“You’re such a good cooker”

This week Megan sent me a site to look at by Joy the Baker. I love her site! The primary reason being…she has a recipe for CARROT CAKE PANCAKES! (I can feel the insulin coma now) I love carrot cake. In fact, if it had legs I’d marry it…that’s how much I love it. So I took her recipe, and I cut a few corners to make it a little healthier….which translates: I can eat one and not feel horrible afterwards.

Check out her recipe, because if you don’t like my ingredients, her recipe looks amazing.

This is what I did:

• 1 1/4 cups Bisquick Pancake Mix (I would have preferred a whole wheat pancake mix, but next week is Passover, and I need to use up what I have before I have to throw it all out)
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped pecans (I used more…I love pecans)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin spice (I didn’t have ginger or nutmeg on hand – this was just as good)
• ¼ cup egg beaters (equivalent to one egg)
• 1/3 cup packed Splenda brown sugar
• 1 cup lactose free milk (equivalent to skim milk)
• 2 cups finely grated carrots (I soaked these in vanilla soy milk for about 30 minutes so that they weren’t crunchy in the pancakes)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (used vanilla from Mexico that Jen’s mom gave me)

Cream Cheese Spread

• 4 ounces fat free cream cheese
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons lactose free milk (equivalent to skim milk)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 dash ground cinnamon
• Sprinkle of pecans (can’t ever have too many)

I mixed up the pancake batter and cooked them on my griddle just like I normally would for pancakes. Then I put a large scoop of the cream cheese spread between each pancake. Then sprinkled the top with more pecans. They were wonderful! We loved them. Cindi’s comments: “Wow these are great. You’re such a good cooker.” Yes, that’s right “cooker.” That’s her way of saying she loves them and wants me to make them again. Another successful recipe.

Do you see what else is in the picture? That’s right. Crispy turkey bacon. I didn’t think you could ever get turkey bacon crispy. Then Jen and Nate told me to put it in my George Foreman (I thought it was funny that they just assumed I had one). I hadn’t used my Foreman grill in ages, but now I pull it out for turkey bacon all the time. Great tip guys.

(So Megan, I added pictures…but you can probably tell the quality isn’t that good…they were taken with Cindi’s phone. – You gotta start somewhere. Note to self: Find camera and then charge battery.)