Speculoos Cookie Butter Whole Wheat Pancakes

Speculoos Cookie Butter Whole Wheat Pancakes

My very gracious foodie penpal Gretchen from Real Life Motherhood of 4 sent me what can be honestly described as Cookie Crack in a jar otherwise known as Speculoos Cookie Butter.  My husband dug into her parcel before I even got home and immediately told me that within this innocuous little jar was a magical being called T-R-O-U-B-L-E!  To say that its delicious is definitely not sufficient.  In an attempt to not sit down with just a spoon and eat the whole jar I decided I was going to need recipes for it so the next morning, I got up and made Speculoos Cookie Butter Pancakes.  I topped mine with whipped cream, but in retrospect should have used fresh strawberries and whipped cream.

• 1 cup all purpose whole wheat flour 
• 2 packets of stevia (or 2 tsp of sugar) 
• 1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup Speculoos Cookie Butter 
• 1 1/4 cup milk (can use nonfat, almond, soy, etc) 
• No-Stick Cooking Spray

Directions

1. Stir together flour, stevia and baking powder in large bowl.
2. Beat egg with cookie butter in small bowl until blended. Stir in milk. Add all at once to the dry ingredients, beating until blended.
3. Heat skillet over medium-high heat. Spray with no-stick cooking spray. Pour 2 tablespoons batter for each pancake onto skillet. Cook until bubbles break the surface. Turn and brown the other side.
4. Serve with syrup, fresh fruit, powdered sugar, whipped cream, or more cookie butter.  

For "crepes" add in another 1/4 cup of milk and make sure your griddle or skillet is HOT!  

Pizza!!!!!!!!!!

So I love love love love love indulging in pizza every now and then.  I made this pizza with the hubster a couple of Sundays ago and wanted to share. 

The whole wheat pizza crust

TO MAKE 1 POUND DOUGH:

• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 package quick-rising yeast, (2 1/4 teaspoons), such as
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 3/4 cup hot water, (120-130°F)
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Now on how to combine it I will digress and tell you that I looked it up online and followed the by hand method.  Mitch's Basic Pizza Dough Mixing methods.

While the dough was rising on the countertop, the hubby and I set to grilling.  We grilled red onion, green and red bell pepper, Al Fresco sundried tomato chicken sausage and garlic.  Inside I sauteed spinach and baby bella mushrooms with lemon and EVOO.  I strained the spinach really well and even put it in paper towels and wrung out excess liquid.  I also did the same thing with marinated artichoke hearts and kalamata olives.  

After rolling out the dough, we added tomato sauce (i make a HUGE batch of it in the crockpot once a month and then freeze it for times like these) added in red pepper flakes and dried Italian seasonings.  Then topped with the veggies, about 1/4 cup of shredded mozarella, the sausage, fresh basil, more red pepper flakes, and then added slices of mozzarella cheese.  YUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!  I baked on a pizza round in a preheated oven to 400 degrees for 25 minutes.  Viola!  BTW, you can grill the pizza too and it is AWESOME, but grills REALLY fast so watch it.  It started raining so we finished it in the oven.