Heart Healthy Pancakes
“I don’t have to tell you I love you. I fed you pancakes.”
~Kathleen Flinn in “Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good”
Our Thanksgiving holiday travel plans got cancelled at the last minute, so we spent a quiet Thanksgiving Day together at home. As most of you know, we stopped eating meat and 
poultry after Bill’s event (and we avoid common wheat as well) so our holiday meal is a bit nontraditional anyway. Yet the feast with the family is always wonderfully bountiful with an abundance of vegetables and Uncle Ernest’s famous homegrown butter beans!
Suddenly unprepared to put together the usual Thanksgiving fare (sans the turkey and stuffing), I used this unexpected change of plans to test this recipe and we were not disappointed! Our nontraditional Thanksgiving meal magically became a heaping plate of blueberry pancakes with an egg fried in a little coconut oil and a big bowl of bananas and juicy red grapefruit slices. Pancakes to me are like a holiday food anyway–they make you smile and leave you with a warm, comforted feeling. And so it was. A happy day spent talking and texting and Facebooking with friends and family. And Spelt-Blueberry Pancakes.
These pancakes are fluffy yet hearty. The leftovers are just as good warmed the next day and they also freeze well.
Ingredients
- 1 cup spelt flour
- 1 cup oat flour
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 2 Tbsps ground flaxseed meal
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 cups unsweetened almond milk
- 2 Tbsps organic applesauce
- 1 Tbsp raw honey (or regular honey or agave nectar)
- 1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup organic fresh or frozen blueberries
Instructions
- Whisk the flours, baking powder, flax meal and salt together in a large bowl.
- Combine the wet ingredients in another bowl.
- Form a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir the batter just until the dry ingredients are thoroughly moistened. It might seem very thin, but it will thicken.
- Let the batter rest for 15 minutes (spelt flour takes a little longer to absorb liquids). If you can't wait, your pancakes won't be as crisp.
- After the batter has rested, fold in the blueberries.
- Ladle scoops of batter onto a prepared pan or griddle (I like to use a little coconut oil.)
- Cook until the batter begins to bubble and the bottom of the pancakes are golden. Flip and cook on the other side until both sides are golden.
Notes
I simmered more blueberries in pure maple syrup for a few minutes before pouring over the pancakes. It gave the syrup a delicious blueberry flavor!
Lightly adapted from Engine 2 Diet
As the day wound down and grew quiet, we threw on our walking shoes, headed down to the beach and were delighted to see the city’s new addition to commemorate the season–a giant snowman of all things for south Florida. I loved it.
Fix it! Plan Photos by: Bill Peterson Galleries 
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Awesome Julie! Can’t wait to try them!!