Pintesting in the Kitchen - Cream Cheese Pancakes

Most nights I hit up Pintrest for diabetic-friendly recipes now. Planning ahead seems like the most likely way that I have a chance of eating anything.

If I wanted a bagel for breakfast I'd have to only 1/4 of it and my toppings would also end up limited. That's no fun for a girl who considers bagels a vehicle for cream cheese. I take cream cheese somewhat seriously - as a child I snacked on UTZ potato chips and cream cheese (much to the horror of my parents, especially my health conscious mother.)

I needed an actual breakfast food to enjoy in the morning instead of just some random recipe that would do the job.

Today's pintest comes via this pin and the information found here.

Yield: Four 6-inch pancakes

Serving Size: 1 pancake

Ingredients

• 2 oz cream cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1 packet stevia (or any) sweetener
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

If you're uncertain of how to tell if you have 2 ounces of cream cheese, I refer you to the size of the packet where, as I'd never bothered to notice before, there are markers telling you each ounce.

I don't have any stevia so I used 1 tbsp of raw, organic honey.

Instructions

Put all ingredients in a blender or magic bullet.

 As it turns out my mother gave me hers on my last visit home and I hadn't used it yet

Blend until smooth. Let rest for 2 minutes so the bubbles can settle. 

Pour 1/4 of the batter into a hot pan greased with butter or pam spray. Cook for 2 minutes until golden, flip and cook 1 minute on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the batter.

 I took a bite of these with no syrup and they tasted a little like dirt.

Serve with sugar free syrup (or any syrup of your choice) and fresh berries. I didn't have free syrup but I was almost certain the night before I read that generally, a serving size of syrup was a tablespoon so I put about a tablespoon on.

Bingo! It was now edible.

Notes

Approx nutrition info per batch: 344 calories, 29g fat, 2.5g net carbs, 17g protein

Another great way to save on calories and sugar is to try to eat this in front of your toddler - you won't be eating the entire thing by yourself anymore.

The Crunchy Betty Raw Honey Challenge

This pregnancy has done terrible things to my skin, but to be fair - I've had quite a lot of skin issues for years now. And by for years I mean probably since the age of 9 and definitely since the age of 13.

My skin problems never reached the upper echelons of terrible skin but it's been bad enough to seek the help (that didn't ultimately pan out) of a dermatologist a few times.

Enter Crunchy Betty, a green blogger loved by many. She has lovely clear skin and has a book available for purchase via Kindle about how you can fight your acne issues naturally. Her book focuses specifically on the problems of those of us with oily skin. Desperate to begin  my fight immediately I skipped right to the facial cleansers. All of them sounded like things I wanted to try but for reasons unknown to me (probably because it seemed simplest) I decided to try her cleanser using raw honey.

Rinse your face.
Gently scrub your face with raw honey.
Wait 5 - 10 minutes.
Rinse off the honey.
Done.

Having just bought some organic, fair trade, raw honey to use in the oatmeal mask recipe that is available for free I immediately tried the facial wash. I immediately liked it. My skin felt soft as did the hand I used to scrub my face and I could have almost sworn that my skin seemed at least a tiny bit brighter. Two things were then on my mind 1) I must know more! & 2) Let's try this for two weeks and see how it goes. When I returned to the book the next thing I read was Crunchy Betty challenging readers to try this raw honey method for two weeks. CAN DO!

Within a few days I noticed that the very small pimples I had were coming to a head and ready to make their exit in one way or another. My husband is an avid pimple popper and depending on how badly I have one it can be a battle to keep him from attacking my face with his usually unwashed hands. These little pimples did not go unnoticed by him.

By the end of my two weeks I saw what I felt was an absolutely noticeable change. When I washed my face before I had gotten to the point where I would feel a mass of pimples under my hand as I rubbed my Burt's Bees chamomile wash into my face. The Burt's Bees left my skin feeling clean but I felt I was getting nowhere in my fight against my regular acne now only made worse by the hormonal rush that comes from being pregnant.

I enjoyed this challenge so much that shortly after a week I recommended it to a friend of mine that I know has also had a long, unsuccessful struggle with acne. If you too have issues with your skin - try this, it works well with more than just oily skin types.