Secret Pancake Ingredient

Lots of talk around here lately about designing kitchens, but let’s take a moment to talk about living in kitchens.

Life gets busy.  Especially during the school year, weekday mornings are one big rush to get out the door, hopefully wearing clothes but sometimes it’s a close one.  Noodle’s bedhead alone takes 5 minutes to wrangle.  So how do we organize our mornings so we are ready to go, happy, and totally wearing clothes?

Simplify.  We simplify.

Here’s a quick breakfast idea that keeps our mornings running smoothly.  My kids love pancakes; in fact, it’s about the only breakfast food my daughter will eat.  To make them healthier, I grate some carrot shreds and add them right into the batter.  You can use your favorite pancake recipe or mix, the carrots don’t change the flavor or texture much at all– it’s just an added boost of veggies in an often nutrient-deprived meal.

I then butter up the griddle and drop on the batter, cooking as usual.  The kids think this is great– carrots + pancakes = happiness, apparently.  The LOVE them!

Natural foods and products are very important to me.  We like to use butter since it’s natural, but it’s also often difficult to spread right out of the fridge.  Land O Lakes® Butter with Canola Oil has only three ingredients– sweet cream, canola oil, and salt, NO artificial ingredients.  Other spreadable products can contain as many as 15 ingredients.  I mean really, what is IN there?!  Plus, the Land O’Lakes is really easy to spread.  That means the kids can do it themselves while I wrangle Noodle’s hair, get backpacks ready, and brew a cup of coffee so I’m halfway coherent.

In other words, it tastes delicious just like butter but it’s spread-ibility makes it a true standout.  The kids agree.  They love being able to do it themselves, it saves time for me, increases their independence, and using the spreaders helps with fine motor skills.  I certainly appreciate it when I’m making dinner and side dishes, too.

Let’s ignore the non-fine-motor-skills happening here.  This is Bee’s patented pancake eating method.  Hey, we’re simplifying, remember?  😉

And then sometimes this sweetness happens.

It’s the carrot pancakes, I swear.

Simple, healthy, happy.  In the middle of crazy mornings, that’s how we {try} to roll!

The author was compensated by Land O’Lakes for this post. All opinions are my own.