This morning after we got out of bed, my husband started making his usual Saturday morning pancakes for the kids and himself.  I don’t normally have pancakes, I tend to either make myself poached eggs on toast with spinach or make myself a green smoothie or fresh veggie juice.  But this morning was different, I wanted to show myself that I could be part of the Saturday morning pancake ritual and that I could make myself a healthier pancake and join in the fun.  Being healthy doesn’t mean that you have to miss out, you just need to learn how to become creative with your cooking and be a bit more organised.

So we decided to hold our own little “Master Chef” competition and for our daughter Sophie to be the judge.  I was going to cook my healthy version of pancakes (Buckwheat pancakes with Pear and Cashew Cream ) and my husband was going to cook his version of pancakes using the usual ingredients of white flour, eggs, milk etc.  I knew from the start that this was going to be hard since it can always be difficult to create a healthier version of something that is bad for you.  I felt a bit like Michael Van de Elzen from ‘The Food Truck’.  Michael drives around NZ in a van that he cooks out of and tries to make healthier alternatives to popular fast foods.

So below is a picture of the mixture in our respective bowls.  I was already on the back foot with the judge as my mixture was brown in color (which apparently looked like poo according to her!) whilst my husband’s mixture was white-ish and more appealing to the judge’s eye.

After cooking our pancakes, we then plated them up and made them look as beautiful as we possibly could so as to ‘woo’ the judge.  Below is a picture of what they looked like once plated.  Mine of course is the darker pancakes as I used buckwheat flour.

Pretty impressive, eh?  Stiff competition in our Master Chef kitchen on Roslyn Ave I might add!  Anyway, this was the result…can you guess who won??

Although the judge pulled her nose up at mine, we did only come within one point of each other in our final scores.  We were scored on taste, colour, texture and presentation.

This was all a bit of fun, but the point I’m trying to make is that if you decide to make smarter, healthier food choices, you don’t need to miss out on the food that you love – you just need to become creative.  There are always healthier alternatives to what you love out there. Yes, they may not always seem as nice to begin with, but it’s true what they say: “you get used to what you get used to” and before long, you will want to eat the healthier option.  I can seriously say that health benefits aside, I still would choose the buckwheat pancake over the standard Edmonds pancakes because that’s what I’m used to and that’s what my body cries out for.

I will post the Buckwheat Pancakes with Pear and Cashew Cream recipe on this blog in the next few days for you to try at home.

Look after yourselves everyone.