Paleo Pancakes, From Einstein's POV

We have a favorite grain-free banana pancake recipe that we've been making for the last year or so.  It is from Kate Tietje's Against the Grain e-book (I loved it so much I am promoting it...)

The recipe makes about enough to feed my 4-year-old, 2-year-old, and myself for lunch.  Today, we made a double batch and shared with my delighted, recently-turned-Paleo husband ("I can have these?!?") and one of our staffers ("Whoa, these are actually pretty good.")

I generally hate grain-free "substitute" foods, since they are generally kind of nasty, sweet enough to make your kids crave more sweets (and it's hard to explain to a 2-year-old that Mommy's coconut flour pancakes are fine, but the white-flour ones at the restaurant are just a "sometimes food"), and too often a replacement for plain, savory, nutritious food.

But these banana pancakes are, so far, one of the best recipes I have found that omits flour and does not become disgusting.  I think it helps that they are cooked on the stove, so you can check and tweak as you cook, instead of popping it in the oven and helplessly praying for good results.

Since bananas are not exactly local (ha!), and we are trying to reduce our dependence on them (the kids have pretty severe emotional attachment to them), we've also adapted this recipe to use sweet potatoes and winter squashes when they are in season.  Yum!

Here's our sweet potato version:

Sweet Potato Paleo Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 sweet potato, cooked and mashed (I love using leftovers from the previous night's dinner!)
3 eggs
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 T honey (optional: just use if you prefer a sweeter pancake)
1 tsp. cinnamon (also optional, but it really makes the sweet potato flavor shine!)
Plenty of coconut oil, butter, ghee, or oil of choice,  for frying

Directions:

1. Mash sweet potato well.
2. Stir together sweet potato and all other ingredients.  Note: you cannot overmix this, since it doesn't contain any wheat/gluten, so mix it really well, until you get all the lumps out!
3. Melt oil or butter in skillet/griddle over medium heat.
4. Spoon pancake batter onto hot skillet, about 2-3 Tbsp. per pancake.  It helps to spread the batter out a little into a pancake shape if it doesn't spread itself out.  When batter around bottom edge of pancake just begins to brown, pancakes are ready to flip.  Experiment with this a little!
5. Continue to cook pancakes, adding more oil to pan as needed.
6. Enjoy with extra butter on top!

Adapted from Kate Tietje's Against the Grain e-book

Today, Einstein, who is now 4, elected to document our cooking session.  I'm sorry if you read the title and hoped the real Einstein had an opinion on my pancakes.  As far as I know, he did not.

I apologize in advance for the gratuitous display of toddler photography.  It's fascinating to see things from his point of view.

Chubby toddler arms prepare to mash bananas

Mashing proceeds

Einstein takes a turn while Miss Euler takes a photo

Sizzling away in coconut oil

Tim the staff member is pleasantly surprised

Posted at Fight Back Friday