Cinnamon-Oat Whole Wheat Pancakes

I love to make these hearty pancakes on Sunday when no one is stressed trying to get out the door in the morning and I don't have to worry about getting things done by a certain time.  I also love to make these on Sunday because Sunday is my free day and I don't have to worry about measuring my syrup or feel deprived if I want to put chocolate chips into the pancakes.  This is actually a weight watchers recipe and so you can easily make this in the morning and stay on track.  You just have to measure your pancake batter.

*Note: This recipe calls for 2 cups of buttermilk.  This makes the pancakes thicker and fluffier.  However, I have made it several times with homemade buttermilk if you don't want to buy buttermilk at he store here is how to make buttermilk at home:

How to make your own buttermilk: To make 1 cup buttermilk, take 1 tbsp vinegar and place in a liquid measuring cup.  Then add enough milk to bring the liquid up to the 1 cup mark.  Let sit for at least 5 minutes.  For this recipe you need 2 cups, so just take 2 tbsp vinegar and place in a liquid measuring cup, then add enough milk to bring the liquid up to the 2 cup mark.  Stir and let sit at least 5 minutes.

Very easy!  But the pancake batter will come out thinner.  I have made it both ways and it tastes great either way.

Cinnamon-Oat Whole Wheat Pancakes- 7 points plus for two pancakes of 1/3 cup batter

Ingredients

	1 cup(s) uncooked old fashioned oats
	1 cup(s) whole wheat flour
	1 cup(s) all purpose flour
	1 tsp baking soda
	1 tsp ground cinnamon
	1/2 tsp table salt
	2 cup(s) low-fat buttermilk
	2 large egg(s)
	2 Tbsp packed brown sugar, dark variety
	1 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
	1 tsp vanilla extract

  
Directions:

• In a medium bowl, whisk together oats, both flours, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together buttermilk, eggs, sugar, melted butter and vanilla extract. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients; mix until combined 

To cook pancakes, preheat pan over medium heat.  DO NOT COOK PANCAKES IN A STAINLESS STEEL PAN! Stainless steel sticks like crazy and it is incredibly difficult to clean burnt pancakes off of it.  Make sure you have a non-stick pan or griddle.  If you are not a fan of non-stick (teflon) then use ceramic cookware.  

I am not a fan of cooking spray since it contains aresol and leaves a sticky residue on my cookware that is very hard if not impossible to remove.  So I just take a little bit of canola oil (or you can use coconut oil) and a silicone basing brush and rub it around the pan and that works perfectly.  I usually only have to do this once for the whole batch.

You can cook them plain: 

Or you can add chocolate chips.  I used to just add the chips to the batter but I found that all my chocolate chips would sink to the bottom.  So now I just add some to the pancakes after I put the batter in the pan.  It works better that way I think. 

And here they are flipped over

Nice and golden and fluffy.  As you can see, I don't really fuss over making them a perfect circle, to do that you need to have a large griddle or only put one pancake in the pan at a time and I don't have a large griddle and I am too impatient to cook only one at a time.

For the kids I usually make some small ones

And I always deck out my pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries!  Love it that way.

And as you see, so does Chloe :-)  Or maybe she just loves the whipped cream haha!

Face First!

Breakfast Oatmeal

Oatmeal is now one of my all time favorite breakfasts.  We used to eat instant oatmeal, until we switched to old fashioned oats and realize how much better they taste and also how much fuller you feel when you eat old fashioned oats!  When I ate instant oatmeal it was almost like eating a bowl of cereal, I would be starving again in about an hour and a half.  I'm not talking just being a little hungry and wanting a snack, I'm talking about wanting to eat lunch at 8:30 when I ate breakfast at 7!  Not so when I eat Old Fashioned Oats!  Yes they take longer to prepare, but if you don't have the time to cook them in the morning, put them in the crock pot and let them cook over night, or make them the night before.  That way they are ready to go when you get up and there is no excuse for not partaking of this wonderfully nutritious, filling, and healthy breakfast.
 

Health Benefits of Old Fashioned Oats in a Nutshell

1. Contains lots of fiber which helps maintain a healthy blood pressure and also keeps you fuller longer (not to mention its healthy for your colon!) 
2. Low in Cholesterol and Fat: soluble fiber helps remove cholesterol from your body
3. Oatmeal is a whole grain and you are supposed to get three servings of whole grains a day.  Eating whole grains helps to reduce your risks of diseases such as Type 2 diabetes.

What to cook your oats in
Since I am making oatmeal for not only myself in the morning but my husband and Chloe as well, I always cook my oats in water.  Unfortunately this does not add much flavor, but when you are cooking 3 1/2 cups of oats every morning, we can't really afford to use any other liquid to cook our oatmeal in.  In case you are wondering, I eat one cup of oats in the morning.  Matt eats 2 cups of oats and Chloe eats 1/2 cup of oats in the morning.  This means that we use 3 1/2 cups of water and 1 3/4 cups of old fashioned oats.

Here is the nutritional info:

Picture taken from This Site

If you are making oatmeal just for yourself, it would taste better if you cooked your oats in Unsweetend Almond Milk.  I love the flavor this gives the oats, and since you are using just one cup a day, it is much more financially doable (we just can't afford 3 1/2 cups almond milk for oatmeal almost every day).

Sweeteners
I like to put brown sugar in my oatmeal after it has finished cooking.  I put 1 tbsp brown sugar in mine because I like it to be sweeter, but Matt only puts about 1 1/2 tsp in his whole two cups of oatmeal, so its really up to you and your personal preferences.

If you do not want to put sugar in your oats here are some other great ideas.  These ones taste best if you add them to the oatmeal while it is cooking:
Pure Maple Syrup(no high fructose corn syrup here)
Banana (how much varies on how much you are making.  I use one banana for all of us)
Apple Sauce- No Sugar Added(again make sure you do not get one with High fructose corn syrup)

Other Additions
I like to add 1 TBSP Chia Seeds to 1/2 cup Unsweetend Almond Milk while the oatmeal is cooking.  By the time the oats are done, the seeds have finished soaking and I add them to my oatmeal with whatever milk gets in while I am spooning out the seeds.  Then I like to add about 1/2 cup 1% milk to my cup that had my almond milk and chia seeds in it and I drink that with my oatmeal (prevents waste of chia seeds that I can't get out with a spoon!  It also cuts down on the calories that I drink since one cup of milk is about 110 calories and 1 cup of almond milk is 30 calories!)

 Another favorite is Unsweetened Cocoa Powder and PB2.  Also called chocolate oatmeal at my house.  You will have to play around with the amount of cocoa powder that you like to add to your oatmeal.  Too much and you can make your oatmeal rather bitter.  I use 2 tbsp for the whole family.  PB2 can be found in the peanut butter section of Walmart (I have not yet found it at King Soopers/Kroger).  It is basically powdered peanuts that have had the oil (and therefore fat and most of the calories) removed.  It is only 45 calories for 2 tbsp!  I usually add about 2 tbsp for the whole family

Berries are great either fresh or frozen.  Even if they are frozen I just put them right into my hot oatmeal, which helps to cool it down faster.  I don't put whole frozen strawberries in though, those I would heat up first.

Cinnamon.  Add your favorite spice to add additional flavor without the calories.  I love adding cinnamon to my oatmeal.  Some other spices that I think would taste good are: allspice, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice

1 cup hot oatmeal with chia seeds, brown sugar, almond milk and fresh strawberries.  Total Calories: 300

1 cup hot oatmeal with brown sugar and mixed berries, and cinnamon 240 calories

1 cup hot oatmeal with chia seeds soaked in almond milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cocoa powder, with 1/2 cup 1% milk and fresh strawberries: 329 calories

Mending

Still on the mend today.  I thought that you might enjoy a picture of my poor maimed foot since it seems like all I've done lately is complain about how much my foot hurts and how I can't exercise.  So here it is.

Nice and black and blue and green.  This was taken a few days ago so it does look a little better now, but still bruised, especially up by my toes and next to my ankle.  I have noticed that the inside of my foot is hurting a lot now because I have been using that side of my foot much more to compensate for the outside being injured.  So I have been resting the past two days.  An unfortunate side effect of all this rest is that I have noticed myself getting more and more physically tired.  I wanted to take the kids to the park today since it was a nice day and we haven't been out in several weeks and if Lily hadn't been so persistent I wouldn't have gone because I was so physically tired I just wanted to go take a nap.  However, we had just gotten back from a two hour shopping trip so maybe that had something to do with it.  I haven't been to the store since I was injured so we didn't have very much food in the house hence the longer shopping trip.  Still, shopping never used to drain me like that before.

It was a short trip, Lily my 3 year old pooped in her underwear shortly after we arrived at the park and we had to go back home.  The underwear was not salvageable, I will spare you the rest of the details, but we have been trying really hard to get Lily potty trained.  She does very well going pee in the potty but she absolutely refuses to poop in the potty.  She has a long history of stool holding which you probably don't want to read about right now.

Anyway, after the children were cleaned up and put into bed for a nap I had some time to fiddle with spark people some more and found that there are definitely parts about sparkpeople that drive me absolutely crazy.  For one, the amount of ads on their site.  Their site is plastered with ads and they keep popping up and I have to keep closing out of them.  I am not sure why my popup blocker isn't blocking them.  So that takes spark people down a few notches on my favorites list, but their recipe page is still amazing.  I would still say that you definitely need to check out spark recipes.

So, getting back on track with my eating and here was my breakfast:

1 egg with 2 egg whites, some tomatoes, onions and the deli mean (chicken) that we had in the fridge.  Sprinkled with some Parmesan cheese on top, mandarin oranges on the side and a glass of milk (plus you can see my multivitamin and calcium pills too!)  Lots of protein in the eggs, lots of complex carbs in the fruit and veggies.  There is also zucchini cut up and put in the omelet as well.  This is one of my favorite breakfasts, it is fast and easy and keeps you feeling full longer than a lot of other foods.

Speaking of breakfast, I have encountered Cottage Cheese several times and heard that it is amazing for you.  Tons of protein, and other nutrients.  So while I was at the store today I came across cottage cheese while getting the milk and I actually had to stop and think if I was brave enough to actually try cottage cheese for breakfast.  What I have come across is mixing fruit into it and eating it for breakfast.  In the past cottage cheese has been on my bad list for as long as I can remember (along with Zucchini which I now like) so I decided in the end to go ahead and give it a try.  I am going to look up some specific suggestions before I experiment by myself but I hope I like it because if not I will have a whole container of cottage cheese that probably won't get eaten.  Maybe Chloe will eat it, she eats everything.

Success!

This morning I woke up to a friendly sight on the scale: 154.3!  Yahoo!  Now only 4.3 pounds to go to hit my goal of 150 before the New Year!  I figure I dropped about 2 pounds last week since my weight was artificially high from Thanksgiving.  I feel like I have really gotten into the groove of this challenge.  At the beginning I needed to go through post-thanksgiving rehab and I was floundering with drinking just the shakes and not having some more substantial food, but now the shakes actually do a pretty good job of keeping me full and I have a better idea of what to eat and when I need to eat.  I love to put PB2 into my shakes, this afternoon I put PB2 into my cookies and cream shake and it tasted just like a peanut butter cookie!  Yum Yum, I loved it.  I usually only put PB2 in my afternoon shake since the morning shake is made with the protein drink mix and is more flavorful than the afternoon shake, and the morning shake has more calories in it already.

This morning, I ate 1/2 cup old fashioned oats with my morning shake since we had church from 10-12(noon) and I wasn't going to be getting a snack once we left, so I made sure I had more of a filling lunch.  This week was Stake Conference, so church was only 2 hours long instead of the usual three.  I am not sure how I am going to work in my lunch shake next week when we go back to regular hours (11am-2pm) Possibly the worst hours ever to have church, right through all three lunch hours!  Thankfully the year is coming to a close and starting the first week of January, we will have church at 1pm.  Much better, we can go right after lunch (and fall asleep! haha j/k).  But 1pm is still difficult since that is my standard energy slump time.  My favorite time for church is 9am-12noon because I don't usually get tired in the mornings and you can go right after breakfast and eat lunch as soon as you get home.  But! There are just lots of Mormons who live in my area so we have three wards meeting in our one building.

For dinner I didn't have anything planned in particular so I threw together some breakfast burritos. My one fajita sized tortilla was 110 calories, and I ate about one medium sized potato worth of hash browns, two eggs and about 2 oz of steak and 1/2 oz cheddar cheese.  I thought I did pretty good, but I didn't realize how many carbohydrates were in potatoes!  Not to mention the carbs that were in my tortilla..... oops.  Oh well, live and learn I guess, not an unhealthy meal but not one that I am supposed to be having on my challenge since I am supposed to be minimizing my carbohydrate intake at dinner-time.

Tomorrow is grocery day!  That means fresh fruit and new food!  I love grocery day :-)