Pumpkin Pancakes

It's now November and I still have a good amount of pumpkin puree to use up and I'm having to think a little out of my comfort zone on certain recipes. Until this year the only pancakes I favored came from a box, well due to my daughter's peanut allergy I had to start making them from scratch. I started with my butter milk pancakes from cooking light, then moved to eggless pancakes which are very delicious and perfect for the fall. Well I finally decided it was time to branch out more and try making pancakes with pumpkins. As I've been very conscious of calories and have been selecting my recipes on if they have calories listed or not, I hit the internet. I found a recipe on About.com Low Fat Cooking. It's a great recipe that's quick easy and pretty light in calories for a meal that will fill you up.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp canola oil
1 cup nonfat milk
1/3 cup pure pumpkin

Directions
Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salkt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg together in a medium bowl. Combine egg, oil, ilk and pumpkin in a small bowl. Stir pumpkin mixture into dry ingredients. Leave to stand for five minutes.

For each pancake, scoop 1/4 cup of batter on to a hot griddle or nonstick skellet spraged with cooking spray. Turn pancakes when bubbles appear and edges are cook, after about 2 minutes. Cook for 1 1/2 minutes on seconds side.

makes 8-10 pancakes

Serving size 2 pancakes, Calories 226

Lifesaving Eggless Pancakes

The other morning my toddler asked me to make fresh chocolate chip pancakes for her, so who am I to say no to that. Well upon arriving at the fridge for the eggs I swiftly realized I am all out, my mind quickly filled with the mental image of my little girl throwing a huge tantrum over this. So I quickly searched online for a pancake recipe that didn't call for eggs and found one on food.com and the recipe was noted to be taking from another site at cooks.com. Any ways, the recipe was incredibly easy and made some really fluffy pancakes, in fact a lot fluffier than any other pancakes I have ever made. Also the recipe calls for cinnamon, something I was skeptical of, but they really took it to another level and has my taste buds tingling to try something new with my pancake recipes.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups while milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 tablespoons butter

Directions
1. Combine dry ingredients and mix slightly.
2. Add milk, oil, water, and vanilla. whisk together until just combined. Be careful not to over mix-it should still be slightly lumpy. Set aside to rest for a few minutes
3. heat a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. While pan is heating, add butter. As soon as the butter is melted, add melted butter to pancake batter.
4. Return pan to stove and stir butter into batter.
5. When pan is hot, with a measuring cup or ladle, pour 1/4 cup of batter into the skillet for each pancake.
6. Cook until bubbles form on the surface. Carefully flip pancakes with turner/spatula and cook until golden brown.
7. Note: This recipe also works well with whole wheat flour. Chopped fruit, nuts or chocolate chips can be added to batter before cooking four a unique treat.

Blueberry Pancakes

With the recent diagnosis of my daughter being allergic to peanuts I have had to go through my pantry and cupboards with a fine tooth comb and throw out anything that either "contains" or "may contain peanuts". Which to my surprise my quick and lazy box of pancake batter was marked with the dreaded "may contain peanuts". So instead of looking at the store for a box of pancake batter that was safe I did the next logical thing, make my pancakes from scratch! This was something I had thought about doing long before having to worry about peanut allergies, but had not followed through do to pure laziness. My search for a recipe was pretty short, like looking in one cookbook short. I opened up my Cooking Light Cookbook as I wanted a recipe that was a little healthier and this book has always come threw for me in the past. Sure enough, it had two pages dedicated to pancakes and waffles. I settled on the recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes, as I always preferred the box buttermilk pancakes. The recipe is super easy to follow and has doubled with no problems. The final product was a light fluffy pancake with wonderful flavor. In fact it was so good, I am going to have a hard time trying some different recipes.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup low-fat or nonfat buttermilk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Maple syrup

Directions
1. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup, level with a knife. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. Combine buttermilk, oil and egg; add to flour mixture, stirring until smooth.
2. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter onto a hot nonstick griddle or nonstick skillet. turn pancakes when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked. Serve with maple syrup, if desired. Yield 3 servings (serving size 3 pancakes). Calories 276

I added blue berries to these, as their one of my daughters favorites. I always keep a bag of frozen blue berries and thaw them with luke warm water in a measuring cup. I then add the blue berries after I pour the pancakes on the griddle. I do this to prevent the pancake batter from turning blue from the blueberry juice and the pancakes cook more evenly with thawed blueberries instead of frozen ones.