Wheat Oat Flax Pancakes With Blueberries & Almonds

On rare occasions, I surprise even myself and develop my own recipes that actually TASTE GOOD. For my first good act of 2010, I bring you:

Wheat Oat Flax Pancakes With Blueberries & Almonds

A healthy and hearty pancake topped with blueberries and almonds. Low in fat, high in fiber and vitamins and a good amount of protein, too. One pancake is enough! Pair with an orange or apple on the side and a glass of milk or a cup of coffee to finish it off. Even my kids loved this!

Ingredients

Pancakes:
1/2 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup organic ground flax seeds (8 Tbsp)
4 tsp brown sugar, packed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 medium eggs
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt (2 oz.)
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup whole milk

Toppings:
2 cups frozen whole blueberries, thawed
1/2 cup slivered almonds (8Tbsp)
1 cup maple syrup
4 pats butter, salted

Directions

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk eggs and liquids together, stir into dry ingredients. Prepares approximately 4 cups of batter.
Scoop approximately half a cup onto a medium hot griddle or cast iron skillet. Batter is very thick and will need to be patted down and spread out with a spoon.
Cook til the sides turn loose easily and bubbles just start to form and flip. (Bubbles do not form as easily and profusely as they do in thinner batters because of the thickness and the solid ingredients, etc. If you wait for too long for too many bubbles you may overcook the pancake.)

Makes 8 pancakes. Top each pancake with 1/2 pat of butter, 1/8 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cup blueberries and 1 Tbsp slivered almonds. Serve hot and enjoy!

Number of Servings: 8

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 8
• Amount Per Serving:
  • Calories: 324.6
  • Total Fat: 10.2 g
  • Cholesterol: 54.2 mg
  • Sodium: 478.0 mg
  • Total Carbs: 57.2 g
  • Dietary Fiber: 6.2 g
  • Protein: 7.7 g

SO GOOD.

Now, I KNOW what you are thinking. Every time someone says the word “healthy” people start scrutinizing the ingredients to see if it matches up with their standards of healthy eating. Unfortunately, “healthy” means a lot of things to a lot of people.

Here’s my version:

1. I want to include as many whole foods as possible. That means, whole milk (because right now it’s the most whole available to me, I can’t afford fresh milk and I don’t have a milk cow), real butter, fresh or frozen and unsweetened blueberries, etc.
2. I also want to increase the dietary fiber because among other things it promotes healthy digestion and aids in the digestion of fats, etc.
3. I want to limit the amount of sugar, so I used only a small amount of brown sugar and a very small amount of maple syrup. I also did use vanilla yogurt because it’s what I had – I usually buy plain but they were out of plain, otherwise I’d have used that.
4. I want it to be lower in fat. I know you’re thinking “that’s not low fat!” If it were one side serving I’d agree with you, but since the pancake is the bulk of the meal and since the fats come from the butter, milk and yogurt and not something like shortening or red meat the fats are, in my opinion, healthier fats.
5. Lastly, it’s about proportions. I believe that butter is okay, in moderation. I think sugar is okay, in moderation. So nothing in this recipe is over the top, it’s all very well balanced.

I do wish that my kitchen was stocked with freshly ground whole grains, farm fresh eggs and milk, homemade butter and organic everything. But it’s not where we are at right now. In the meantime I’m trying to improve things as much as I can and I’m trying to eat a bit healthier and exercise a lot more to develop a healthier lifestyle. Being able to eat good stuff like this (which honestly was almost as good as the stuffed french toast I made a few weeks ago!) helps me be able to eat healthier and stick to it and love it, too!

Who says that eating healthy can’t taste good, too? Hogwash! =)

P.S. This is the first recipe I’ve ever uploaded to a recipe site! I submitted it to Spark Recipes and it calculated the nutritional info based upon the ingredients I selected. I’m trusting that their numbers are accurate, I did try to compare the info for each ingredient as I went through it. Also, if you want to reduce the calories and sugar a bit more, leaving off the maple syrup will reduce each serving by 107 calories and some of the carbs and sugars, too.