Surprisingly Delicious

Today marks day 33 of the countdown to Easter.   Technically the Sundays in Lent are not counted as part of the fast. For me, I have been refraining from grains, beans, dairy, and sugars of every kind, including the paleo acceptable sweeteners like honey and coconut sugar.  While I have not exactly been enthusiastic about  the Whole 30 concept I have at stayed within the confines of the diet. (Yes, even on the horrid trip to New York and eating out each meal I remained Whole30 compliant.) Well in my way of thinking since Lent does not include Sundays and I have completed the 30 days of the Whole 30 plan, I am giving myself a little break today.  I am staying paleo, but not with the rigorous and demanding limitations of Whole30.

We woke (grudgingly) and went to church, but because of the time change I had no time to make anything for breakfast, and by the time we got home I was really hungry.  I had been pouring over breakfast ideas last night so I knew what I was going to eat this morning. (That is, if you call 12:15 morning)

Although this is a paleo dish, it is really delicious and I wish I had known about it years ago.  I can see eating this once a week, and I haven't eaten any paleo breakfast that I had thought was tasty enough/easy enough to have regularly. I will eat this even when I am no longer doing the paleo thing. (BTW I have knocked off a few pounds, I feel better, plus my skin is looking fantastic so I might stay with a regular paleo diet most of the time.)


                                                     Banana Pancakes

Serves 1

1 very ripe banana
2 teaspoons coconut flour (not on Whole 30 but still paleo)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder (ditto)
pinch cinnamon
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon pecan pieces






Mash the banana well. Because I loathe bananas (consistency not the flavor) I put mine in the Magic Bullet Blender and pureed it totally. (If chunky pieces of banana don't bother you, you might want to skip this step.)  Add the coconut flour, baking powder, and cinnamon and mix well. Stir the beaten egg and mix thoroughly until everything is nice and creamy. Stir in the pecan pieces and drop the batter onto a heated griddle or pan that has been brushed with coconut oil. Make sure you only make them about silver dollar sized.  Since they have no grain for the egg to bind with they are a little tricky to flip and the smaller sized ones turn relatively easy. (Use my trial and error here so you won't have a mess).  These have to cook a tad longer that traditional pancakes and you don't get the tell tale bubbles to let you know when to flip them.  After the first pancake I realized I needed to turn the heat down a little so they would not scorch during the cooking time.  When the pancake is set flip it to cook on the other side.

Have a plate waiting and sit down and enjoy something delicious and not bad for you at all.  Since the banana is so ripe you need no syrup.  It had a mouth feel much like a slightly undercooked regular pancake, but whatever it lacked in consistency it more than made up for in taste.  It tasted like I was eating banana nut bread pancakes.  Oh my goodness, what a welcome treat! I am not a huge fan of breakfast food anyway, but I could eat this for my meal any time of the day.

I was thinking about what I would do differently next time and the only thing I can think of that might possibly add to the flavor is to toast the nuts before adding them, just because it intensifies the nutty flavor.  They were nearly perfect as they were.

Tomorrow I get back on the Whole30 restrictive paleo plan, but I am already planning on having these next Sunday morning.  I might even be kind and make them for TheHub too!

So for the rest of the day I am going to enjoy the less demanding regular paleo life and tonight there is the promise of a glass of wine or some Armagnac. Woo Hoo!