sunday morning pancakes

everyone has their own saturday or sunday morning traditions, be it coffee in your pj's, cartoons with the kids, getting your long run done, or sleeping off the mishaps from the night before. our sunday morning tradition is to sit down, as a family, to a breakfast table full of pancakes. lots of chewy, yummy pancakes. don't worry, we try to incorporate smoothies or fresh fruit into the whole ordeal as well, you know, just to balance things out.



i have a basic go-to pancake recipe, but today i wanted to find a way to incorporate some sort of protein in the pancakes to give them some more substance and staying power. i'm cooking more and more 'vegan-ish' these days, and substituting all sorts of crazy things for eggs - bananas, pumpkin, flax "eggs", etc. but that means that the protein that i used to get from eggs my recipes is no longer there.

enter, stage right - plain greek yogurt.

i love greek yogurt. not only is it fabulous when mixed with a little fresh fruit and honey, but it's a healthy stand-in for sour cream in pretty much any recipe, including on top of baked potatoes. i won't try to fool you into believe that a greek yogurt pancake tastes the same as a fluffy "diner" style pancake, because it simply doesn't. it's a bit tangier, and a bit chewier. but they will fill you up and keep you going for a day full of twin-wrangling, or whatever may be on your schedule.


recipe: greek yogurt pancakes

you will need:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 T sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups plain greek yogurt
4 "flax eggs" (or 4 regular eggs if you're into that kind of thing) * see note
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup soy or almond milk
* if you click on the link for the flax egg tutorial, you'll see isa's warning about not replacing more than 1 egg with 1 flax "egg", due to the earthy and granola-y taste of the flax. i, for one, really like the earthy flavor of flax seed and flax meal, so it doesn't bother me to swap out all four of the eggs in this recipe with the flax. if you are new this whole flax "egg" idea, perhaps in this recipe, you should use 2 regular eggs and 2 flax "eggs". tell me what you think!

first things first: if you're going the flax "egg" route - mix your flax meal with the water and set aside to get all gooey. if you're using regular eggs, crack 'em open, whisk and set aside.

in a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.

in a separate bowl, combine the yogurt and vanilla. whisk until smooth. dump in your gooey flax eggs (or regular eggs) and whisk to combine.

now take your wet ingredients and pour them into the large bowl of dry ingredients. using your whisk, mix together a few times. the mixture will be dry and here's where the milk comes in... start with 1/2 a cup of milk and mix until the batter is thin enough to ladle onto the skillet, but not so thin that it resembles milk itself. once you have a good amount of milk in there, whisk until no large lumps of flour remain.

from here, i'll leave it to you. use your griddle or skillet, get 'er nice and hot, lube 'er up with some butter or earth balance, and cook the pancakes per your usual style. i will say that letting the pancake batter "rest" for a few minutes allows the gluten in the flour to relax and yields a bit puffier pancake. what? you didn't know this tip? well, then, you're welcome.