Sunday morning I was excited to try out the griddle on a great older model gas stove-the type that has a griddle in between the burners. We had perfectly ripe bananas in the house, as well as fresh blueberries from the farmers market so I decided that it would be a pancake morning.
I have been using Arrowhead MIlls multi grain pancake mix for years and I had some in the house. It is a great mix, with almost all organic ingredients and really easy to use. I just beat an egg and then added some Strauss dairy organic milk (you can also make them with soy milk and they are just as good). I beat it till blended and then stirred in some of the mix, just until blended-a few little lumps are fine. I make it a bit on the thick side, so that the final texture is almost like a good, thick yogurt-you can always add more milk or mix if you need to adjust the texture. I had a warmed up griddle waiting and ladled the batter to the buttered surface. Then I added fruit and watched for some small bubbles to let me know when to turn them. On some they never came so I just peeked under the pancake to see if it was ready for turning.
I made some with bananas and then some with the blueberries and plain ones just to compare. Toppings made them even better with almond butter, shredded coconut and warm organic maple syrup on the banana version and some fresh orange marmalade on the blueberry. They all were good but the banana version was my favorite.
Earlier in the morning I had warmed up some oatmeal from the day before but never ate any. I wondered how it would taste to add some cooked oatmeal to the batter and the next minute they were on the griddle. I added a fair amount of oatmeal to the batter, but not so much that I needed to add any more milk or pancake mix to the batter. Same procedure as before with adding fruit once they hit the griddle. I made them with banana and blueberry again so that I could compare this new oatmeal version.
I have to say that they were even better than I thought they might be. They had more creaminess inside than the original version. I even had a few left over that when eaten later at room temperature were also really good. A good sign the when the leftover, of a leftover, tastes good. Just to mention, you can refrigerate any unused batter and use it the following day as well-I did and they were just as good on day two.
Maybe this is a good way for more people to eat more pancakes… After all, don’t pancakes always make you feel better? they just make you know that everything is going to be fine. Now, no one needs to feel bad about eating pancakes when you can make them with oatmeal inside and almost all organic ingredients.
