multigrain pancakes

i typically post about things i made from scratch, but every so often i like to share a product review since–let’s face it– we all use mixes sometimes. about a year and a half ago my doctor put me on a sugar free diet. that’s right…no sugar, no honey, no molasses, no sucanat, nothing. okay, except a little bit of fruit (thankfully!!). for someone like me this sounded like a death sentence! some of you out there may be thinking that it isn’t a big deal since there are some great tasting sugar-free alternatives out there, that diabetics and dieters eat these products all the time; unfortunately, as i have found out, my body and artificial sweeteners do not get along. at all.

so, what’s a girl to do? i scoured the internet and shelves of grocery stores and found some great products, surprisingly! a couple of my favorite finds were matthew’s bread and nana’s cookies. in fact, i still buy matthew’s bread now that i am back to eating sugar! even though the majority of the things i share with you are snacks and desserts, breakfast food is my favorite…i eat it morning, noon, and night. i like to make pancakes from scratch, but when it comes to multigrain, it makes more sense for me to start with a mix. i have been using (and loving) maple grove farms pure maple syrup for years, so when i saw that they made an organic multigrain mix that had no sugar in it, i thought i should give it a chance. it is not a “just add water” mix, you still need to add milk, eggs, and oil, so it is more or less a flour blend. now, i obviously could not have any maple syrup, and my favorite blueberry jam– stonewall kitchen wild maine blueberry jam–contained sugar, so i started making my own jam out of fruit, corn starch, lemon juice, and water. it was pretty darn good, but now i am back on the sweet stuff. i did of course discover that they make a no sugar added version, but they use a sugar alcohol to sweeten it, and unfortunately, as i mentioned, that is a no-no for me. i will admit though, after going without sugar for six months, i lost a bit of my sweet tooth, so no dousing with syrup, and no more eating an entire batch of cookies or cake in one sitting (oops).

notice the real blueberries in here…this is good stuff!

pancakes plumped up nice, but something seems to be missing

oh, right. the sugar. (note the gentle pool of syrup, just enough to soak in some flavor)

now they are ready for me to dig in…

yummmmm! look at that multigrainy goodness!