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Join My Readable Feast over at Pancake Recipes for his Carnival of the Recipes salute to Pancake Day - also known as Shrove Tuesday - on February 5th.

The Denver Post ran a wonderful healthy pancake recipe created by their food editor Kristen Browning-Blas. What I like about it is that you can prepare the dry ingredients ahead of time to keep in the freezer so you always have them on hand - all you need to do is add buttermilk and an egg.

If you’re allergic to eggs like my daughter Lucie, then you can use a blend of milk, sour cream, and yogurt instead. To make it even healthier you could try no-fat milk and plain no-fat yogurt (which is kind of sour like buttermilk). Also, instead of vegetable oil, try some grapeseed or flax oil for extra Omega-3 fatty acids.

Oatmeal Pancakes

Ingredients

1. 1 1/2 cups raw quick or old-fashioned oats
2. 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
3. 2 cups whole wheat flour
4. 1/4 cup each: flax meal, wheat germ
5. 6 tablespoons brown sugar
6. 2 tablespoons baking powder
7. 1 tablespoon baking soda
8. 1 tablespoon salt

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients. Store in a resealable bag in the freezer.

To make about 12 medium pancakes:

1. Blend 1 cup dry mix with 1 egg and 1 1/4 cups buttermilk (or a blend of milk, sour cream, yogurt) and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Stir to remove lumps but do not over beat. Let sit at least 10 minutes to soften oats.
2. Pour by half-cups onto hot buttered griddle.
3. Serve with butter, syrup or honey, jelly, whipped cream and/or powdered sugar.

Pancake Inspired Books

We all know If You Give a Pig a Pancake, but there are lots of other wonderful children’s books with a pancake theme:

• Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle
• Pancakes for Breakfastby Tomie dePaola
• Mama Panya’s Pancakes: A Village Tale from Kenya by Mary Chamberlin, Rich Cahmberlin, and Julia Cairns
• Curious George Makes Pancakes by H.A. and Margret Rey
• Marsupial Sue Presents “The Runaway Pancake” (Book and CD) by John Lithgow and Jack E. Davis
• The Runaway Pancake by Mairi Mackinnon, Lesley Sims, and Silvia Provantini from Usborne Books
• Mr. Wolf’s Pancakes by by Jan Fearnley
• Round Is a Pancake by Joan Sullivan Baranski and Yu-Mei Han
• Hey, Pancakes!by Tamson Weston and Stephen Gammell
• Pancakes For Supper by Anne Isaacs  

Do you have a favorite pancake book or recipe? Share below!

How to Steal a Dog a YA (young adult) novel by Barbara O’Connor is about a young girl, Georgina Hayes, whose family has been living in their car after they were evicted from their apartment. With her mother working two jobs, Georgina tries to figure out how to get some money while looking after her younger brother. She spots a missing-dog poster and schemes a way to “borrow” a dog and get sone reward money of her own. For ages 9 to 12.

Even though How to Steal a Dog deals with the heavy subject of homelessness, it has the feel of an adventure. Georgia has to use her wits, bravery and intelligence to get out of embarrassing and scary situations.

I found How to Steal a Dog very entertaining and unlike many YA novels, there weren’t any taboo subjects like religion, abuse, sex or drugs. Instead, it was a heartwarming story that tells kids to follow their conscience and do what they think (and have been tought) is right.

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the book has won a 2007 Parents Choice Recommended Award. The Barbara O’Connor website includes a discussion guide PDF.

Homemade Dog Biscuits

During the pet food recalls I posted a recipe for dog biscuits. Kids get a real kick out of making treats for their four-legged friends. You could also donate a batch to your local food shelter (call first to make sure they’ll take homemade treats).

Gourmet Sleuth has a great selection of dog biscuit recipes. So does Two Dog Press. Dogaware.com has recipes for all kinds of doggie treats including Liver Brownies. Ewwww! I certainly won’t be tempted to lick the bowl when making that recipe.

Check out Amazon for fund dog biscuit cookie cutters, too!

(Click here for more YA novel reviews.)

As a child, did you like to dig up rocks in the backyard? Then you can relate to Julie the Rockhound by Gail Langer Karwoski and illustrated by Lisa Downey. When Julie moves to a new house and finds a piece of quartz crystal buried in the backyard, she turns into “Julie the Rockhound.” Soon her dad dad shows her how to dig for rocks and explains how crystals are formed.

Like other Syvlan Dell Publishing books, Julie the Rockhound comes with a “For Creative Minds” section. (Click here for a PDF version.) Your child will explore if items are plants, animals or minerals. They’ll learn what they need to become a rockhound, how rocks are formed, and how to classify minerals.

The “Food Rocks!” section shows how you can use cooking to understand how rocks are formed. The recipe they give for sedimentary rocks is making a sandwich. The layers of margarine, cheese, bread and meat represent layers of sedimentary rock. Great idea! But why just make a regular sandwich, when you can make a Quadruple-Decker Honolulu Hightower courtesy of the Denver Post and Tucker Shaw.

Quadruple-Decker Honolulu Hightower
Photo by Glenn Asakaw of the Denver Post

If macadamia butter and papaya jam is too weird for your child, try good old peanut butter and grape jelly along with the bananas, and substitute granola for the shredded coconut. You could also experiment with low-fat cream cheese, strawberry preserves, sliced strawberries, and crunchy cereal. A savory idea would be hummus, grated carrots and pepper strips and some baked potato chips for the crunch. Or try cashew butter, apple butter and thin apple slices along with granola, cereal or shredded rice cakes.

Your child could help cut out the bread (try wheat too), spreading the nut butters and jams, and stacking the layers.

Ingredients

1. Five slices white bread, cut into rounds with a cookie cutter (Make sure your slices will fit into a round plastic container as shown here. This sandwich is way too high for plastic wrap or a baggie.)
2. Macadamia butter
3. Papaya jam
4. Pineapple jam
5. A few slices dried banana
6. A few flakes dried coconut (unsweetened)

Directions

1. Spread two rounds bread with macadamia butter. Spread one round with papaya jam. Spread one round with pineapple preserves. Layer banana slices and dried coconut on final round.
2. Stack rounds, starting and finishing with macadamia-butter rounds. Put into container.