All the ingredients I'm using to fortify this breakfast.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We've been taught this from childhood, but what's funny is the practice of getting a good start to the day onto the breakfast table happens less than I'd like. Today, though, the kitchen was clean, nobody was starving when they rolled out of bed at 7:30, and I felt like making something with love (or writing a blog post!). So, we all get what we want, kids get their favorite breakfast, I get to add my pinch of healthy to their tummies.
The Bisquick recipe is a simple 3 ingredient list: Bisquick, Milk, and eggs. That's a good start because 2 of the ingredients are protein sources. When I stopped by the
Jimmy Dean booth at BlogHer11 I learned that only 15% of Americans are getting an adequate protein fix in their breakfast. Getting protein on the breakfast plate has always been on my radar, but hearing this statistic means I'm going to give it more effort. Anyways, as you can see from the photo below, my pancakes are not the basic 3 ingredient mix. Nope, pancakes are the perfect opportunity to sneak in a little boost of nutrition or what I like to think of as "adding a touch of love."
I first became inspired to boost recipes nutritional value by Jessica Seinfeld's
Deceptively Delicious. A good source to get started. There's another that I have yet to check out but hear good things about, The Sneaky Chef. It's on my to-do list.
First, I add 2 scoops of the Organic Golden Flax by
flax usa, since I'm making the Bisquick recipe with 14 pancakes that seems appropriate. It has all kinds of nutritional benefits, one of which is an added boost of protein! It's easy to add this gluten-free, Omega-3, fiberous foodsource to anything from yogurt and smoothies to oatmeal and muffin mixes. This particular brand actually provides another pancake recipe on the back, but it takes a little more effort than I want to put in for now. Maybe in the future though. I don't even remember how I learned about flax, but it sounded like a smart mom thing to integrate into our diets... slowly, but surely I'm remembering to use it with more regularity.
Second, I add protein powder, this one is vanilla flavored. In the past I've added too much and it negatively affected the flavor of the pancakes so I'd been hesitant to try it again. But, wait, I can just use less and still get the desired outcome, more protein, perhaps less than the full scoop provides, but I figure with all the other sources of protein, eggs, milk, flax seed, that half a scoop in this huge Costco bag will do the trick.
Mixing it up with my
Cheap Sally apron - thank you Amberly for taking many shots til we got it just right ; )
Third, I add chocolate chips, mainly because I'm still too lazy to clean up syrup and have never bothered to even look for a healthy syrup. My husband still will give the kids syrup when he makes pancakes, and inevitably my daughter will still get syrup in her hair, then that leads to a whole other discussion, better left for a future blog post. Now, I know there is a movement to ban Nestle by the a large segment of the breastfeeding advocacy community, but this is one thing I haven't been able to get on the board with... maybe cuz I lack the full scope of knowledge, maybe because I can't resist buying some our favortie candies on occassion, and because I like the occassional chocolate milk. Again, for a future blog post. Basically I prefer chocolate chips to syrup and it seems chocolate has some nutritional value, at least more than say syrup.
Forth, I add blueberries. My daughter and I actually prefer the blueberries to the chocolate chips so I add them to hers and mine primarily. We use the fresh blueberries. I have it on my to-do list to start buying these organic, but since Costco makes it so easy and affordable to buy them there, that's what we do. One problem I have though, usually the blueberry pancakes come out with still uncooked pancake batter just surrounding the blueberries. Not sure how to solve that problem, but it hasn't been enough of a problem to deter me from adding them. Maybe someone can give me a cooking tip?
Honestly, I don't take the time to sit and count up the grams of protein per serving, being super busy it is more important to me that I make the effort to be more health conscious rather than see how the numbers add up. This was summed up nicely in a
tweet by
HolisticMomsNet yesterday.
I won't write a lot about cooking, because as my husband will tell you, I'm not so great a cook, but when I do, it will probably be related to breakfast. In my college communication class I even gave a speech about the importance of breakfast. Some things always stick with you. It makes me feel good inside to cook a good breakfast, it makes the kids feel good, both emotionally and nutritionally, so we all got our "slice of the pie" this morning.
**The link to Cheap Sally above takes you to my profile for their Bring Home the Bacon contest. Voting officially gets under way Sept 1st so I hope you'll check back and vote for me. Hey, you could enter too! I'm all about sharing the wealth of knowledge. I
tweeted with them about the $100,000 opportunity this morning.
**The link to Jimmy Dean above takes you to their 52 ways To Deliver Great Days facebook campaign where you have a chance to win a $250 Amazon giftcard. Don't say I never did nothin' for ya!
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