Category Archives: Breakfast

by Rebecca McGeary

Banana Pancakes

Most mornings, my six year old will just finish two pancakes, and, if I’m lucky, my three year old might eat a few bites of one. Today, however, my eldest devored four banana pancakes, and his younger brother ate two without any encouragement from me. Blog worthy!

Banana Pancakes

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups Pamela’s Pancake and Baking Mix
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups 1% milk (skim milk will make them a bit runny)
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 large banana, well mashed

Directions:

  1. Heat griddle to medium-high heat.
  2. Mix Pamela’s Baking Mix, eggs, milk, oil, and cinnamon with whisk. Stir in mashed banana.
  3. Grease hot griddle with butter.
  4. Drop batter by the 1/4 cup onto hot griddle.
  5. Turn pancakes when they begin to bubble across the middle.
  6. Pancakes are done when both sides are golden brown.

We topped ours with butter and confectioner’s sugar. Sooo good! Enjoy!

by Rebecca McGeary

Delish!! Carrot Cake Muffins

Carrot Cake Muffin

Okay, so lately I stink at blogging. I make stuff I think tastes good, I take pictures of the stuff (not very good ones, but pictures nonetheless), and then…I do nothing. I can’t seem to find the time to sit down and just *do it*. So, I’m going to make this short and sweet. I will tell you I think these are moist and delicious and totally worth baking. I’ve eaten three in the last five hours, and I’m sure I will devour several more before I go to sleep tonight. Yum. Yum. Yum.

I combined three different recipes to come up with this one, so…that makes it my own, right?? ;o) Let’s just say it does.

Carrot Cake Muffins

4 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup apple sauce
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 box Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Yellow Cake
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups finely grated carrots
1 cup raisins
1 can crushed pineapple, drained (I actually didn’t have this, so I took about four slices of sliced canned pineapple and ran them through the food processor for a few seconds.)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease or line 2 muffin tins.
2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, apple sauce, vanilla extract, and brown sugar.
3. In a separate bowl, sift yellow cake mix, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
4. Pour dry ingredients into bowl with wet ingredients and mix.
5. Stir in carrots, raisins, and pineapple.
6. Pour in muffin cups until almost full.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

I haven’t tried it yet, but I am sure that these muffins would be incredible if topped with some cream cheese icing. I’ll do that for my next muffin. Ooh, and since they have carrots in them, that makes them healthy. Honest.

 

by Rebecca McGeary

“Bestest Muffins Ever!”

I adapted this banana bran muffin recipe from allrecipes.com today, and my son promptly declared them “the bestest muffins” I’ve ever made. They are, indeed, quite scrumptious! They are sweet, flavorful, and moist, and the oatmeal gives them a bit of a chewy texture. I wish the aroma that permeated the house while they were baking was edible…it alone was fantastic!

Banana Muffins

2 cups Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix
1 cup oat bran (I just ground one cup of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Oats to a consistency somewhere between oats and oat flour.)
1 TBSP cinnamon
1/2 TSP ground nutmeg
1/4 TSP allspice
2 eggs
1 cup orange juice (I didn’t have any, so I used the juice from one large can of pineapple plus enough water to equal one cup.)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup mashed ripe bananas

In a large bowl, combine the first five ingredients. In another bowl, beat the eggs, juice, sugar, and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in bananas. Fill greased or paper lined muffin cups almost to the top. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15-17 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for five minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Serve warm.

by Rebecca McGeary

Delish and Easy Sweet Potato Muffins

When a calendar alarm went off thirty minutes before I usually wake up in the morning, I almost ignored it.  Thank goodness I didn’t!  Today is Marvelous Muffins with Dad at my son’s school, and, seeing as neither my son nor his dad can eat the gluten-ful muffins provided by the school, I needed to get baking!

My first thought was to make pumpkin muffins, but I had a cooked sweet potato in the refrigerator that begged to be used.  I’d had to substitute sweet potato for pumpkin in a recipe once before, and it was a victory in trial by error.  So, despite the fact that it added precious minutes to my dwindling preparation time, sweet potato it was.  I sliced off the skin and threw that sucker in the food processor.  (If you don’t happen to have a cooked sweet potato in the refrigerator, as I did, and time is of the essence, use one can of pumpkin instead.)

This recipe, thank goodness, is quick and easy (assuming the sweet potato is already cooked); I was able to whip up a tasty batch of muffins in a total of 45 minutes.  The muffins are moist, incredibly sweet, and, indeed, marvelous.

So.  Yum.

Sweet Potato Muffins (Adapted from Pamela’s Pumpkin Loaf Cake with Nut Topping)

Muffins:
4 TBSP butter, melted
2 eggs, large
1/2 cup sugar
1 large sweet potato, pureed or mashed to smooth consistency
1-1/3 cups Pamela’s Mix
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt

Topping:
2 TBSP melted butter
1/3 cup of packed brown sugar (I used raw cane sugar)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Beat together butter, sugar, egg, and sweet potato.  Add remaining muffin ingredients and mix completely.  Pour into 12 muffin cups.  Mix topping and smooth evenly over batter.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, or when toothpick inserted comes out almost clean.  ENJOY!

by Rebecca McGeary

Savory Sweet Potato Bread

This Sweet Potato Bread, courtesy of Pamela’s Products Ultimate Baking & Pancake Mix, may be my favorite gluten-free food to date.  It’s not just gluten-free, it’s gluten-freekin’licious!  The amazing blend of flavors and textures leaves your mouth watering for more.  The bread is soft and moist with a wonderful blend of sweet and spice, and the brown sugar and walnut topping adds the perfect crunch.  So.  Very.  Yummy.

Sweet Potato Bread

Sweet Potato Bread

I intended to make Pamela’s Pumpkin Bread, but pumpkin, apparently, even canned pumpkin, is a seasonal fruit.  I could not find it anywhere!  (Okay, so maybe I only looked in two grocery stores, but isn’t that enough?)  Actually, after searching the second store high and low, I finally found and bought what I thought to be a ginormous can of pumpkin and eagerly started to mix ingredients as soon as I got home.  I even doubled everything so as not to waste any of the precious fruit.  Only after I’d melted the butter, cracked the eggs, poured in the sugar, and opened the can did the sweet smell hit my nose, and I realized it was pumpkin pie mix!  Err.  If I wanted pumpkin bread before, I really wanted it now.

I don’t substitute.  I don’t experiment.  I don’t toy with recipes and ingredients.  I leave that to the experts.  But I wanted pumpkin bread!  I decided to take a big step.  Wait for it…I popped two sweet potatoes in the oven!  Craaazy! When they had baked to perfection, I slit the skin, slipped the sweet, mushy pulp into the bowl, and continued with the recipe.

The savory smells flooded the house as the bread baked.  When it was done, we waited mere minutes for it to cool before slicing in.  It was heavenly.  The first loaf lasted less than two days.  I froze the second loaf, and we took it to my mother-in-law’s house for a quick weekend visit; it was gone within a few hours.

I imagine the sweet potato adds a bit more sweetness, but I’m sure Pamela’s Pumpkin Bread is just as good.  If nothing else, it’s faster to open a can of pumpkin (if you can find it) than it is to bake sweet potatoes.  Still, this was one mistake I was happy to make.

Pamela’s Pumpkin (or Sweet Potato) Bread with Crumble Nut Topping

4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup of canned pumpkin (or the pulp of one baked sweet potato)
1-1/3 cups Pamela’s Baking & Pancake Mix
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves

Topping: (optional)
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup of nuts (sliced almonds, walnuts, pecans)

Batter: Beat together butter, sugar, egg, and pumpkin (or sweet potato). Add remaining bread ingredients and mix together. Pour into a greased loaf pan (8 x 4). Mix nut topping ingredients and smooth evenly over batter to the edges. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or when toothpick inserted comes out almost clean.

by Rebecca McGeary

Cinnamon Chex…Crunch!

It’s perfect, right?  I have my breakfast strategically placed on the table so I can take some quick shots for my post today, when a hand slips in to grab a few tasty morsels, proving just how irresistible they are.

IMG_5395

Cinnamon Chex Cereal

Alright, maybe irresistible is a bit of a stretch, but they are downright tasty.  Cinnamon Chex is a nice blend of sinfully sweet and wholesome goodness.  The flavor is reminiscent of one of my all-time favorites, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but with less fat, sodium, and sugar, and more protein…oh, and no gluten!

The cereal combines the now gluten-free Rice Chex and Corn Chex.  Some pieces are coated with cinnamon, while others are plain, and the ratio is just about perfect.  Beware, the gratifying crunch does not last long when milk is added.  That, however, is seldom a problem here, as bowls of Cinnamon Chex seem to empty as rapidly as they are filled.

A box of Cinnamon Chex lasts only moments in our house, because it is satisfying at any time of day.  Whether you crave a bowl of sweet cereal with milk in the morning, a dry handful or two to snack on in the afternoon, or a guiltless dessert at night, Cinnamon Chex is there.

Note: Chex now has six gluten-free cereals and a plethora of gluten-free Chex recipes.  I can’t wait to try them!

by Rebecca McGeary

Oh, Pamela, I adore you.

Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

Every morning, I ask my son what he’d like for breakfast.  I really don’t know why I bother, because the reply is nearly always the same.  “Umm…waffles.”  Occasionally I’ll try to mix it up a bit and ask, “How about pancakes?”  I’m amused when his face lights up, and he exclaims, “Pancakes!  Yeah!”

I shudder to think what we would do without Pamela’s Products Ultimate Baking & Pancake Mix.

When I made my first batch of waffles with Pamela’s mix, oh, so many months ago, I followed the directions on the back of the bag.  They were pretty good…for gluten-free waffles.  They were light and fluffy, and, thankfully, we didn’t detect any unpleasant aftertastes.  I’d read several reviews claiming Pamela’s mix to be the best out there, gluten-free or no.  We weren’t quite there yet.  They were likely the best gluten-free waffles we’d had.  They sure beat the cardboard frozen kind that require half a bottle of syrup to mask the taste and ease the passageway towards digestion.  But the best waffles ever?  Not yet.

With the next batch, I tried a trick we’ve found to improve just about any pancake mix out there, especially those of the gluten-free variety.  I used Aunt Jamima proportions with Pamela’s mix (see below), the main difference being the substitution of milk for water.  The result was absolutely gluten-freelicious.  Yum.  Now that’s what I’m talking about.

With this minor adjustment, Pamela’s mix makes amazing pancakes and waffles.  I’m not sure what makes them so good; perhaps it’s the almond meal.  What I do know is this: I would serve a hot, steamy batch of Pamela’s waffles to all my gluten-consuming friends and family without hesitation, and I would tout them as the best waffles ever.  Yes, they are that good.

Note: I paid $20 for our first 4 lb bag of Pamela’s goodness at our local health food store.  I like to support the locals, but…seriously?  I now have six 24 oz bags automatically delivered to our door once every two months through Amazon’s Subscribe and Save program for $28.77.  Sweet.

Gluten-freelicious Pancakes and Waffles (Pamela’s Mix, Aunt Jamima’s Proportions):

1 cup Pamela’s Products Ultimate Baking & Pancake Mix
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1 TBSP oil (2 TBSP for waffles)