Banana Oat Flour Pancakes

Almost every Saturday we have pancakes.  It's so nice to know we are actually eating healthy when we make these pancakes and they are so delicious and wheat free!  (If you buy gluten free oat flour, you can exclude any traces of gluten.  Oat flour, unless noted, is processed in facilities that also process wheat.)  This recipe comes from the Anti-inflammation Diet and Recipe Book.  I should also note here that my husband is our breakfast cook.  I had to ask him what kind of changes he has made to this recipe as I have never actually made them myself.

Serves: 3 (we usually have 2 pancakes leftover and save them for another morning)

Ingredients:

• 6 Tablespoons raw sunflower seeds, ground
• 6 Tablespoons raw pumpkin seeds, ground
• 5 organic eggs
• 2/3 cup oat flour
• 1/2 cup rice milk or regular milk (we don't notice a difference in taste)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1.5 bananas, sliced
• 2-3 Tablespoons coconut oil

Directions:

1. Mix all of the ingredients except the bananas and coconut oil together in one mixing bowl.  Then stir in the sliced bananas.
2. Add 1-2 Tablespoons of coconut oil to a hot griddle or pan.  Once melted and hot, pour on the batter.  When pancakes begin to bubble, flip and cook on the other side for a short amount of time.  Save the remaining coconut oil to use as needed for the next batches of pancakes.

Comments on Ingredients:

• We use coconut oil whenever possible for baking or cooking anything sweet.  It's so delicious and nutritious and can handle high temperatures well.  Coconuts are one of the top 10 superfoods.  They have so many health benefits that I would take up pages to list them.  A couple of comments on them... Coconut oil contains the most lauric acid (a powerful antiviral substance) of any plant source.  Coconut flesh, cream, and coconut oil all increase metabolism and speed up the thyroid, helping with weight loss and ridding the body of excess toxins.  
• (from the Whole Foods website)  Aside from providing a wide range or nutrients, The healing properties of pumpkin seeds have also been recently investigated with respect to arthritis. In animal studies, the addition of pumpkin seeds to the diet has compared favorably with use of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug indomethacin in reducing inflammatory symptoms.