Berry Banana Pancakes

My summer break is officially here!  Hopefully I will have more time now to blog!  I have been wanting to blog about this pancake recipe for awhile now.  Strawberries are about over for the season, but I definitely took advantage of all of the delicious local strawberries this year.

(Strawberries from the farmers market)

I have posted other pancake recipes in the past, and I have mentioned that I always top my pancakes with yogurt and berries instead of maple syrup because I can feel so much more satisfied with the yogurt and berries than the syrup.  Below is my recipe for berry banana pancakes:

Berry Banana Pancakes 

(Serves 1-2)

-1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

-1 1/2 tsp baking powder

-1/8 tsp salt (just a pinch)

-3 packets stevia sweetener 

-1/2 banana (mashed)

-1/2 tsp vanilla

-1/2 cup almond or other nondairy milk

-1/2 cup frozen or fresh blueberries

-vegan yogurt (optional)

-additional strawberries and blueberries (optional)

Mix all dry ingredients together.  In a separate bowl, mash the banana and then add all other wet ingredients to the mashed banana.  Then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  Once ingredients are mixed, fold in the blueberries.  Heat up a griddle or pan and make sure it's nonstick or spray it with some cooking spray or oil it.  With a ladle, make into pancakes on the griddle.  Cook on one side for 3-5 minutes or until golden brown on the bottom side.  Then flip over and cook for another 2-3 minutes or until golden brown.  Top pancakes with additional berries, a chopped up banana and vegan yogurt.  

Sometimes I like to make this recipe for dinner too!  I really feel like you can eat pancakes anytime of the day.  :)

Annie's LITE Goddess Dressing!

(Photo Source: Prevention.com)

When I first became vegan, I practically drank this stuff.  That was back when I was in the mindset that if it was vegan, it must be healthy.  Hahaha!  I think that if you use the original Annie's Goddess Dressing in moderation, it is fairly healthy.  However, that was not the case for me.  The original dressing is pretty high in oil and fat.  So once I started getting healthy about 3 years ago, Annie's Goddess Dressing became a distant memory to my food repertoire. 

When I was at Ingle's the other day (my local grocery store chain), I noticed that they had some of the Annie's dressings on sale so I decided to check it out and see if anything sounded interesting and healthy.  That's when I spotted the Annie's LITE Goddess Dressing.  I quickly checked the nutritional information and I also checked to make sure the lite version was still vegan.  And it is!  Yay!  When I checked the nutritional information, I decided that 60 calories for 2 TBSP wasn't that bad and I wanted to see if it compared to the original version.  Here's the nutritional information:

(Photo Source:  Soap.com)

It's been a few years since I have had the original Goddess Dressing but the lite version tastes just as good to me.  I honestly cannot taste a difference.  I love it!  I have been using it on my spinach, quinoa and edamame salads and I also had a baked falafel (from Appetite for Reduction) salad with spinach and quinoa the other night and used the lite Goddess dressing on that.  Delicious!  I definitely recommend giving it a try if you find it at your grocery store.  I haven't really been looking around for it at other places that sell Annie's products but hopefully it's not too hard to find.  If you cannot find it in stores, I noticed that the Annie's online store has it for sale for a pretty good deal.  It's less than $3 a bottle and if you spend over $40 you get free shipping.  It might be worth checking out.  Anyway, that's the scoop on the Annie's Lite Goddess Dressing.  Try it!  You won't be disappointed if you have always loved the original Goddess Dressing but you don't want to consume all of those calories!