Pancake Problems
Let’s talk pancakes, shall we?
Fairly often I find myself drooling over pictures of decadent looking stacks of pancakes made by my fellow food bloggers. I’m confronted with feelings of jealousy and wonder why I don’t eat pancakes more often.
The obvious answer is that I’m OBSESSED with oatmeal. No surprise there I’m guessing. But today, I woke up with 3 homemade pancake leftovers in my fridge and I was quite excited to become one of those bloggers who I’m always so jealous of.
First things first though. I’m trying to get a handle on my workout routine with the new semester and all. I think this will be my basic plan:
- Monday: easy workout, aka no running
- Tuesday: run (and probably some vinyasa flow/abs or lifting)
- Wednesday: rest day
- Thursday: yoga
- Friday: run
- Saturday: rest/yoga/run
- Sunday: rest/yoga/run (depending on what I do on Saturday)
Despite the fact that I just took time to write out a plan, my work out schedule is pretty lax/flexible. Some days I just don’t feel like working out so I’m more than willing to take an unscheduled rest day to prevent any kind of burn out.
This morning I did 30 minutes on the stationary bike and increased the resistance from 3 to 10 in the course of that 30 minutes. Reading definitely works as a good distraction mechanism.
Oh right, I’m supposed to be talking about pancakes.
I bet I have your attention now.
Almond flour is expensive but if you knew what a pancake made with almond flour tasted like you would say it was worth the price (once in a while at least). Slightly sweet with a kind of cornmeal-ish texture, almond flour pancakes rock! Hint hint to those of you who are gluten-free**
I dressed mine up with 1/2 a grilled banana and a drizzle of maple.
The other two pancakes were made with rice flour, I believe, although I don’t exactly recall getting a clear answer from my mom or my sister.
These babies had fresh blueberries mixed in and I LOVED how fluffy they were.
Topped one with peanut butter sauce (1t pb, 1 t almond milk, microwaved for a few seconds). The other was topped with chocolate coconut sauce (coconut butter mixed with cocoa powder) and the other half of my grilled banana.
I love how thinning out peanut butter makes it look like I’m eating so much more than I actually am!
My coconut butter refused to melt. I need some new melting techniques.
Fun, pretty, diverse, easy to get creative with? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Filling? That would be a big N-O. I don’t know why but pancakes just don’t leave me satisfied like oatmeal does. Oats beat out pancakes (and pretty much everything else) by a mile!
Good thing Angela just posted a fabulous looking hot oat recipe!
On to bigger and better things, like soup.
Remember all those veggies I was roasting yesterday?
Some of them went into Sunday night’s soup. Kale and Roasted Veggie soup from Emily to be exact. Or should I say Swiss Chard and Roasted Veggie soup because I accidentally came home with chard instead of kale. Oops!
It was delicious nonetheless.
I know I’m always saying things are delicious and you should try it but this time I really mean it.
Roasting the veggies is the only part that takes a while but it’s more waiting than work. After that the soup is really quick and easy. Like, Emily says, don’t skip the roasting part. The veggies are the best part of the soup!
I get to play babysitter tomorrow morning 🙂 Good thing my workout schedule is flexible, right?
Let’s Play Catch Up
Although I haven’t been posting daily, I have been photographing daily and as a result I feel like I have lots to report when I finally get back to posting.
I’ll spare you the numerous pictures I took of Colorado Rockies baseball player Troy Tulowitzki on Saturday. Except maybe this one.
Whoa, someone needs to fix their posture but I was awestruck nevertheless. You all know of my love for baseball 🙂
You also know of my love for Sunday breakfasts. I made use of my mom’s frother. It was quite fun.
Then I made myself a chai tea latte. For free. Take that, Starbucks.
In a New Orleans mug, of course. Make that a Starbucks New Orleans mug. I guess I still need you, Starbucks.
Then we made omelettes in a bag. Say what?
Just toss your ingredients in, add two eggs, zip and place in a pot of boiling water for ~13 minutes or until eggs are done. I think it ended up taking a little bit longer than 13 minutes.
Notice how Joey’s bag says “Joooey.” I told you my family makes fun of the way I whine Joey’s name.
I had spinach, olives, bell pepper, scallions, cheese, broccoli and mushrooms in mine.
P.S. My entire family calls me “Sis.” I always wonder if people are confused when they hear my parents refer to me as “Sis.”
Pancake appetizer. Rice flour pancakes with the blueberries (and a bite already taken) and almond flour below. They both tasted great but I think I liked the almond flour better. I definitely stole the 3 leftover pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.
The omelettes came out in the shape of ziplock bags. I thought it was pretty amusing.
I smothered mine in salsa and avocado before eating it. No omelette is complete without salsa. I’m glad my family feels the same.
P.S. I honestly have never known how to spell omelette. I’m going with this French version because it makes me feel cultured.
After breakfast I went home and roasted veggies galore. Really, I’m talking GALORE.
Oh wait, there’s more.
So why all the roasted veggies? I’m taking a tip from my Mom and sister and roasting a giant batch at the beginning of the week so I’ll have some on hand. I often always take dinner leftovers for lunch but sometimes it’s not enough to make a whole meal. Now I can grab some veggies from the fridge and voila, a complete meal.
They also make a great sandwich.
In the sandwich:
- Steamed beats
- Yellow squash
- Zucchini
- Goat cheese
- Kale pesto
Perfect yoga fuel!
There’s been a new addition to our family. My mom came home today with a four month year old dachshund. <— I have to look up the spelling every time…
She is SO TINY. Pictures to come, I promise 🙂
For now, what’s your vote on her name?
- Penny — because she’s copper colored
- Nola — as in New Orleans Louisiana (NO, LA)
- Andy — short for Andouille, which is a cajun sausage and she’s a sausage dog
All quite creative I think.
Happy Monday!
I love it when you call me Green Monster
Apparently I’m channeling Notorious B.I.G. today. I blame my hip hop poetics class and our weekly rhyme competition. This is the part where I brag about how we have a weekly contest to see which classmate can bring in the best hip hop song to share with the class and then we vote and the winner advances to the final tournament which will be held during the last week of class.
Cool, huh? Biggie won this week.
Alright, alright get to the Green Monster already.
I was careful this time and avoided making a mess like this one. I did knock over the blender and spill half my almond milk on the floor but that’s easily cleaned up so it doesn’t count…
Chocolate Kale Green Monster:
- 1 banana
- 1 cup chocolate almond milk
- handful of kale
- a few ice cubes (optional)
Add ingredients and blend away, my friends.
It was difficult not to suck this down in one sip.
By the way, that god awful pony tail I’m rocking has become my daily hairstyle because my hair is so damn static-y right now I can’t seem to do anything but put it up and out off of my face. Ugh! I’m googling “what to do with static hair” as we speak.
I might resort to carrying a dryer sheet around with me and whipping it out in class.
I’ll welcome any tips with open arms.
I’ll also accept processed foods with open arms. Not the ones your thinking of though. I’m talking food processor processed.
That would be vegan nacho cheese and kale pesto. I’m not going to post the “cheese” recipe because I was pretty disappointed in the fact that it didn’t taste like any kind of cheese, let alone nacho cheese. Bummer 😦
And as for the pesto, I’ll wait to see how it tastes before I recommend it to you but I can tell you it smelled like heaven while I was making it. I may or may not have removed the center piece of my food processor and put my nose above the hole so I could smell the pesto as it was being processed. Normal, right?
I’m going to cook up some pasta and throw this pesto on top for dinner. Yum!
And because one meal with walnuts isn’t enough, I had walnuts in my oatmeal AGAIN this morning. I’m officially obsessed.
Another obsession? Power fusion yoga. Okay, I’ve only been once but I could see myself doing it often. It’s warm (~95 degrees) and you go through the 26 static postures mixed with some flow. It was tough. Not to mention sweaty. When class was over Beanie said, “My legs were sweaty and I didn’t know legs could sweat!” Too funny 😛
Oh right, the oatmeal. See that pool of melty chocolate?
That would be coconut butter mixed with a little cocoa powder. Best thing ever? Pretty much.
I’m off to get in a run then slather my hair in olive oil.
Have a good one!
Lauren Loves Good Food 