Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Breakfast for Dinner (Shrove Tuesday)

I love Shrove Tuesday. Or pancake Tuesday. Or fat Tuesday. Whatever you want to call it.

The purpose of Shrove Tuesday is to indulge in fats and sweet things (like nutella, butter, maple syrup and/or whipping cream) before Lent starts, which is a time of fasting, contemplative prayer and an opportunity to put things into practice that make you a better person. You don't have to give things up, you can take things up. Its not all about deprivation :) But it is all with the intention of bringing one closer to God.

Lent is a very important time to me so I like to get going with a bang: some awesome pancakes. Every year the same thing happens. I make pancakes for dinner and so enjoy them I wonder why I don't do breakfast for dinner more often. I normally make plain pancakes and top them with anything from peanut butter, nutella, syrup, bananas, cream, nuts, strawberries - which is a lot of fun (I do like playing with my food) but all the toppings can be pretty expensive and full of sugar. So I intentionally looked for a recipe that would incorporate the flavours into the pancake.

I saw the recipe for Lemon Cottage Cheese pancakes by twopeasandtheirpod on Tasty Kitchen. The recipe used skim milk, egg whites instead of the whole egg and light cottage cheese. The result was a really, really good pancake that didn't need any additional sweet stuff. I had it with fresh strawberries and a banana and it was fantastic. So I got my treats but didn't lose my head doing it. I will definintely be making breakfast for dinner more often :)


Lemon Cottage Cheese Pancakes (by twopeasandtheirpod)

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 Tablespoon sugar
Zest of 1 large lemon
2/3 cup skim milk
3/4 cup low fat cottage cheese
2 large egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Fresh strawberries

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and lemon zest with your fingers. This will bring out the lemon flavor. Add the sugar and lemon to the dry ingredients. Whisk again.

In a small bowl, add the milk, cottage cheese, egg whites, vanilla extract, and fresh lemon juice. Whisk until smooth. The cottage cheese will still be somewhat lumpy and that is ok. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients. Stir until combined. The batter will be a lumpy.

Heat a large nonstick skillet or griddle. When the pan is heated to medium spray well with cooking spray. Add about a 1/4 cup of batter to the pan. Cook for a couple of minutes. You want to see bubbles all over the pancake. Flip and cook the other side for a couple of minutes. Repeat until batter is gone. Make sure you spray the pan in between each pancake.

Serve pancakes hot with fresh strawberries. You can also use syrup and a little powdered sugar (I didn't think they needed it).

So do you like breakfast for dinner? And do you celebrate pancake Tuesday?


Peace,

Jenn x

6 comments:

  1. These sound fantastic and healthy. I'll have to try them, although maybe Sunday breakfast :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. What lovely looking pancakes! I noticed you didn't use any milk -was the batter very thick?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yum! Those look great. When I was living in England we had a Canadian pancake night because the English pancakes were so different. He hunted down my maple syrup and served it with streaky bacon. yum

    ReplyDelete
  4. oh yum! I can imagine the cottage cheese is like the ricotta cheese in Bill's hot cakes except even lower in calories which is always a bonus :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks ladies! They were seriously tasty.
    Lucy-it wasn't too thick. There was some milk in there (I used skim). There were lumps of cottage cheese tho but that's ok

    ReplyDelete
  6. jeezz...what's the point in it being fat Tuesday?! ;)

    ReplyDelete