German Pancakes

I tweaked a recipe to try out this morning, and my boys are still raving about it. One son says that when he opens his own restaurant someday he will offer this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, because people will love it so much. :)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Melt half a stick of butter. Pour into the bottom of a 9x13 pan.

Combine:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup milk or milk alternative (rice milk, almond milk, etc.)

6 eggs

half teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

Pour combined ingredients into the pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. Easy!

**You can add fruit to the batter to make this even yummier! I made it with pears this morning. (took about 10 extra minutes to bake) Certainly you could use apples, peaches, raisins, cranberries, etc.

I now make a simple fruit topping for many of our bready breakfast foods. Basically you just need 1-2 cups of fresh or frozen (but thawed) berries, plus a couple tablespoons of coconut sugar. Whiz it up in your food processor or blender. Voila! So easy, and so delicious!

Apple Crisp the Healthy Way!

We have several apple trees in our back yard, so we need plenty of ideas for using them up. Tonite I made a quick, easy, and healthy version that I wanted to share with you.

One of the things that has held me back from making apple crisp is facing the chore of peeling and coring a dozen apples. It is not often that I have time for that! Last time I made apple crisp I decided to try out *not* doing the peeling. Know what? It turned out just fine! So hooray for a short cut. We can all use some time-saving tricks up our sleeves, can't we? The only disclaimer I would add is that I am doing this with home-grown apples that have not been sprayed with any pesticides. You may not want to do this with conventionally-grown apples.

Get a 9x13 pan and spray it with the non-stick stuff of your choice.

Quarter and core a bunch of washed apples. Just chop them up roughly in your food processor and toss them into the pan until your pan is full.

Combine:

1 cup coconut sugar

1 tablespoon whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon (or more) cinnamon

Sprinkle that combination all over your apples, then pour a half cup of water all over the top.

Next, combine:

1 cup oats

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup coconut sugar

quarter teaspoon baking powder

quarter teaspoon baking soda

Sprinkle that combination all over your apples.

Then pour a half cup of melted butter all over the top of that.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes.

Yummy, whole-food goodness, and not much different from the sugared-up version people are used to! I have one in the oven right now.....

Healthified Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Just made these and they are so soft and perfectly delicious for a fall day! Yes, it's true, the chocolate chips are the kid-friendly part (ok, everybody-friendly!), but you could substitute dried cranberries, nuts, or raisins for the chocolate if you like.

Super Soft Healthified Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups whole wheat flour
1.5 teaspoons non-aluminum baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
half teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
half teaspoon ginger
quarter-teaspoon nutmeg
quarter-teaspoon ground cloves
2 eggs
1 cup coconut sugar (NOT a refined sugar at all. It's really dried coconut sap and it is great!)
half cup olive or coconut oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips, raisins, dried or fresh cranberries, or nuts

Combine all and drop by tablespoons on a baking sheet (non-stick it first) at 325 degrees for 15 minutes, cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack. Soft and wonderful!