Oh man… it’s been a while since I’ve done this. As with many new obsessions, it’s easy to explode out of the gate only to lose the race down the road. My last post was before Christmas and originally I guess I made the excuse that the holidays got the better of me. For several weeks I was perfecting a gingersnap bark recipe that would be perfect for packing into Christmas tins. Obviously I didn’t get that done, but I’ll look on the bright side – I now have another 7 months until Christmas to get the recipe just right!

I still cook all of the time. I still plate and photograph my food. I import the recipes into myfitnesspal’s recipe builder to get nutritional information. You’d think with this much work out of the way that it would be pretty easy to write something up to share with the few people that check my little ol’ blog. Unfortunately it’s all of this stuff (imagine me gesturing at these words on my monitor) that doesn’t come so easily to me. A lot of bloggers have a way of effortlessly weaving stories into their recipe posts. They talk about remembering the smells of their grandmother’s kitchen as she baked dinner rolls. Maybe they recall their recent visit to the farmers market where they found beautiful fresh cut sunflowers and the first perfect strawberries of the season. You see, I don’t have these types of stories to share with readers. I’m just a gal that cooks and eats. Ever so often I cook (and eat) something that really stands out, in this case enough to make me… could it be? Write a blog post about it??

Inspiration struck me one morning when my sweet tooth demanded pancakes… more specifically the oatmeal “Cory cakes” available at the Dallas coffee shop Legal Grounds. They make them with oatmeal, which lends a slightly nutty flavor and subtle texture to the cakes. They are delicious. In addition to that craving I realized that oatmeal pancakes always seem to call for rolled oats, but I’m a steel cut oats kind of gal. Add in the overripe bananas I had sitting on my counter and you have all of the ingredients (HAHA INGREDIENTS! FOOD PUN!) for the sort of cooking experimentation that I love.

Well here it is folks – the pancakes that reawakened the dormant food blogger within me. My maple muse. When I first made these they were such a big hit that I made them again a few days later. Then I made them yet again this morning, this time opting to try out my vegan substitutions just to ensure the quality didn’t suffer in the process. That first photo up there is of the vegan version by the way – I guarantee you nobody would know it either. The original version (shown in the other two photos) was made with a small amount of sour cream. If you find yourself with time to make a special weekend breakfast, I highly recommend giving these a try. They are some of the best pancakes I’ve ever made!