Our cleaning lady comes on Fridays and coming home on Friday afternoon to that smell of CLEAN may very well be the highlight of my week. There is no facetiousness in that sentence whatsoever. She is worth her weight in gold. I mean, her daughter even draws pictures of bulldogs and leaves them behind. We hang them on the fridge 🙂 And at Christmas time, she left no-bake cookies. She’s…amazing.
When I come home to a clean house, it’s now a competition amongst myself to see how clean I can keep the kitchen before her next visit. Who wants to remove their range grates and clean beneath by the burners? Not I.
When I was writing my second cookbook (I’m stalking Amazon for it’s official pre-sale release – should be any day now!!!!!!!!!!) I spent all weekend, every weekend, cooking and baking (and photographing, editing, writing, etc.). Making a complete and total mess of my kitchen…and doing about 12 (THOUSAND) loads of dishes. I was dropping off food with friends, handing it out at work, and all but BEGGING people to give my recipes their honest feedback. Ehhh. On second thought, there was definitely some begging going on…
For 6 months, it was wake-up on Saturday and don’t stop until I either ran out of ingredients or my plantar faciitis ridden feet could not handle one more second standing in the kitchen. Wake-up on Sunday and repeat. Brainstorm recipe ideas and technique on my way to/from work every morning during the week…and the whole cycle repeated itself.
Needless to say, this past weekend was the first time in MONTHS I’ve actually cared to mess up my kitchen a bit with breakfast. I made baked strawberry donuts (recipe soon!). But in this period of time where I’ve stayed out of the kitchen on weekend mornings, I’ve compensated with breakfast for dinner…or brinner as I so lovingly hear it called.
With a plentiful supply of Meyer lemons on hand, these pancakes were a clear choice. As someone who couldn’t locate Meyer lemons for years, I purchase them just about every time I see them available. There’s really nothing better for breakfast dishes. Mr. Prevention pulled out some Michigan blueberry syrup that was most definitely mostly blueberries, making it the perfect topping to these delicious and fluffy pancakes. While I’m back on the weekend breakfast bandwagon, I won’t be leaving the brinner bandwagon anytime soon. I love breakfast morning, noon, and night…always.
- 1½ cups whole wheat pastry flour or white wheat flour
- 3½ Tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup nonfat milk
- ¾ cup low-fat ricotta
- 3 large eggs
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp lemon zest (from about 2 lemons)
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- Preheat a nonstick pan or griddle over medium-high heat.
- In a mixing bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk together milk, ricotta, eggs, and vanilla until well blended. Whisk in the lemon zest, lemon juice, and milk mixture along with melted butter and blend until combined (it will curdle a little).
- Pour batter in ⅓ cups onto the griddle and spread into a 4-5 inch pancake. Cook 2-3 minutes or until bubbles form over the surface of the pancake; flip and cook an additional 2-3 minutes. Continue with remaining batter.
This week is shaping up to be pretty chill…and I like it 🙂 I even peeled out of work in plenty of time to make a 4:30 spin class yesterday. Lovin’ it.
Be well,
I have my Grandmother’s recipe for ricotta pancakes and just love them! These look Martha Stewart perfect Nicole! Congrats on the second book; very exciting!
I am always looking for new breakfast recipes, thank you so much for sharing and congrats on the book.
Yay for brinner!! And being able to find Meyer lemons locally is awesome indeed 🙂 This is one gorgeous stack of pancakes!
We love ricotta pancakes, and lemon ones sound heavenly! I bet these would taste fabulous as muffins too… with some streusel, of course. 🙂
I have been seeing many AMAZING recipes for pancakes lately – these look darn good and so fresh! Congrats on the cookbook!
Lemon plus blueberries equals pure awesomeness! Love these cakes!
There’s a cafe near me that makes incredible lemon ricotta pancakes! These look just as delicious! Can’t wait to try them!