recipes

Batter Be Good to Me Pancakes
10 pancakes, 5 servings (Per serving: 343 calories, 8 g total fat (3.9 g saturated fat), 12 g protein, 62 g carbohydrate, 4.9 g fibre, 58 mg cholesterol, 582 mg sodium)

Ingredients:
Pancakes

* 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
* 2/3 cup oat bran
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
* 1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas
* 2 Tbsps butter, melted
* 1 egg
* 1 tbsp maple syrup
* 1/2 tsp vanilla
* 3/4 cup fresh blueberries
* 1 cup low-fat vanilla-flavoured yogurt

Strawberry Sauce

* 2 cups diced fresh strawberries
* 3 Tbsps pure maple syrup
* 1/4 cup orange juice
* 1 tbsp cornstarch


Directions:
Pancakes

1. Preheat electric griddle to 325ºF. Combine flour, oat bran, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. Set aside.
2. Whisk together buttermilk, mashed bananas, melted butter, egg, maple syrup and vanilla in a medium bowl. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix just until dry ingredients are moistened. Do not over-mix! Fold in blueberries.
3. Spray griddle lightly with cooking spray. For each pancake, spoon about 1/2 cup batter onto hot griddle and spread to make 4-inch circles. Cook until undersides are lightly browned. Flip pancakes and cook until other sides are lightly browned, 2 to 3 more minutes. Top pancakes with generous dollops of vanilla yogurt and strawberry sauce.

Strawberry Sauce

1. Mix together strawberries and maple syrup in a medium pot.
2. Whisk together orange juice and cornstarch in a small bowl. Add to strawberries.
3. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until mixture bubbles and sauce thickens, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Sauce may be served warm or cold.

Chicken Paillard with Fresh Fig Salad and Blue Cheese
Serves 4
Pounding chicken breasts into paillards, which means thin slices, is a great way to use chicken breasts in the summertime for salad. It cooks fast and evenly so the meat stays nice and moist. The salty-sweet combination of figs, pancetta, and blue cheese is dynamite. If you can’t get your hands on fresh figs, peaches work just as well.

VINAIGRETTE

* 3 tablespoons honey
* ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 shallot, chopped
* 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
* Juice of ½ lemon
* 1 teaspoon chopped fresh tarragon
* Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

* 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast (about 1½ pounds)
* Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
* ½ pound pancetta
* Extra-virgin olive oil
* ¼ pound blue cheese, broken into hunks
* 1 bunch arugula, trimmed
* 1 small basket seasonal figs, halved
* Tarragon leaves, for garnish

DIRECTIONS:

1. First whisk together all of the ingredients for the vinaigrette in a small bowl and set it aside.
2. Sandwich the chicken breasts between 2 layers of plastic wrap and pound them very thin with the side of a meat cleaver or a rolling pin. Remove the chicken breasts from the plastic and season well on both sides with salt and pepper.
3. Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat. Unroll the pancetta so it looks like big strips of bacon. Add it to the pan and fry it like a tangle of bacon until the fat is rendered, 3 to 4 minutest. Drain on paper towels.
4. Drizzle a 2-count of olive oil into the pan with the pancetta drippings. Add the chicken and pan-fry for 3 to 4 minutes on each side to brown the breasts and cook them through. Use a spatula to remove the chicken to the paper towels with the pancetta. Add the vinaigrette to the sauté pan and heat for a few minutes, stirring to deglaze the bits of pancetta and chicken from the bottom of the pan; take the pan off the heat.
5. To serve, arrange the chicken on a platter. Scatter the blue cheese, arugula, figs, and pancetta over. Drizzle the dressing over everything and garnish with the tarragon leaves.