**Healthy** Banana Bread Pancakes

It’s not often that you have seen healthy items on my site.  I am working towards making this more prevalent on the site as I reach my goals in life.  Recently, Mom sent me a recipe for Banana Bread Pancakes…I LOVE Banana Bread!!!  The catch…this recipe contained cottage cheese.  Growing up, I remember Mom eating a lot of cottage cheese.  To this day, I believe she eats it once in a while, and to this day, I still believe it’s pretty darn gross. 

With that back story, I was relieved to see the comments listed below the recipe where people didn’t use cottage cheese.  I put together the suggested items and created one of the most amazing pancakes I have ever eaten.  You can see the actual recipe here… http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=194903.  Below is the adapted recipe, exactly how I made them this morning, along with tips…

Banana Bread Pancakes

• 1 pack of Weight Control Quaker Instant Oatmeal – Cinnamon flavor
• 1 pack of Weight Control Quaker Instant Oatmeal – Banana Bread flavor
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1 egg
• 1 pack Splenda

Mash the bananas well and mix in all ingredients.  Cook on a lower than normal pancake heat and flip when bottom is browned. 

That’s it!  Now for the tips…READ THEM…

1. My bananas were quite ripe, so they mashed easy.  I used a potato masher for this task.  I have gadgets that would do this for me, but I still prefer hand mixing to dragging out a gadget.
2. The suggestions on the site mention that any instant oatmeal packet will work.  You just have to season the way you want them to taste at that point.  In essence, they don’t have to be banana flavored…use your imagination.
3. You could use egg substitute if you wanted instead of the egg.
4. My griddle calls for pancakes to be cooked on 375°.  I cooked these on 275°.  You just have to watch these.  They don’t really bubble like your normal pancake batter does on top.
5. They are thick and hearty, so don’t expect a runny batter.  I let my batter sit for about 15 minutes.  In my head, this was allowing the oats to moisten and thicken up.  Whether it helped or not…not sure.  They were good regardless!
6. After I did the first batch on the griddle, I took the remaining batter and put a bit of water in it to thin it out (I was out of milk, or else I would have used it).  It became a more common pancake batter texture, but when they were cooked…they browned faster and still remained almost too moist on the insides.  I wouldn’t recommend adding the liquid.  Maybe milk would have been different though.
7. I tried them first without syrup (I’m not a big syrup fan anyways) and without butter.  Amazing!  I added a little low-cal syrup for the nostalgic feeling of pancakes, and they still tasted great.  Never added butter.  Honestly, they didn’t need any toppings.  But, feel free to chop some walnuts and slice some more banana to top them…may alter the nutrition of them though……
8. The good thing about the Weigh Control Oatmeal is that it is higher in fiber and low in fat.  It’s quite good in fact.  I recommend this as a regular oatmeal breakfast as well!

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