Some pretty cool things happen when you travel with a chef.
First of all, he got Vera (the world’s most temperamental stove) to work on a regular basis. Second, he makes some pretty fabulous meals on that stove. Example? At some point I noticed two bananas on the dashboard in the truck… turning black in the sun. Too ripe/mushy to eat, but still edible. I hate to throw food away. I showed them to Michael and he said, “I can make something with that.”
Behold the something:
Almond butter banana “pancakes.”
Confession time: about two weeks before we left on this trip, I started something called Whole30. It’s a 30 day diet that’s pretty restrictive – no dairy, no grains, no beans or legumes, and no added sugar. If you’re familiar with Paleo eating then you’ve probably heard of Whole30. It’s actually designed to help you break your sugar addiction.
For the record, the first week of Whole30 bites the big one. Giving up sugar is hard. Going grocery shopping and avoiding added sugar is also hard. I mean, why does Italian sausage have sugar in it?!?
Anyway, I was in week 3 of the Whole30 challenge by the time we left for Moab, and doing quite well. When Michael came up with the recipe for these “pancakes,” he made it Whole30 friendly: the 2 ripe bananas, some almond butter, and an egg for binding. (If you think that doesn’t sound like a lot of ingredients…. it’s not. Michael said for next time he’d add some kind of flour – there are a couple that are Paleo-friendly.)
The worst (best?) part was that we forgot to pack a flat spatula. You know, the kind for flipping pancakes. All we had was the small spatula for making scrambled eggs. Michael had to get pretty creative in making these pancakes.
But in the end those ingredients yielded 6 pancakes. Michael added honey to his 3. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but they were so filling I could barely finish mine.
We might reconstruct this recipe from our home kitchen so we can come up with an actual recipe. If we do I’ll make sure to post it!