Favorite Breakfast Recipes

In our home, we've lately been getting rid of all processed foods, including white flour and sugar. We're baking everything ourselves these days and slowly adding new healthy alternatives each week. I had a favorite pancake recipe that called for white flour and sugar, plus milk and butter (we're also cutting out all dairy, with the exception of small amounts of goat and sheep cheese), which I could not make anymore. So instead, I came up with this! It is very light and fluffy and yummy, we really enjoyed it.

Whole Grain Pancakes
1.5 cups of whole-grain, finely ground flour (wheat or spelt)
1 tsp. sea or kosher salt
1 tbsp. baking powder
1.25 cups almond milk
1 tbsp. raw honey
1 egg (or 1 tbsp. ground flax seed and 3 tbsp. water)
3 tbsp. extra-virgin unrefined coconut oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions: Mix dry ingredients together; set aside. Heat almond milk until warm, around 100 degrees. Add to the milk honey, coconut oil, and vanilla. Beat egg (if using) in another bowl (otherwise add water and ground flax to milk mixture). Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet, stirring until just combined. If desired, add 1 cup fresh blueberries or other fruit. Heat pan until warm on medium heat. Spray with olive oil cooking spray or melt a bit of coconut oil in the pan. Cook pancakes until golden brown on each side. Serve warm, plain or with a bit of raw honey or real maple syrup.

A few notes on ingredients -- I used whole wheat flour this time, but spelt is healthier and I've had good success with it in other recipes. I would use it in the future if I had it. If the pancakes aren't sweet enough, feel free to add more raw honey (or agave nectar, which is actually what I used this time). I did mine with egg but I think the flax seed would be even better and definitely healthier (but my daughter needs the protein). Nutiva makes a nice coconut oil; we've enjoyed using it in baking lately, and you can sub it for butter anywhere, even on bread (though I think we're going to go with unsweetened preserves for that purpose...which, by the way, you could also spread on your pancakes for a sweet treat).

With this, we served Bekah's favorite smoothie:
1 cup orange juice (or pineapple, or a combination of both)
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 banana
3 - 4 frozen peach slices
3 - 4 strawberries

Blend all until smooth. It makes 12 oz. or so. I sometimes add 1 tbsp. of flax oil, and if I have any powdered probiotics, I add those too. It's very versatile, sometimes we leave out the strawberries and sometimes we add some blueberries. We didn't need blueberries today because they were in the pancakes.

Enjoy your breakfast!