Tasty Tuesday: Ritual Food

One of the first things I read on becoming a parent was a book that said it is important to establish your own family traditions. Growing up my family had huge Saturday morning breakfasts, eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, and gravy. I wanted to do a similar tradition with a different menu. Make Saturday's breakfast special, different from the rest of the week, and make the same thing every week to establish a tradition. Not too long after I made this decision, I ran across the perfect recipe to use for my Saturday breakfasts.

Here is what you need to make Chocolate Chip Pancakes:

2 cups flour (I use 1 cup all-purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour.)
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 spoon of cocoa powder (optional)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips

First, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder in a medium sized bowl.

Add the eggs, milk, and oil to the flour mixture.

Stir until well blended.

Add the chocolate chips.

Mix.

Cook pancakes on a greased griddle or skillet until bubbles begin to form.

Flip and cook the other side.

Dish up some chocolate chip goodness with your favorite syrup.

I've been dieting for quite a few months so I'm going to let you in on a little tip to make these a tad less fattening and sugary. Follow all of the steps including the cocoa powder, but don't add the chocolate chips. Then cook the pancakes like normal. Cocoa powder has half as many calories as chocolate chips do per tablespoon and no sugar and only a half gram of fat. You can add the chocolate chips to the rest of the batter for your family after you have cooked the low-cal chocolate pancakes. This lets you have some of the chocolate flavor that make chocolate chip pancakes so delicious, but with practically none of the bad stuff.

Stop by any Saturday morning and come enjoy some of our family traditions in the treehouse,

Chelli