Gluten-free, Dairy-free Banana Pancakes

The other day I had a bunch of ripe bananas staring at me, daring me to consider using them in a new and different way. Banana bread is my usual go-to when I have bananas that need to be used up. I decided that pancakes are usually a pretty easy route to take in general and that I could create a naturally-sweetened pancake with the ripe bananas. Oatmeal has a way of efficiently filling people up as well as being healthy, so that ingredient joined the running in this recipe. Upon tasting the results, I was given a thumbs-up from everyone in my family and have another batch ready to go for this week! Think banana-bread flavor, but with less work and fewer ingredients!

Ingredients:

2 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1/2 c. rolled oats
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
dash of salt
butter (optional)
nuts, such as chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Cook on skillet, griddle, or frying pan on stovetop.

For this recipe, you're going to want to use "just ripe" bananas. If the bananas you have are still fully yellow, they probably won't be quite sweet enough to make this recipe taste as good as it can. If your bananas are too ripe, it can mess up the dry/liquid ratio due to the bananas being too liquidy. So, when your bananas look freckled, it's the perfect time to incorporate them in this recipe:

All you need to do is place all the ingredients into a blender:

When you're ready, go ahead and blend everything up until (except for any nuts; add those after it's blended) it's a nice, smooth consistency.

Depending on how many pancakes you want to make, this recipe can easily be doubled, tripled, and so on. If you decide to make a smaller batch, you can pour the batter directly from your blender and onto the hot skillet to decrease the number of dishes you will have to clean up after the fact. **But wait!** Before you enthusiastically pour this batter onto your griddle, you're going to want to let it sit for 15-20 minutes so that the batter has a chance to thicken up and be less runny.

If you're making a larger batch of these pancakes (I'm tripling the recipe tonight), go ahead and pour the batter into a larger bowl and continue to add new batches to it until you have enough to feed your crew.

After allowing the batter to rest and thicken up for the above-mentioned time, you're ready to cook them up! Be sure your griddle or skillet is nice and warm. Because I love butter, I put a pat of it on my griddle between every batch. It provides that warm, buttery banana bread taste that I love! But you don't have to use it. Pour the batter onto the preheated griddle and allow the pancakes to cook until they appear slightly dry at the edges  and small bubbles form on the surface. At that point, it's time to flip them and cook the other side. Once they have cooked long enough that they are no longer squishy in the middle, go ahead and set them aside on a plate or serve them up to hungry family members. As with most pancakes, these taste great with maple syrup on top, however, they are sweet enough on their own that they don't necessarily require any extra help. Enjoy!