Hey everyone!

This past Friday, my mom and I came home from Spain.  We had a great time there – lots of great food, sight-seeing, shopping, and relaxing.  I’ve decided to break up my trip recap into three different posts based on the cities I visited: Madrid, Seville, and Barcelona.  I may have taken a million and a half pictures and I plan on sharing all of them a bunch!  My vaca recap will start tomorrow… today I’m sharing a recipe!

After having delicious food in Spain (they’re crazy about ham, mayo, fish, and anything deep-fried), I’ve been trying to go back to my “usual” routine: lots of fruit and veggies, whole grains, and lean meats.  Hello, delicious turkey-avocado-tomato sandwich, I’ve missed you.  You too, steamed broccoli.

I’ve been doing pretty well eating healthy, but after seeing a friend’s facebook status about eating chocolate chip pancakes and bacon (yes, I’m talking about you, Stace! 🙂 ) I couldn’t help but to make some pancakes for myself.  I’m not a huge breakfast person, but last night just seemed perfect for breakfast-for-dinner.

The pancakes turned out amazing but unfortunately there are no pictures to capture their beauty.  But trust me when I say, you gotta make these.

Whole Wheat Pancakes (with a hint of chocolate) – note: I used Skinny Taste’s recipe to get a basic idea on how to make it, but modified it significantly.  See the bottom of this post for more info about my reasoning*)
Ingredients
2 Cups + 2 TB Nonfat Milk
2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
4.5 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 scoop Chocolate Protein Powder
1.5 TB chocolate chips (all chopped up)

Mix dry ingredients together (except chocolate chips) in a medium-sized bowl.  Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  Chop up chocolate chips so they’re smaller and chunkier (this way, more pancakes will get chocolate chips 🙂 ).  Add chocolate chips to mixture.  Cook ’em up on the stove top, and enjoy!

Makes 27 pancakes.  Nutrition facts (per pancake): 54 calories, .75g fat, 1.18g fiber, 3.2g protein.

I loved these pancakes because they were not overly-chocolatey at all.  I shared some with my dad and he said he could taste a hint of something, but couldn’t tell what it was.  Guess I must have eaten the chocolate chips in that pancake…woops 😉 These will definitely be my new go-to pancake when I’m looking for some fiber & protein – and something slightly sweet!

Time to make something for lunch!  I went to CrossFit with my friend Jen today, and I am ready for some food!  Curious about CrossFit?  Definitely try it out.  Today was my first time ever doing it and I enjoyed it.  Best part?  A place nearby allows you to take your first class for free.  Will I pursue it in the future?  Probably, I just need to figure out how it will work in my schedule.  I loved how it was fast-paced –  you weren’t able to get “bored” with your routine.  You could also really feel your muscles working, which I loved.  Guess who’s gonna be sore tomorrow and Wednesday and Thusrday…this girl!  Love it- gotta love knowing you had a great workout! 🙂

Have a great day! 🙂

(*Reasons for Pancake Recipe Modifications: I cut out the sugar and vanilla she recommended because I used some chocolate chips and the chocolate protein powder, and thought it would be sweet enough.  It was, especially with maple syrup drizzled over the pancakes at the end 😉  I also left out the salt because I knew baking powder had sodium in it, and figured the pancakes wouldn’t miss it.  Finally, I omitted the cinnamon because…I’m not the biggest fan of that spice.  🙂 )