As I am sitting here, feeling the satisfaction of a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend spent with family and friends, I thought I would share with you my pumpkin pancake recipe.  We whipped up a batch of these on Saturday morning, before we started to prepare our Thanksgiving dinner.

This weekend we had family come and stay with us for the long weekend.  It was kind of a big deal, as this is the first time since Jamie and I moved to Ottawa, that we haven’t traveled back to Hamilton for a holiday weekend.  This year, my sister, brother-in-law and nephew (Cherie, Dwayne and Sam) made the trip to Ottawa to celebrate the long weekend with us.

My sister and I love to plan!  So when we were planning out their weekend visit we immediately started an e-mail chain planning out every second of our weekend.  This may not come as a surprise to you, but our planning is really just listing all the things we want to eat while we are together 😉

Since it was Thanksgiving there was going to have to be some pumpkin on the menu.  Of course, I made a pumpkin pie for Dwayne (it is one of his favourites), but I also wanted Sam to experience pumpkin pancakes, so we incorporated that into our meal plan.

Speaking of Sam, he did have the best quote of this weekend.  I had made a batch of Candied Maple Bacon cookies and Sam saw the cookies on the counter.  Even when Jamie and I told him that he wouldn’t like them, he still wanted a cookie.  So we let him try one.  He took one bite and said (with a very confused look on his face) “These cookies have meat in them.”  Priceless! 🙂

Anyway, back to the pancakes.  Pumpkin pancakes are super easy to make, and I have had this recipe kicking around for years.  It is a great way to get the goodness of pumpkin into your breakfast.  My original recipe card calls for 1 ½ cups of milk, but we found that we had to add a bit more, because the batter was so thick.  I don’t know if it was because we were using almond milk, but we ended up adding in an extra ¼ cup of almond milk to get the right consistency.

Once these were ready to serve, we topped them with fresh fruit, pecans and pure maple syrup.  This was the perfect start to a delicious Thanksgiving.  I had forgotten how much I enjoy pancakes I think that we will have to make this a more regular occurrence in our weekend menu planning 🙂

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Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg – lightly beaten
• 1 3/4 cup almond milk
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil

Directions:

1. In large bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt.
2. In medium bowl, combine egg, almond milk, pumpkin puree and oil.  Mix well.
3. Make a well in your dry ingredients and add in your wet ingredients.
4. Mix together.
5. Heat non-stick griddle over medium-high heat. When pan is hot, pour batter onto pan.
6. Flip to cook on other side and enjoy with fresh fruit, pecans and maple syrup.