On the Menu! Brunch! Lemon Ricotta Pancakes & Whole Wheat Waffles

I think everyone would agree that brunch is the best meal you can get.  It takes place in the middle of the day so there's no rushing. Fits in nicely after a morning workout.  It's an excellent way to kill a few hours with out of town family.  Alcohol consumption is encouraged during the day time and in many cases in our brunch bar town, there's no reason to dress up so you can wear your yoga pants or leggings (aka eating pants) to the table. Plus the food is delish. Who doesn't love pancakes, eggs and waffles?  However, local brunches with the bacon, alcohol and stuffed french toast don't fit in our new healthy 2013 diet so I made us brunch this weekend after a swim/spin class on Saturday and a 5.5 mile on Sunday that my boyfriend and I did together.  He did some time on the trainer Saturday so he earned his brunch reward.

Saturday Pancakes - Lemon Ricotta.  This recipe was inspired by pancakes we had in Sonoma, CA at the Mission Inn's restaurant - they were lemon ricotta and amazing.  They were totally not low-fat but I made an effort to cut the hfa

Dry Ingredients
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp baking soda
.25 tsp salt
whisk together

Wet ingredients
1 cup nonfat milk
3 tblsp part skim ricotta cheese
3 tblsp vanilla Greek yogurt
3 tblsp Coconut Milk or almond milk
1 tablespoon honey
1tsp vanilla
1tsp lemon extract
2 tsp lemon zest
2 eggs
2 tblsp canola oil
whisk together

Stir wet ingredients into dry.

Put some Pam on the griddle and cook like you would regular pancakes. I had some leftover bananas so I put some mushed bananas into half my pancakes.  They were delicious.  We ate with syrup and fresh cut strawberries.


Sunday Waffles - Whole Wheat Waffles with Blueberry Syrup
On Sunday we had a 5.5 mile run and wanted to reward ourselves with waffles. I had gotten a really nice waffle iron some time ago when I first moved in by myself from Williams and Sonoma. I never used it by since Billy and I moved into our house 3 years ago we've used it all the time. Today we tag teamed the waffles, I made the batter and he cooked it up.

Dry ingredients
2 cups whole wheat flour
.25 cup almond flour
.25 Corn meal
1.5 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp baking soda
.25 tsp salt
whisk together

Wet ingredients
2 eggs
1 tbls vanilla
1 tblsp almond extract
2 tbsp canola oil
2 cups almond milk
whisk together

Mix the ingredients together and we served with blueberry syrup and a lil bit of powdered sugar and margarine.

Enjoy!!