Hearty oatmeal pancakes

We spent last weekend in Ottawa visiting Matt's sister Rebecca and her family.  It was a really wonderful few days, filled with a trip to a museum, slipping down giant outdoor ice slides at a Winterlude site, excellent company and really great food.  On Saturday morning, Rebecca's husband Mark whipped up a big batch of scrumptious oatmeal pancakes for breakfast, and Noah loved them so much that we asked for the recipe.  After we returned home, I realized that with a few modifications, I could make similar pancakes without any ingredients that Will and I are sensitive to.  This morning, these oatmeal pancakes were born:

Gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free Oatmeal Pancakes

1 1/2 cups pure oats

2 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk

1 cup ground pure oats (I used a Magic Bullet to grind them)

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp gluten-free baking powder

1 tbsp ground chia seeds mixed with 3 tbsp warm water (stir to make a gel)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup grapeseed oil

1 large apple, peeled and grated

Pour almond milk over whole oats and let sit for ten minutes.  Sift ground oats, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder together, then add to oat/almond milk mixture.  Add chia seed gel, vanilla, oil and grated apple and mix well.

Ladle batter onto hot griddle coated in grapeseed oil.  Flip pancakes when edges begin to set, and cook pancakes on other side until cooked through.  Serve with real maple syrup.  Makes approximately 10 pancakes.

If you're looking for a light, fluffy, sweet pancake recipe, then this one isn't for you; these pancakes are dense, hearty and very filling.  (Think steaming bowl of oatmeal and fruit, drizzled with maple syrup, in the form of a crispy-edged pancake.)   In place of the grated apple, you could also make these pancakes with blueberries, or a mashed banana -- any one of the three fruit options is really delicious!

If food sensitivities aren't an issue in your house, you could make these pancakes the way Mark and Rebecca make them by using these substitutions:

unsweetened almond milk = milk

ground pure oats = whole wheat flour

ground chia seeds + water = 1 egg

You could also add 1 tablespoon of brown sugar to the batter, as the original recipe calls for, though I find with the addition of maple syrup on top of the pancakes, the batter doesn't really need sweetening.

Will and I still really enjoy our almond flour pancakes, but it's nice, for variety, to have another allergen-free recipe in my back pocket.  These pancakes are a great way to get the nutrition of oatmeal in a fun form!