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This kid.  My ham, my goof, and my helper.

blender granola pancakesHe loves to “work” with Mom.  Since I’m only occasionally popular with the two teenager-type humans that live here, I’ll totally take it.

His legos happen to be the backdrop of my office, so it works out well when I log in from home.  I’m sure my colleagues absolutely love the construction sounds as elevator music for our conference calls.  I swear he has a sixth sense for when my phone goes off mute.

The safer version of working together is when he acts as my sous chef.  Those construction sounds work better when he’s mixing. He also taste tests.  And gives super honest feedback.

“Mom, this is really good!”  (Said with shock and awe.)

“You put chocolate chips in there?  That’s crazy!”

“Ummm, I think I’ll just have some peanut butter and jelly.”

My favorite food critic can usually be appeased with any form of breakfast food.  As I have said before, we are all kind of breakfast junkies around this house.   Here’s the problem, though: only he and I like eggs.  Which, you can imagine, doesn’t leave much room to mix it up.

I know – parental fail.  But I also think, is it like asparagus?  Will they grow to love eggs?

Meanwhile, my Partner in Crime and I have perfected the art of gettin’ crazy with some pancake recipes. Because while homemade pancakes are delicious, the same breakfast every week gets a bit boring.

For instance, I have been known to take other recipes that he loves and turn them into pancakes.  Like granola bars.  Loves em’.  Takes them pretty much everywhere as snacks.  And my homemade version is his favorite.

So, what the heck?  Really, what could be bad about some peanut butter, chocolate and oat flour blended together and poured into a pancake? Psst – it’s chocolate and peanut butter.  That’s never bad.

Plus, did I mention the “blending” part?  Your life just got so much easier.  Your welcome. (Okay, really that was your blender’s voice. It misses you.)

Start, as always, by heating your cooking vehicle.  In this case, either a griddle, if you got it, or a large skillet or saute pan.  You’ll want to bring your weapon of choice to about 350 degrees.

blender pancakesPour the oats into your blender and pulse them a few times, until they reach a flour-like consistency. Add in the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, powder and salt and blend the whole thing together.  You just need to make sure your dry ingredients are incorporated, so a little dab will do.

Since my large measuring cups are my secret kitchen weapon, I measure buttermilk into my two cup version and then add the egg and vanilla.  Break the egg up just a bit by mixing this briefly with a fork before you add it into the dry ingredients.

blender pancakesYou can pour this whole cup into the blender with the peanut butter. Blend the entire mixture together until it becomes smooth.  Again, this is usually just a few quick pulses.

At this point, you are done with the motorized portion of mixing.  Remove the pitcher from the stand and mix in the chocolate chips by hand.  I use mini chocolate chips in pancakes because they seem to disperse more evenly through the batter.  They also don’t stick to the griddle like regular chocolate chips.

Now, here’s the best part of blender pancakes: when you are ready to cook, your mix is in a pitcher. Already.  As in, no assembly required.

blender pancakesYep.  It’s the little things.

Pour the batter onto your heated griddle or pan in similar size rounds.  This is just so they cook somewhat evenly, and you aren’t trying to guess if each one is done cooking or not.  They are ready to flip when you see a fair number of bubbles. It will take about 3-4 minutes for the first side, and about 2-3 minutes on the second. But all told, I also happen to love pancakes because of how fast this process is.

Let a dab of butter melt away on these chocolatey, peanut buttery beauties and top the whole lot with some syrup.  Maybe also serve them to a silly 4 year old who will make funny faces at you.  I call it meal entertainment.