Carrot Cake Pancakes & Gazpacho Bloody Marys

While I try to stick with a simple, healthy breakfast, I couldn't help myself when I saw this pancake recipe on Smitten Kitchen. I actually ended up throwing away some of the leftovers (gasp! so much for not wasting food, but I swear this was before I had a renewed interest in making the most of my food!) because I knew I would eat them all otherwise & I had no one else to finish them off for me. One serving of the pancakes with topping as I made them came out to about 300 calories (not bad!), but try having just one serving ;-)

As for the Gazpacho Bloody Marys, I had one a a local restaurant recently and have been craving one ever since. I am a bloody mary fanatic and am known to mix up a virgin BM because I am just that obsessed. Mine did not turn out quite like the one at the restaurant, so I will be making a trip back there to have a little chat with the bartender to get their secrets.

I put this breakfast together for my boyfriend one Saturday morning and I should have done more prep work the night before because by the time it was ready my poor boy all but wasted away. Fortunately I kept him lubricated with ample bloody marys, kisses and strawberries.

I won't post the recipe here, but it can be found on the Smitten Kitchen blog. I used low fat buttermilk, Splenda brown sugar blend, definitely used the raisins (I thought they were key!) and instead of butter on the griddle I used cooking spray. For the cream cheese topping I used 2% milk and fat free cream cheese (Note: while the fat free stuff significantly cut down the calorie content, I would go with reduced fat for a better flavor). Serve with fresh fruit salad.

Nutrition info per pancake (yield 12): 75 calories, 13g carbs, 2g fat, 2g protein
Nutrition info for cream cheese topping, 1 serving (makes 4): 69 calories, 12g carbs, 1g or less of fat, 5g protein

While the bloody mary was definitely good (I had 3!), I will wait to post a recipe until I have mastered it.