Slow Saturday Breakfast: Quinoa Flour Pancakes with Cinnamon Sautéed Bananas

Yum. It’s Sunday and I just ate a delicious egg sandwich, but just typing that title already has my mouth watering from the mere thought of yesterday morning. My love affair with breakfast on the weekends is all encompassing, but it’s hard to dispute that Saturday was made for pancakes. Pancakes scream, “It’s the weekend! Eat me in your pajamas and then go do something FUN! I’m practically dessert…for breakfast!”.

 pancake batter Batter 2

I remember not caring much for pancakes as a child (I know, I was clearly disturbed). I’m not sure what my problem was, but I do know that one fine day in graduate school, I got a craving for whole wheat banana pancakes, which in turn led to me eating them for dinner every night for a month and never looking back. You can do things like that when you are in school. You can also do things like that when you don’t have a meat loving husband who also must be fed nightly. Robert used to play tennis on Tuesday evenings and then go out for wings with the guys afterwards. What did I do with the night off from cooking? If you guessed ate pancakes for dinner and watched trash television you would be 100% correct. Breakfast for dinner and reality television will always hold a special place in my heart.

 Flipped

Over the years my love for whole wheat pancakes has evolved into a mission to turn pancakes into a still delicious, much healthier version of themselves. This has led to me experimenting with all sorts of non-traditional pancake ingredients like cottage cheese, applesauce and even spinach. The great thing about pancakes is that they are pretty hard to screw up. You can mix a lot of weird (read: healthy) things into your batter and they will still taste pretty great…and in the event that they don’t there is this wonderful thing called maple syrup that can save almost any bad pancake.

 Finished pancakes

My most recent foray into griddled breakfast territory has been quinoa flour. I went on a savory quinoa dish bender a while back and then got suddenly very sick of it. I went from quinoa lover to quinoa hater and was left with an expensive bag of it sitting forlornly in my pantry. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, but the thought of eating it again in the near future made me gag. Then one day, while perusing food blogs I came across a recipe for quinoa energy bars. Not only were they sweet rather than savory, but they used uncooked quinoa. These were the opposite of everything that caused me to tire of quinoa the first go round, so I decided to give them a go. They were scrumptious, and filling and made me totally retract my hatred of quinoa. Thank you quinoa energy bars.

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Slow Saturday Breakfast: Eggs in Purgatory

Happy Monday! It’s nice to be back after a week long hiatus. Work is always especially busy for me the week before a holiday. On top of that we had plans almost every night this past week. A night with the girls, dinner with friends, putt putt for my nephew’s 8th birthday… slow down life! Luckily I get the luxury of the whole week off starting today! Renly and I are hopping in the car and heading to Tennessee in a few hours to spend Thanksgiving with my family. Robert has to work until Wednesday so he’ll be flying down then. I haven’t been home since my sister’s graduation in May so we are long overdue for a visit. I’m not sure what I’m more excited about…sleeping in all week, seeing my friends and family, or eating all my favorite foods I can only get at home (confession: probably the latter).

 Tomato Sauce and Spinach

So after a busy week and a chilly evening spent putt putting on Friday per my sweet nephew’s request, Saturday called for a hot breakfast. I also needed to have all of the ingredients on hand since I needed to clean out the fridge before we left town. Eggs in purgatory fit the bill, so much so that I cut my Saturday morning workout short so I could hurry home and scarf them down. I don’t usually go to the gym during the weekend so I only felt marginally guilty leaving. Although for the sake of complete disclosure I have been known to leave the gym early on a week day when hungry also. Who can work out on an empty stomach? Really. But back to the eggs…

 Eggs Poached

Eggs in purgatory is simple to make, slightly spicy and packed with veggies. Eggs are poached in a quick tomato sauce which transforms into the perfect “dip” for crusty bread. Mmm. It fits the bill for breakfast (hello, eggs) but can easily be made for lunch or dinner. Robert doesn’t love tomatoes so I usually reserve this recipe for times he isn’t home. He ran errands Saturday morning while I enjoyed this dish. And by enjoyed I mean I ate the entire thing….all of it….by myself. I did take a picture which I showed him when he returned and unfortunately for him he told me he thought it looked pretty good and that he’d like to try it. Sorry sweetie, next time.

Eggs Cheese Poaching Eggs and Toast

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Planning (& Protein Pancakes)

Hi! It’s been a busy week around here. I had last Tuesday off from work which I initially hated but ended up LOVING. A long weekend is great but a mid-week day off increases my productivity exponentially! Errands are a lot more fun when they aren’t taking up your weekend. On my day off I slept in (marginally), took Renly for a run (exercise!), made myself pancakes (healthy pancakes but that still counts), went to vote (America!), shopped for a few early Christmas gifts (HoHoHo), prepped dinner early (so nice) AND baked and individually bagged 168 cookies (you read that right, 168). Like I said, busy!

 A and A

Why would I bake and bag 168 cookies you may ask? Why for wedding welcome bags of course! Two of my sweet friends tied the knot yesterday! Having just been a bride this past June I KNOW how much it takes to pull off a wedding (unless you have an unlimited budget to hire someone to do it all for you…I DON’T know what that is like but I can imagine it’s pretty great and stress-free). I made the mistake of trying to do way too much myself before the big day. So my advice to future brides is the same as I gave my friends…delegate, delegate, delegate. When people ask if they can help, take them up on it! You shouldn’t be baking 168 cookies the week of your wedding, let your friends do it! I was more than happy to help with this task and I’m so glad they let me so that they could move on to more important things, like soaking in all those fun last moments of engagement before it get’s really real! Eeeek, just thinking about that excitement makes me nostalgic for my own wedding. And before you roll your eyes at me, I’m STILL a newlywed so I’m allowed to be sappy and romantic when I reminisce ( I hope I always am Smile). Their wedding was absolutely perfect, beautiful and FUN, congratulations Addison and Andy! And since it was in Hilton Head Robert and I got to host some of our college friends who were attending, always a blast!

Entrance
The Bride’s Grand Entrance…. so cool!

 

Another thing I did during this busy week falls under the category of Laurin’s Top 5 Favorite Things Ever To Do In Life: Plan. Confession: I am not one of the rare breed known as a “spontaneous person”. I like a schedule, I like to know what the day/week/month holds and I REALLY love lists.  For years I have tried to fight my Type A-ness and work on “flying by the seat of my pants” but I.just.can’t.do.it. I was born a planner and I will always be a planner. Time to admit it and embrace it, as my best friend Anna says, “Type A’s make the world go round!”. I may not be the friend you call at the last-minute for a trip to the beach, but I am that friend that if given notice will happily show up to the beach with a fully stocked beach bag, drinks and homemade snacks Smile

 

So what was I planning? Well my favorite thing to plan…a trip! I have been itching to go somewhere and Robert has some time off between Christmas and New Years so we are going to California! Neither of us have ever been and California has long been on our list of places we would like to travel to in the US. Other front-runners on that list are Chicago and Texas. Chicago seemed way too cold to do in December and my parents love San Antonio so Texas might be a trip we save to do with them, so California it is!

 Planning
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Slow Saturday Breakfast: Apple Cinnamon Pecan Baked Oatmeal

Happy Monday! I had hoped to get this up yesterday but I got busy trying a yummy new appetizer recipe to take over to a friend’s house (I’ll share soon!). Then I got busy eating said recipe, stuffing my face with my friends delicious turkey chili, and doing plenty of wine drinking and laughing with the girls while the boys watched football. Somewhere in the midst of all that Robert and I found the time to take Renly to the park where he lifted his leg to potty for the first time ever! Robert literally whooped with joy which in turn got Renly very excited which in turn convinced Robert that Renly knew what he had just done. I’m pretty sure he was just feeding off of Robert’s excitement but it was pretty cute to watch the two of them jumping up and down and having their own personal potty party right there on the path. Talk about a Sunday Funday.

Renly and Robert
Proud Papa!

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween! How cute is Renly in his Halloween tie? It had candy corn all over it…precious. We had a blast at my sister in law’s and my cornbread was a hit! Neither Robert or I ate any Halloween candy Friday night (I know, who are we?) but sure enough my sweet tooth kicked in about the time we got home so we treated ourselves to ice cream and a scary movie on our couch. Pretty wild Friday night, huh? Don’t threaten us with a good time!

                    Renly Halloween Tie  Renly Tie

We woke up Saturday morning to a temperature that had dropped about 40 degrees over night! What! I knew that it was coming, but I think I still shed a tear or two when pulling out my gloves and hat to walk Renly, especially when I remembered that just the day before I walked him in a workout tank! Goodbye Summer, I’ll miss you until we meet again!

Chilly temperatures and midnight ice cream binges definitely called for a recovery breakfast on Saturday. I wanted something warm and hearty while still healthy. Breakfast also needed to have some staying power because Robert’s sister had quite the terrifying fun adventure planned for Saturday afternoon: Ziplining!

ziplining 2 ziplining 3

It was VERY cold, and extremely windy…not the most ideal conditions for being on a swaying platform 75 feet in the air. gulp. Despite the cold and the wind, we all survived had a great time, and the views were pretty incredible. The tallest platform is actually the highest point on all of Hilton Head Island! If you are ever in the area and into extreme entertainment, I would highly recommend it. If you aren’t into extreme entertainment but are into delicious breakfast, I would highly recommend my Apple Cinnamon Pecan Baked Oatmeal. See what I did there?

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Renly is two! And a lazy girl laundry tip…

My sweet puppy is two! Ok technically he is two plus a week because his birthday was last Tuesday. Luckily for me, he doesn’t know that, so we were able to celebrate this weekend. Yes, I am a crazy dog lady who celebrates my dog’s birthday. No, I am not one of those crazy dog ladies who throws an all out birthday party for their dog….yet. Give me a few years and a not full time job and I just may turn the corner.

Birthday-Boy.jpg

     We celebrated Renly’s 2nd birthday the same way we celebrated his 1st, with a trip to the beach! The beach is one of Renly’s very favorite places. In order to qualify as one of Renly’s favorite’s a place needs only one thing….other dogs. People who will pet him are a close second. This means my dog loves the vet equally as much as he loves the dog park, and just about everywhere in between.

Kayaking-2.jpg  Kayaking-3.jpg                                   Kayaking 1         Kayaking-4.jpg

The rest of our weekend consisted of a birthday celebration for a friend and another for my father-in-law, a kayaking trip with Robert’s family (not Renly’s cup of tea) and the usual Sunday errands; stocking up at the grocery store, cleaning the house and doing the laundry. I don’t mind washing clothes (cleaning toilets is a different story) but boy do we seem to do a lot of it. For just two people, Robert and I average about three loads a week! I seem to recall doing laundry once every three weeks in college…I also rarely cleaned a toilet, oh the good old days. So how do two people make that many dirty linens? This may have something to do with it…..

 Dirty-Dog.jpg

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