What's New? And the simplest EVER pancake recipe!

We are one week into 2013, and I've already been busy making discoveries in the kitchen and gym. The thing with incorporating health and fitness behaviours into your routine, is that you make yourself a lot of lists and schedules to focus you and remind you to stay on track, and it takes away some of the pressure of having to make conscious health/fitness decisions on a daily basis. This is a good thing, but I always find that despite organising myself pretty thoroughly, my routine will inevitably evolve, new habits (mostly-healthy) will be introduced, and older ones that are nonetheless healthy fall by the wayside. If you read something or learn something about yourself that you like, it will be repeated whenever possible, kicking out the old stuff and producing a routine evolution. Here are some recent evolutions for me, in the last week alone:

- I started the Plank-A-Day challenge, where a plank is held (from the elbows, for me) for as long as possible. The goal each day is to beat yesterday's time. My day 1 (3rd Jan) was 2 minute 10 seconds, but 5 days on and I hit 3 minutes 20 seconds this morning!

- One of the last Elf 4 Health challenges was to find out how fast you can run a mile. I had no idea what to expect of my time, but I got a mile down in 7 minutes 25 seconds. I have provisionally decided to check my 'fastest mile' time on a monthly basis to see how my pace is improving! I want to run more 10K races this year (with the hope of raising more for charities) and I also want a sub 45 minute time in there, given my 50-51minute time at last year's Race for Life



- I learnt how to make heart shaped eggs! My friend Leila explained to me how she often zapped an egg in the microwave to then add to her sandwich with any other fillings she like. Now, I got some super cute heart shaped ramekins for Christmas, that I have used to scramble eggs in (one at a time or it gets messy) I end up with 2 heart eggs to cram into a whole wheat pita bread with salad, for a great healthy and filling lunch.

- I made 'The Vegan Chickpea' Sunshine Burgers. I think sunshine burgers are a brand of American veggie burgers (?) but the homemade version incorporates store cupboard staples into a non-soggy veggie burger that bakes in the oven, doesn't ask for breadcrumbs, eggs, oil or cheese to bind, freezes excellently and reheats in the microwave perfectly! I made a double batch, enough for 3 two burger servings. I've never had much success before with meat-free burgers but I can see them becoming a go-to recipe that I can make in a high volume, freeze and reheat.

 
- I made pancakes! I'm so much a porridge (or oatmeal to US readers) girl, especially when I need warming up in the morning, but I was craving pancakes thanks to about a billion bloggers (Kiss my Broccoli, Kylie and Bex especially) so I HAD to make some of my own. I can't remember exactly where this recipe came from as it is nothing like those of the blogs that inspired me (perhaps you've stumbled across this winner before and can remind me?) My recipe used essentially 2 ingredients, but were fully prepared with 4 ingredients. I'll stick the recipe at the bottom of this post.

- I joined twitter! I blog for my business and now I have the bug/the hang of it, I wanted to start tweeting for myself and my blog. It's @HanDoesHealthy if you wanted to follow me, and I'll more than likely follow you back :-)

So there you go, some recent 'evolutions'! Do you find the same thing happening with your routine? What changes has your life seen in 2013 already?

Catch you again,

Hannah xx

P.S. Here's the pancake recipe (if you can call it that, it's so blooming simple!)

Ingredients (single serving)

2 medium eggs (free range and/organic if you can)
1 small banana (the ripest in your fruit bowl)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1 tbsp coconut oil (or any oil/spray you like to cook with)

Make it:

Mash the banana and and whisk the egg until frothy, then incorporate the two with the vanilla if using. I actually just bunged all the batter ingredients in a protein shaker and blitzed with my immersion blender.

Heat your oil in a frying pan (medium-high) then add a third of the batter. Flip it when you can see that the topside of the pancake has firmed up. I was impatient and flipped the first 2 too soon causing the batter to splurge a little...doh! Repeat until you have 3 pancakes.

You can also top these with any extra fruits/nuts,/seeds/nut butters/sauces you fancy. I was in a rush and had them just as they are - they were still delicious and their high protein content really kept me going.

Enjoy!