Townhome Tuesday: Picture Shelves

Today I want to share our charming floating picture shelves. Besides being a pain to install (since it's hard to get them to hang flush against the wall without scratching the wall while installing them), they went up pretty quickly and provide a unique way to display pictures.

Food Friday: Sugar-Free Banana Pancakes

Zach and I are creatures of habit, especially when it comes to food. We have a few food traditions that we've stuck with for years: 1) we eat out at Thai once a week for lunch every Thursday (and we always order the same thing), 2) every Wednesday morning we break away from our traditional green smoothie (for me) and oatmeal (for Zach) breakfasts to eat bagels, and 3) every weekend I cook banana pancakes. On this food Friday I want to share my delicious, near-perfect pancake recipe that Zach and I have enjoyed every weekend for over three years. It's easy to put together, has no added sugar or fat, and tastes great.

Banana Pancakes

makes 8 pancakes, vegan, sugar-free, fat-free option

Ingredients

1 cup oats

1 ½ cup almond milk

2 small bananas*

½ cup whole wheat flour

1 T flax meal

4 t baking powder

½ t salt

¼ t lemon extract (optional)

Coconut oil for cooking (you can use another oil, but coconut definitely tastes the best; leave this out if you want fat-free pancakes and have a really good non-stick pan)

Blueberries (fresh or frozen)

*The size of the bananas has a huge affect on how thin or thick the pancakes are. If you only have large or medium bananas, add an extra 1 T of flour for every large banana used.

I consider these bananas "large," so I added an extra 2 T flour to my batter when I used these.

Instructions

      1.       In a blender blend oats and milk together.

      2.       Add in bananas, flour, flax meal, baking powder, salt, and lemon extract and blend until smooth.

      3.       Let batter sit for 5 minutes.

      4.       Cook in non-stick pan with coconut oil for extra yummy-ness. Drop blueberries on top of pancakes while they are cooking.

Here's the batter in the blender. It's good to let the batter sit for 5-10 before cooking.

This is my awesome pancake cooking station. Complete with easy to access batter and coffee for energy on the right, non-stick pans on the stove, and coconut oil and berries on the left.

I add frozen blueberries to the top but chocolate chips would work if you don't mind adding a bit of sugar to your breakfast.

Here's the finished product. I eat them without any topping, but you can also top with peanut butter and honey - which is what Zach does - or maple syrup.