glorious breakfast

Hello blog readers.

Here in Chapel Hill, we had a beautiful sunny 60 degree day today...which I appreciated as Mike & I spent much of this morning raking leaves (yes, we still have leaves on the ground).

Anyway, I also had a chance to make some fantastic pancakes, and the recipe for them is below. When I was in MN, my mom and I went to a restaurant called Hell's Kitchen and ordered some lemon ricotta hotcakes. They were so good, I decided to search through recipes on the web, make my own modifications, and try my hand at my own version. Many of the recipes I found had a stick (or more) of melted butter, so I avoided those. I started with one from Nigella Lawson, and modified as follows.

Lemon Ricotta Hotcakes- serves 2, 6 points each
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp part skim ricotta cheese
1 egg, separated
1/4 cup skim milk
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp butter
3/8 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
zest of 1/2 a lemon
1 tsp powdered sugar
fresh berries

Heat an oven to 200 degrees. Combine ricotta, milk, and egg yolk, and stir till mostly smooth. Add flour, baking powder, and salt, mix till smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg white & granulated sugar till foamy (can do by hand). Fold egg whites into the ricotta mixture, then add lemon zest. Heat a griddle to medium-high, and coat with butter. Spoon batter onto the griddle (in a size of your own choosing), and flip once bubbles appear all over pancake. Once finished on both sides, add to a pie plate & put in warm oven to keep warm. Once all pancakes are done, divide among 2 plates, and top with powdered sugar (pushed through a strainer), and fresh berries. You can also use maple syrup too, but you need to count those points separately.

Enjoy!