Breakfast Musings: Oatmeal & Pancakes

I love oatmeal!!!

This is not a breakfast food that tops many people's lists (its bland, blah, boring). I happen to find it delicious with maple syrup and raisins, or brown sugar and blueberries, or mixed with homemade jams, or granola, or...

But where oatmeal really wins with me is as an added ingredient in other foods. Oatmeal cookies and oatmeal-molasses bars make me simply drool over their chewy deliciousness. I think this is due, in part, to my nut allergy. All nuts. Always have been. Oatmeal must provide me with (what I presume to be) a "nutty" texture that I don't otherwise get to experience. "Pre"pared oatmeal packets need not apply.

I love pancakes!
Especially for dinner (we call it "br-inner").

But how can a pancake get "healthier?" In the past, I have used whole wheat flours, but I got complaints that they don't taste the way pancakes "should" (there's that "picky-ness" rearing its ugly head). On a side note, I personally love whole wheat pancakes with a healthy dose of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats and raisins mixed in. It's like eating oatmeal cookies for breakfast. Try it sometime--don't forget the maple syrup!

One of my favorite pancake discoveries has been to partially replace the all-purpose flour with oatmeal flour. It doesn't change the oh-so-important flavor of tried and true Betty Crocker, but it adds a richer quality to the cakes and ups the whole-grain "ante." Thus making it, dare I say...healthier.

oatmeal, ground in my coffee grinder

I simply take my Quaker Old Fashioned Oats and put them in my coffee grinder. As it turns out, my coffee grinder just so happens grind out exactly one half cup of oatmeal flour, replacing half of the 1-cup all-purpose flour dictated by good ol' Betty! 

Here's the rest of Betty's recipe, if you need it. And yes-- I did just combine two favorite foods! Did Heaven just come to Earth for a moment?

ready to be mixed

hot off the griddle

topped with strawberries and drizzled with honey