A joy of my small ordinary life is when I’m able to develop myself or I find somewhere a recipe that is as delicious as the old one that I’ve made already but a healthier version of it.
Here’s one!
Spinach pancakes our family eats about once a month. We like them, a lot.
I used to use white wheat flour and cow’s milk in spinach pancakes. Once I replaced wheat flour with spelt flour and cow’s milk with oat milk. The result surprised me very positively!
Our youngest one’s words told it all when she came to taste these new kind of spinach pancakes “Mom, these are not different, these taste exactly the same as the old ones!”
(A cook inside me danced when I heard that.)
Recipe for Healthier Spinach Pancakes
For 4 person
- 2 eggs
- 5 dl / 2,1 cup oat milk (or cow’s milk)
- 5 dl / 2,1 cup spelt flour (or white wheat flour. Also wholegrain wheat flour works fine and is healthier than white one.)
- 150-200 g spinach
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 tsp salt
- (A little bit of sugar)
Butter / oil for frying.
I use real butter simply because it gives a delicious flavor to pancakes and I’m ready to “suffer” the health disbenefits for that.
The dough you make just by mixing all ingredients. Let the dough swell a while (about 10 minutes) before you start frying the pancakes.
So oat milk was one healthier thing here. Compared to animal fat vegetable fat is simply better for your blood vessels and heart. The other healthier thing was spelt. A few more words about that.
Spelt – High Protein, Low Gluten
“Spelt was an important staple in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times; it now survives as a relict crop in Central Europe and northern Spain and has found a new market as a health food.”
You can read more about the history of spelt grain from Wikipedia.
Over the centuries, spelt fell out of favor as a crop, but now it is becoming more fashionable and recognized for its healthy properties: high protein, lower gluten. This “boom” on the other hand has meant that more and more Finnish farmers have started to grow spelt again.
“When we talk about Finnish spelt, we tell people about the Midnight Sun and pure soil,and I think buyers really respect these points. Buyers really value the clean environment, and a naturally low instance of bugs and plant diseases thanks to our northern latitudes; as well as the high Finnish food production standards ensuring quality and safety at every step of the process.”
Farm Birkkala is one of the biggest Finnish spelt product company. You can buy some of the Birkkala’s spelt products from Amazon.
Spinach itself is naturally healthy too and that’s why our family likes to eat it. If you are not a fan of pancakes, here’s another spinach recipe of mine –Spinach-Fruit Smoothie. From that story you find also information about the health benefits of green leafy vegetables.
We grow and freeze spinach by ourselves, but you can very well buy it from the grocery. I also buy fresh spinach on sandwiches during the wintertime.
While I was making pancakes I set the table ready and did some stretching. I also started to prepare traditional Finnish lingonberry whipped porridge “Vispipuuro” for the evening. Both children and adults like it too in our family.
No fancy serving tonight. The main thing was that we were able to get some food for the table after daycare, school and workday.
We like to eat spinach pancakes with berries -blue berries this time- or with homemade apple sauce.
Grandma gave us some beans so I boiled them and we enjoyed them too with a little bit of butter. Yummy!
And the white thing on the table? Well, that’s raejuusto (cottage cheese) – a very Finnish thing. More about that some other time!
Here you find other SaimaaLife pancake recipes:
