3-Ingredient Collagen Pancakes to Keep Your Pants Fitting this Holiday Season

I don't know about you, but I'm planning to eat a lot of things over the next few days. 

And in the spirit of this week's blogging theme of not being so black & white about food and fitness, I'm gonna tell you about a pancake recipe that you can make over the holidays to help balance things out after noshing on all the things. 

Our wedding is 3 months away—yikes! Since I've had 3 wedding dress fails at this point, I need to get my fit shit together and try to prevent myself from "carrying a little holiday weight" a la Ross Geller. I just can't risk one more dress not working out. Even Bride-chilla has a breaking point, you know?

Joe's family has a Christmas Eve tradition of a crab and spaghetti dinner. They've been doing it for decades, apparently. This will only be my second year, but I consider it a total bonus to marrying him. Needless to say, I don't plan to hold anything back during this dinner and am choosing to balance out my food consumption with other meals. 

So you may have heard of 2-ingredient pancakes, which consist of an egg and some smashed up banana. If you're not familiar, the the egg and banana combine nicely and cook into a pretty fluffy pancake. It's a great gluten-free and/or calorie-conscious option for people who love flapjacks. 

You may have also heard of 3-ingredient pancakes where you take an egg, smashed banana, and almond flour or protein powder and mix those together. The result is similar to the 2-ingredient pancakes, but a little more filling. 

The pancakes I've been making recently are more like the 3-ingredient pancakes, but with my own special spin. They're actually more like 3-and-a-half-ingredient pancakes since I like to add a couple extra little things, but I didn't have room for that in the title of this post. 

Here's what I've been whipping into my hotcakes in attempt to keep myself hot:

• 1 egg
• Half a banana, smashed
• A tiny drizzle of unsweetened almond milk 
• A spoonful of collagen powder
• A pinch of salt
• Ghee and/or this monk fruit maple syrup from Lakanto to go on top

Okay, so I guess that's 6 ingredients. Sue me. 

The directions are really very simple. You just whisk everything together and pour it onto a pan or griddle in whatever size pancakes you please. I like to use coconut oil or avocado oil spray on the pan to prevent sticking. Coconut and avocado oils have a higher smoke point than olive and canola oil, so they're better for cooking. 

Sometimes I also like to add in a little bit of fiber powder or vanilla pea protein powder. You can do whatever you want with this, really. The point is that you're not as dependent on Bisquick as you thought. 

This recipe makes only one serving. I usually cook the pancakes just for myself because Joe is an alien who doesn't need to eat until like 11:00am. He doesn't drink coffee either. I know. 

Why collagen?

Well, it's very trendy right now, but also it supports your bones and joints and makes your skin and hair stronger and more elastic. When we're young, we have lots of collagen in our skin and as we age, it diminishes, and that lack of elasticity is part of what causes wrinkles and sagging skin. 

Oh, and collagen is made from beef, so....sorry, vegans. 

I've also been putting collagen in my coffee. It has a little bit of an odd taste, but I can't taste it in the magical lattes I've been concocting. I tried putting it in some Kite Hill non-dairy yogurt the other day, and I could taste it. The flavor is totally masked in the pancakes, though, so you're good to go there. I guess Gwyneth Paltrow likes to put it in martinis, and I mean......I don't really know what to say about that. 

Okay holiday chickens, this is probably the last post you'll see from me until next week, but since I'm on stay-cation mode now, you really never know! 

It's time for me to go buy a couple last-minute items that I tried my damnedest to avoid by ordering everything from Amazon. What can you do?

This holiday season, drink up, sleep in, smoke out, stay up, sit back, curl up, and speak out [about sexual harassment]. Ho ho ho, no means no! 

Peace out, nerds.