Healthy Chocolate Quinoa Pancakes

I was starving this morning and decided to make pancakes from scratch.  For the first time.  Actually, decided to make pancakes for the first time ever.  This is coming from someone who never craves pancakes and used to be an expert at cooking with a microwave or ordering takeout (I was spoiled by my mama with her cooking when I lived at home).  But since I had most of the ingredients, I decided to play around some.  I found a pretty easy recipe here that did not call for buttermilk.  I tweaked it based on what I had on hand and ended up making this delicious dark chocolate quinoa pancake using dark chocolate almond milk.

I sprinkled cinnamon and drizzled honey on my pancakes instead of regular syrup and the sweetness was just perfect for my taste.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (or gluten free flour if you have intolerances)

1 1/4 Silk dark chocolate almond milk
1/2 cup cooked quinoa

1 egg

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons agave sweetene

cooking spray

 

Directions:

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.

Whisk in melted butter, egg, almond milk and quinoa until combined. Let the batter sit for 5 minutes to thicken up.

Preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Spray with cooking spray. Pour batter into the hot skillet, about 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until bubbles appear on the sides and center of each pancake. Flip and cook about 1 to 2 minutes.

Winking Breakfast Magnets

One can never have too many kawaii food magnets.  Especially when they are a winking breakfast magnet set.  The set includes bacon, coffee, cereal, toast and a sunny side up egg.  The bowl of cereal has beaded "cereal".  Each magnet measures approximately 1.75 inches in diameter.

Available for purchase in the Etsy shop.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin

I don't know what has gotten into me lately but I've been cooking more and more out of my normal comfort zone and I started baking.  In the past, I've usually baked from the "boxed" mixes and it's been over 10 years since I've baked from scratch.  When I was baking from scratch, it was few and far between.  Part of it is because I don't have anyone to bake for and the other part is that I don't have a working oven so baking is done through my toaster oven.  

This week, I've already made nutella cookies and White Chocolate Chip Orange cookies.  Today, I decided to bake banana chocolate chip muffins since I had two super ripe bananas awaiting their demise for a few days now.  I found this awesome recipe from Food.com and basically halved the ingredients since I only had two ripe bananas instead of the 4 it calls for.  I ended up with 10 muffins and they are delish.  Not too shabby for only picking up baking again after a 10 years plus hiatus.  At least now, I can bake for friends and coworkers for birthdays and get-togethers.