Sunday mornings usually involve a late and elaborate breakfast for my hubb and I.  I woke up on this particular Sunday thinking about dates, knowing I had a BSI recipe to come up with.  I was also thinking about pancakes, because many Sunday mornings also involve pancakes in our house.  I saw this recipe in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago and had planned on making it for our company last weekend but we wound up having brunch out instead.  This morning seemed as good a morning as any to try it out, especially since I had ricotta in the fridge that was going to go bad in the next day or two. We usually use a Dr. Oetker pancake mix from Whole Foods and add assorted dried fruits, nuts and chocolate to spice them up.  But making pancakes from scratch is really not difficult or time consuming, and I was intrigued by the addition of ricotta cheese to this particular recipe.  I substituted a few ingredients to healthify the 'cakes a bit, but then we cooked up some bacon to go with them so I think my efforts were canceled out. I was concerned that the dates would stick together if I added them to the mix, so I just pressed them into the tops of the pancakes with the bananas after I poured the batter onto my griddle. The pancakes were very light and fluffy in texture, and the pairing of bananas and dates with real maple syrup was fabulous.  I just wish we'd eaten them as they came off of the griddle instead of keeping them warm in the oven while my hubb cooked up the bacon.  They flattened out just a bit and probably would have had a better consistency had we consumed them immediately.  The batch made 15 pancakes so I'll be freezing leftovers for future mornings.  Yum. I don't think this will be my official BSI entry because I've got some other baking planned for this afternoon.  This was more of a warm-up.  :) Banana Date Pancakes [adapted from this NY Times article] makes about 15 small pancakes Ingredients:

• 1 cup fat free or reduced fat ricotta cheese
• 1 cup fat free plain yogurt
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• dash salt
• 1 tbsp turbinado sugar
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (about 1/2 a lemon)
• zest from 1 lemon
• butter or grapeseed oil as needed (i used grapeseed oil)
• 2 bananas, sliced thinly
• 5 medjool dates, chopped finely

Method:

1. Blend together the ricotta, yogurt and egg yolks.
2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, but not dry.
3. Sift together the baking soda, flour, salt and sugar.
4. Heat a griddle or nonstick pan on medium low heat.
5. Add dry ingredients to ricotta/yogurt mixture and blend together, but do not beat.
6. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest.
7. Fold in the egg whites, but don't mix completely. You should still be able to distinguish the egg whites in the batter.
8. Oil or butter hot griddle.  Add batter 1 heaping tablespoonful at a time.  Press banana slices and dates into tops of pancakes.  Cook until golden brown on bottom, 3-5 minutes.  Flip, and cook until golden brown on opposite side.  Serve immediately with real maple syrup.

Breakfast:  3 banana date pancakes with real maple syrup, 2 slices bacon, 5 fresh strawberries, coffee [pancakes + syrup = 420 calories, bacon = 100 calories, strawberries = 36 calories] I hope you all have had a great weekend so far!  I had a fabulous time at the shower yesterday.  My friend Christine is SO cute.  She's due in 2 months...I can't believe it!  Here's me with the proud momma-to-be... And the adorable ice cream cake that I of course had a piece of...along with other bad-for-me food.  It was a lot of fun though, and luckily I don't go out of town very often!!! Thanks for all of your great road food suggestions!  I was happy to have my snacks on the way down and to supplement my breakfast Saturday morning, but they didn't do a very good job of deterring me from eating a fast food dinner both Friday and Saturday nights.  :(  Next time I need to pack sandwiches to take with me, or at least more satisfying meal-type items.  Or push harder for Subway stops...  :) And now I'm off to bake up my BSI recipe...I'll be back later with the results!