Sweet Potato Protein Pancakes Recipe** Update

Today I'm giving you my recipe for the pancakes I make for my kiddos every morning. It's a bit of a combination of the Pancakes recipe in Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld, and the Better Pancakes recipe in Rachael Ray's Yum-O!, the Family Cookbook (my awesome mil gave me this one for X-Mas ... thanks Betty!).

I thought Deceptively Delicious missed an opportunity with the Pancakes recipe to slip more protein in the pancakes by using a pancake mix that requires eggs. Yum-O's recipe beefed up the protein, but didn't add the sweet potato. I'm doing both.

By the way, sweet potatoes are just one of the best foods you can have in your diet. They ROCK. I eat them with dinner instead of white potatoes. You can read a good little article on them here. One of the reasons I like them in the kids' breakfast is because they don't spike up your blood sugar and are a good steady source of energy.

I'm always running late, so I like to whip up the batter at night and throw it in the fridge (this recipe makes enough for 2 days for my kids, so I just cook what I need and throw the bowl back in the fridge for the next morning). You can also cook the pancakes ahead of time and put them in the fridge or freezer.

Here's what you need:

2 cups Aunt Jemima pancake mix (make sure you get the kind that requires eggs)**Update: I've slowly been mixing in the Aunt Jemima Whole Wheat Blend pancake mix. No one has noticed. Right now I'm using 1/2 cup Whole Wheat mix and 1 1/2 cup regular. Each week I'm adding another 1/4 cup. The cinnamon in the recipe hides the whole wheat and the sweet potato**

1 cup Milk

3 Eggs

1 or 2 4oz. jars of Sweet Potato baby food (I use two jars or one big jar, and Yes, I'm cheating and it's just as good!)

1 tsp Cinnamon

Smart Balance Light Spread (This brand is one of the healthier spreads)

Here's what you do:

In a large mixing bowl, mix together pancake mix, milk, eggs, 1 or 2 jars of baby food (you might want to start with 1 jar if your kids are picky like mine, and then try more next time) and cinnamon. Mix until combined, and add more milk to get to consistency you like. Put a little bit of spread on hot pan, pour 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Cook until little bubbles start to form on tops and then flip. Cook until light golden brown.

I like to give my kids a little bowl with the amount of syrup I want them to use, instead of letting them drench the pancakes in syrup. Dipping and not drenching. It's easier to keep it under control that way. I'm not a big fan of syrup. I just saw a recipe in Southern Living for honey-butter syrup ... You mix 1/3 cup butter with 1/2 cup honey (I used Healthy Balance Regular Spread and honey). It's not that low fat or low sugar, but it's real food and so much better than fake health food (ex. Hungry Jack Lite syrup which has High Fructose Corn Syrup as the first ingredient!! That stuff is SOOOO bad for you).
I've been Healthy Girl lately, so this is what I fixed up for me.
Good food isn't so bad. I like to have 2 egg yolks and 3 egg whites, scrambled. Just to the right of these beautiful eggs is a cute teenager looking at me like I'm a freak because I'm photographing breakfast.
I throw some spinach in my eggs while they are cooking. Chopped mushrooms are good too. Easy on the salt. If you need more flavor add a little bit of salsa when you're done cooking them. In addition to the eggs, I like to have either a bowl of oatmeal (banana is an AWESOME sweetener) or 2 pieces of whole grain toast with Smart Balance Light and sugar free jam.
Oops, this probably isn't on the healthy list. It's low sugar though. ;-)