Secret Recipe Club: Carrot Cake Pancakes & more...

Woohoo! Yay! Yippeeee! This is my first time with Secret Recipe Club and I am so excited. Can you tell? From the first moment I heard I was accepted, I couldn't wait to see whose lovely blog would be assigned to me. And I wasn't disappointed one bit! 

For my first SRC post with Group B, I was assigned to a fabulous blog - Amy's Cooking Adventures. Hey - my little girl is an Aimee! :) 

Wow! The first time I visited her site, I was amazed! So many awesome recipes to choose from! How on earth was I going to choose? And from what I've read, she's an amazing mom, a strong woman and she's as cute as a button, I tell you! There's this picture of her with her new braces, and I swear I haven't seen anyone look so adorable after just getting braces! 

And just when I finished making the yummy food, and writing this post, I saw a message that another Group B member wasn't able to make her post happen, and I jumped at the chance of cooking from two blogs! Loved every minute of both. I've linked to my other post at the end of this one!

Now, back to my dilemma. I started off by bookmarking recipes on Amy's blog. I bookmarked 20 to start with. Ended up making three. And all of them were yummy! I will share the recipe for one of them here in the post. For the other two, you'll have to head on over to her site and get the recipe. 

These pancakes really were a treat. They were so reminiscent of a carrot cake - that same spice hit and moist goodness. And to make the experience complete, we had it with a cream cheese-maple glaze. It really was awesome. And it is such a healthy recipe! Can't believe something that tastes this good can be healthy too! Thank you, Amy, for an awesome recipe! 

Carrot Cake Pancakes
Adapted from this recipe Amy's Cooking Adventures
Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all purpose flour

¼ cup ground flax seed

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

A pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs, lightly whisked

1 1/3 cup skim milk

½ cup pureed carrots

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. In a large bowl, combine the flours, ground flax seed, baking powder, spices and salt. Stir together and set aside.

2. In a smaller bowl or measuring cup, combine the eggs, milk, carrots, honey, sugar and vanilla. 

3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, pour in the wet ingredients and stir just to combine.

4. On a hot skillet over medium heat, add some 2-3tbsp butter or oil. Tilt the pan to spread evenly.

5. Drop small ladlefulls of the batter on the skillet. You should be able to make 2-4 per batch depending on the size of your skillet.

6. Wait till small bubbles appear on the surface of your pancakes and flip them using a spatula. Cook for a further 2-3 minutes until the pancake is cooked through. 

7. Serve topped with pancake syrup, maple syrup, cream cheese glaze, sweetened Greek yogurt or a topping of your choice. 

Amy suggests serving this topped with toasted walnuts and that would have been just perfect! But I just plain forgot. All of us loved this recipe - especially my Aimee. She ate two for breakfast and then came back for another at snack time! Thank you, Amy!

Another recipe I tried from her site was the 'Melt in your mouth' chicken. This one was surprising. It is ridiculously easy to make and surprisingly tasty! I served it over elbow macaroni because it had quite a lot of sauce, and the kids gobbled it up! Surprisingly, the biggest fan was my husband. The only changes I made to the recipe was adding a glug of Tabasco sauce, and sprinkling the top with some smoked paprika. It was really good! 

This was a simple, quick and yummy dinner that all of us loved! Our only complaint was that there wasn't more of it!

I also made Amy's recipe for Peanut Butter Dog Treats! And my Jerry loved them and gobbled them up without hesitation! Here you can see him staring at a doggie treat with great longing in his eyes! :) I wish I had taken more pictures! 

It was a pleasure visiting your site and getting to know you a little, Amy. You are a beautiful person, a wonderful mom, and after I spent time reading your "Angel Wings" posts, I think you're a such strong person too! God bless you and your lovely family... XOX to you! 

I loved my first month of Secret Recipe Club! Don't forget to visit my OTHER SRC  post!

Click on the cute froggy face below to see the other awesome recipes from SRC's Group B!