueberry Banana Almond Pancakes

Just reading the title should make your mouth water! When I don't have to work in the morning I love to cook myself a hardy breakfast. During the week I eat mostly cereal, sometimes eggs, but on my days off I have the time to experiment with food! Nothing says breakfast like a steaming hot stack of delicious PANCAKES! Pancakes can be extremely nutritional when they aren't doused in mounds upon mounds of butter and slathered in heavy syrup (YEA I'M TALKING ABOUT YOU, IHOP!) The fact is pancakes have gotten a bad rap due to restaurants who want to give you the "best bang for your buck" so you know what restaurants??? I'M TAKING PANCAKES BACK! That's right! I am going to reclaim the once nutritional glory that pancakes had! How you may ask??? My creating a delicious and nutritional pancake that will have restaurants around the world shaking in their boots!

Below are all of the ingredients you will need to make my delicious pancakes. Yes I know vegetable oil is in the list of ingredients (it is all I had) so please substitute vegetable oil for its healthier parts (canola.)

First step is to follow the pancake mix directions on how to make it. I use Aunt Jamima Whole Wheat Pancake Mix. You can do it from scratch if you'd like, in fact more power to you, but I am hungry now, have the pancake mix and need to use it up! The pancake batter should have a smooth consistency, if it looks a little thin just add a little more batter.

Next, I wanted my pancakes to have a nutritional punch! What could I add to pancakes to make them even better??? ALMONDS! Adding any type of nut to pancakes will give them a nice crunchy consistency, plus almonds will fill you up faster (because of the fiber) which makes you eat less. To make the almonds easier to chew I decide to break them up. Usually you can use a food processor (if you have one) to chop these bad boys up. However, if you don't (like me) I just used my blender. Make sure to hold the lid on because the nuts will freaking fly! Don't have a blender?? Easy, put the almonds in a ziplock bag, take a frying pan, and beat the hell out of them! Think of it this way you are getting crushed almonds, you are burning calories while doing it, and reliving a little bit of built up anger (IHOP!!)

Before

After

Next step is to add the almonds and a little bit of cinnamon into the batter and stir! Make sure you have a pan preheating on the stove or griddle! Once the pan is hot spray it with some nonstick cooking spray, such as Pam, and put about 1/4 cup batter into the pan. Wait until the pancake begins to form bubbles on one side and then its time to flip!

Before

After (FLIPPING TIME)

Pancake is done!

While the pancakes cook I cut up 1/2 a banana and wash off my blueberries and set them to the side.

Now this recipe made about five pancakes. I put three on my plate (they came out really thin this time. Probably screwed up the batter a little. Oh well, mistakes happen) and add the blueberries and bananas on top. I take a little of Aunt Jamima's Low Calorie Syrup (2 tbsp) and drizzle it on the pancake.

Dress the pancakes.....

Drizzle the syrup....but remember it's not about the syrup. The syrup is supposed to be the back note that just adds a little bit of sweetness and moisture into the pancakes. Do not go hog wild on the syrup even low calorie syrup packs some calories and a hefty amount of sugar.

Now just cut up everything and swirl it all together so that all the flavors combine and ENJOY!

You may be asking? What am I going to do with the left over pancakes??? Sooo simple. Refrigerate them! Why? Easy, because it will give you a quick to-go breakfast in the morning when you have to work. What you do is take a pancake, throw about 1/2 tbsp peanut butter on it with some fruit and cinnamon, then roll it like a tortilla!!! VIOLA breakfast for people on the run. This is especially a good trick to use if you have kids!!! They will love the idea and the taste! Its much better than stopping at McDonalds!!!