Healthy Red Velvet Wholewheat Pancakes

The weekend is the perfect excuse to have pancakes for breakfast. They are a little celebratory and essy to make, so what's not to like? 
I wanted to add a little twist to this weekend's pancakes, so I thought of adding some red food colouring for a sexy effect. Heck, it did work!
This recipe is a staple in my house, and I like to play around with it every now and then. You can get really creative with its add-ons and decorations.

As usual, excuse the crappy photo.
I sprinkled some strawberry chocolate chips on top, just for the sake of the pic, and Lily ate them as soon as the flash went off!


This recipe yields 4 - 5 small pancakes. You can, of course, double the ingredients to get double the number of pancakes.

Here's what you'll need:

- 1 cup wholewheat flour

- 2 tsp sweetener/honey

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 1/4 tsp baking soda

- 1/2 tsp vanilla

- 1/2 tsp cinnamon  (or more)

- 1 egg

- 1 cup milk

- 1 tbs apple cider vinegar

- 2 tbs oil (coconut is lovely here)

- 1/4 red food colouring (or until you get a vibrant red-coloured batter)

- Optional: Raisins/fruit pieces/nuts

Procedures:

1-In a small bowl, combine milk and vinegar, set aside until milk curdles.

2- In another bowl, combine flour, sweetener, baking powder and soda and cinnamon.

3- In a small bowl, whisk the egg, vanilla, oil and curdled milk until well-incorporated.

4- Gradually pour the liquid mix onto the dry mix while whisking slowly.

5- Add your food colouring in small amounts and whisk after every addition until you reach that red velvet colour. Don't over-mix or the pancakes would be tough. The batter should be a little lumpy and bubbly.

6- You can now add whatever you'd like, i.e. raisins/fruit/nuts/dark chocolate chips

7- Lightly brush a nonstick pan/griddle with coconut oil. Heat it over medium heat.

8- Ladle the batter and pour into the pan. I like to keep my pancakes small and even by using a 1/3 measuring cup as a ladle. 

9- They are ready to be flipped oncy tiny bubbles form on the surface.

10- Makes about 4-5 pancakes.

Valentine's Day Breakfast

Hi again everyone,

I hope you had the most romantic Valentine's Day ever, even if it was just a nice moment with a loved one, family, or friends.

If you haven't seen my last post, I put up this menu that I so bravely said I'd do on Val's, but I ended up skipping a couple of items due to running out of time.

Here's what I actually did:

Breakfast:

- Eggs in heart baskets

A cliche, but such a cute one! Super easy and looks like you've  done a little magic to put it together.

First of all, you'll need to separate the egg yolks and whites. I did two at a time, so I used 4 bowls to separate 2 eggs to make sure no accidents happen.

I used whole-grain toast for this one, but you're free to use whichever bread you fancy.
(Very) lightly butter 2 slices, and put over medium heat in a non-stick skillet. Once golden brown, take both slices off the skillet, butter the uncooked side of each, then use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut a heart out of each. Put both back in skillet with the cut-out hearts, cooked side up. You're now ready to add the eggs.

The key to getting picture-perfect results is to add a little bit of whites first, wait for a few second for it to harden, then add the egg yolk. You can add your seasoning at this point. I used salt, pepper and oregano.
Cover the skillet to help eggs set faster.  Serve immediately.

- Mini heart-shaped sandwiches with pink cheese frosting.

I basically used a heart-shaped cookie cutter, one size smaller than the one used above, to cut hearts out of whole-grain toast, and made light cheddar and salami sandwiches.

To decorate them,I used a plastic icing pipe/syringe (more fool-proof than piping bags) to draw a heart on each sandwich using my pink cheese frosting (light feta cheese mixed with beetroot powder) and a star tip for the icing pipe.


- I-Love-you Breakfast Parfait

 This was the easiest and most beautiful little breakfast dessert.

All you need is:
- 6 strawberries
- 2 low-fat vanilla (or regular yogurt)
- 2 low-fat strawberry yogurt
- 4 light digestive biscuits

1. Chop 5 strawberries, and slice the 6th for garnish.
2. Crumble the biscuits into larger crumbs. Set 2 dashes aside for garnish.
3. Your'e now ready to assemble your parfaits. Start by adding a layer of chopped strawberries, followed by vanilla yogurt, then more strawberries, followed by biscuits, and the last layer would be the strawberry yogurt.
4. Garnish with strawberry slices and biscuit crumbs. Cinnamon would be a nice addition too.
5. To make heart-shaped strawberry slices, cut a tiny triangle off the top of the strawberry, then slice it as you would normally slice a strawberry. Voila!

You'll need To finish it off, I wrote "I Love You xoxoxo" using a permanent marker on the glass for a personalized touch.