Sunday Cranberry Apple Oatmeal Pancakes

 Some mornings just call for a large, pampering breakfast.  For example, the morning after the consumption of a bottle of wine at a dubious “wine bar” and copious amounts of dancing at Gio’s… thankfully pancakes seem to have anti-vino-hangover-headache properties for me.  Huzzah.

Normally, I cure hangovers with a super-greasy bacon-and-eggs breakfast… but I already felt bad enough about myself, so I reached (yes, AGAIN) for my G.I. Diet Clinic’s recipe for oatmeal pancakes and fiddled with it a bit.  I’ve made these pancakes before… the only downside is the 20-minute oat-soaking time period.  But, just get them soaking, make some coffee, prep the rest of the ingredients, and feed your cats… it doesn’t take much extra time overall.  Undoctored, these are delicious, but they needed some oomph for me this morning.  I accomplished this “thusly”, as Alton would say:

Oatmeal Cranberry Apple Pancakes
Adapted from “The G.I. Diet Clinic” by Rick Gallop
(Seriously, I hope he doesn’t sue me)

Makes five respectable-sized pancakes… which is supposed to be 2 servings for those without hangovers.  One serving for those suffering for their EtOH transgressions.

• A generous 1/3 cup large-flake oats
• 1 cup buttermilk
• ½ cup whole wheat flour
• 1/8 cup (or 2 tbsp) ground flaxseed
• ½ tbsp Splenda
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 1 Omega-3 egg
• 1 tbsp canola oil
• ½ tsp vanilla
• ¼ of a large apple, peeled and chopped
• ¼ cup dried cranberries

1. In a 2-cup measuring cup, soak oats in buttermilk for 20 minutes
2. In large bowl, combine flour, flaxseed, Splenda, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
3. When the 20 minutes is up, whisk the egg, oil, and vanilla into the buttermilk-oats mixture.  Pour over flour mixture and stir until just mixed.  Add the apple and cranberries and stir just to incorporate.
4. Meanwhile, heat non-stick griddle or large non-stick frying pan over medium heat.  Give it a quick spritz of non-stick spray oil.  Ladle about a half of a soup-ladle’s worth of batter onto the griddle for each pancake.  Cook until bubbles appear on top, edges are starting to brown, and the top has almost completely lost its shiny “uncooked” sheen (about 3 minutes or so)
5. Flip pancakes and cook for another minute or two until golden.  Transfer to a plate and devour. 

I call this piece, "As the Pancake Turns".  But is it art? ;)

These doctored pancakes are probably okay in the G.I. world, but what I did to them next most definitely is NOT:

That’s right.  Margarine and table syrup.  It’s not even light syrup, which tastes gross to me.  I was tempted to buy the “diabetic” pancake syrup in the store, but I couldn’t justify spending twice the amount of money for half the amount of product.  It’s also not maple syrup, which is incredibly expensive and, in my opinion, too runny.  My mom always bought a huge jug of No Name table syrup for family pancake mornings, and if it was good enough for her, it’s more than good enough for me.  Blood sugar levels be damned!! (Well, for me.  No disrespect to those for whom monitoring this level is serious business).

The combination of a warm, sunny (if windy!) fall morning combined with these delicious pancakes chased away the blahs of overindulgence from the night before.  A great start to a gorgeous Sunday.

Wishing that all pancakes could be considered healthy,

-Honeybee