Counting Calories, the Bitter Truth about Salty and Sweet

Sugar and butter, potato chips in chocolate, whipped cream and nuts....  Salty and sweet gets me into caloric trouble every single time!

The seasonal Eat-Fest is over.  It really is January - mid January!  It really is time - high time!  Sigh.  Cutting back is so unfashionable.  Don't ya just want it to be effortless?

The Last of the Double Trouble Cookies

(See "Christmas Presents" - TheChickenlessKitchen.blogspot.com)

Reality Bites.

 Soooo, when it came time for this morning's fuel up brunch, normally a blissful eat-til-you're-full mid morning hiatus, I decided to PAY ATTENTION. Not just to nutrition, but to portions and calories as well. Burning a thousand calories on a day off isn't so hard. But I suspect that staying under the normal 3000 calories will be. Let alone under 1800, which is my Plan Of the Day!

Out with the Old, In with the New.

A little bit of homework changed this Old Fashioned Pancake Recipe into a New Fashioned Pancake Recipe.

Old Fashioned Pancakes

1 1/2 c. flour

3 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 T. sugar

1 1/4 c. milk

1 egg

3 T. butter, melted

Yield 9 small (4 inch) pancakes.

You know the drill.  Combine dry ingredients, mix in the wet, fry the pancakes up in a nice buttery pan...  If you keep the milk at 2%, that comes out about 120 calories per pancake. 

Increasing nutrition was the original purpose of changing the recipe, not reducing the calories, although it does work out on the happy side of that equation as well.

New Fashioned Pancakes:  First question.  You do make a pot of steel cut oats for fast breakfast microwaving during the week, yes?  Got a little left?  Good!

(Uh oh.  Does the teapot reflection make me look fat?)

New Fashioned Pancakes

1/2 c. white flour

1/2 c. spelt flour

1/2 c. cooked steel cut oatmeal

3 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 T. sugar, honey, or pure maple syrup

2 egg whites

1 1/4 c. skim milk

Yields 9 small (4 inch) pancakes.

Stir dry ingredients together.  Mix in egg whites and milk.  Stir in oatmeal last.  Don't stir too much.  Small lumps are ok.

Pour 3-4 inch dollops in a non stick pan and cook in a minimal amount of extra light tasting olive oil.  Flip when surface bubbles and cook on other side til light brown.

Option:  Before flipping, sprinkle some walnuts onto the batter side.  Walnuts add aprox. 50 calories per tablespoon.  1 New Fashioned Pancake = 84 calories.

So, adding up the whole brunch plate:

168    2 pancakes

  25    olive oil for pan

100    2 T. walnuts

210    1/4 c. grade B natural maple syrup

  25    dollop of plain yogurt

  70    2 oz. ham

  30   strawberries

628    total calories

(That syrup was sure good!  Truth be told, I would normally have had more than a quarter cup.  Very, very, small victory.) 

Ummm,  I gotta go now. 

I've got ridin' to do, don't you?