Les Petits Chefs make lemon ricotta pancakes from Peace Love & Fibre with Mairlyn Smith

Peace Love and Fibre and Mairlyn Smoth on eatlivetravelwrite.comWe were thrilled to welcome Mairlyn Smith back to the school this week to cook from her latest book, Peace, Love & Fibre.

The boys have worked with Mairlyn a few times before – they’ve made butter tarts, Grab n Go cookies, and did a little improv in the kitchen too (did you know Mairlyn is a Second City alum?) and I was so excited that she could fit us into her busy book promotion schedule this year!

About the book:

In her newest cookbook, Mairlyn breaks down exactly what fibre is, and why it is such an important part of a healthy life. In Fibre 101 or How to Get an A+ on Your Colonoscopy, Mairlyn covers all the basics, using her trademark sense of humour and enthusiasm. You’ll learn how fibre positively affects your blood sugar levels and gut health, and how it reduces the risk of certain types of cancer. Then, Mairlyn will teach you exactly how to create a more balanced, fibre-rich diet, without going overboard. Moving into the recipes, you’ll find a mouthwatering assortment of choices for every meal and occasion, with dishes such as Pumpkin Spice Griddle Cakes, Cheddar Cheese Mini Dinner Biscuits, Lentil & Wheat Berry Salad with Strawberries & Mint, Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork, Chicken & Chickpea Curry, and even desserts like Chocolate Fudge Cake!

Each recipe has full nutritional breakdowns and helpful icons to highlight the vegetarian, vegan, lactose-free, and gluten-free dishes. Sprinkled throughout are Mairlyn’s musings on life, love, and everything in between.

Now, you might think that fibre might be a hard sell for a bunch of 10-13 year olds and you’d be partly right. But Mairlyn is wonderful with kids (she used to teach Home Ec herself!) and I knew that whatever we made, she’d make it fun! I hesitated over what to make, knowing it was the second last day of school and mindful of all the other activities happening around this session (including my Grade 6s baking 3 recipes from my cookbook for their end of year French café on the same day…) and finally decided on the Lemon Ricotta Pancakes. Not only are the chock full of fibre (they use barley flour and flax meal) but also protein, from the ricotta so they really are a meal to keep you going – what better thing to teach the boys as they head off to summer vacation than a healthy pancake they can make for the whole family! The pancakes call for berries which I forgot because the ingredients are listed as “Dry” and “Wet” ingredients and the berries fall under neither category so they are listed above these with no “look at me, I’m an ingredient too” marker which this end-of-year teacher brain clearly needed! The boys, however, didn’t care!

We worked in two teams and organised our mise en place impeccably:

Kids measuring milk with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.com Kids whisking wet ingredients for lemon ricotta pancakes working with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.comWet ingredients include: eggs, milk, lemon juice, ricotta, vegetable oil and vanilla.

Kids whisking dry ingredients for lemon ricotta pancakes working with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.comDry ingredients used were: oat flour (we couldn’t find an allergen-free barley flour), flax meal, baking powder, baking soda, lemon zest and sugar.

The boys carefully added the wet ingredients to the dry..

Adding wet to dry ingredients Kids whisking wet ingredients for lemon ricotta pancakes working with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.com(sidebar: bowls with spouts are the best thing ever, especially when you are cooking with kids!)

And we got cooking. Because we were working in small frying pans, we made smaller pancakes than the 10cm size the recipe calls for. Each batch made approx 24 small pancakes (perfect kid-size!) or 16 larger ones per the recipe.

Kids making pancakes working with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.com Making lemon ricotta pancakes working with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.comWe used both flat spatulas and rubber spatulas to help with the flipping…

Learning how to flip working with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.comMairlyn talked us through the technique…

Kids flipping pancakes working with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.comEt voilà!

Because there is only 3 tablespoons of sugar for 16 largeish pancakes (the berries would have made it sweeter), the serving suggestion is 1/4 teaspoon of icing sugar per pancake.

Sprinkling icing sugar on pancakes working with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.comThe boys loved using the sugar shaker!

And at the end of the day, sans berries but loaded with nutrition, most of these didn’t even make it out of the school…

Kids make lemon ricotta pancakes with Mairlyn Smith on eatlivetravelwrite.comThanks Mairlyn for coming out to teach the boys a little bit about fibre and where to find it (imagine – vegetables!) and how much they need a day (31g). They all made the fibre promise to Mairlyn, to eat more fibre-rich foods this summer. This may or may not happen but awareness and education is the start of healthy habits for life. Also, these pancakes were totally delicious (and healthy, so, #winning).

Looking for more of Mairlyn’s smart, tasty recipes?

Peace Love and Fibre cover on eatlivetravelwrite.com

 

 

 

Buy Peace Love & Fibre on Amazon(this link should bring you to the Amazon store closest to you) Or for free worldwide shipping, buy on The Book Depository

 

 

 

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Please note: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post also contains affiliate links from The Book Depository. This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!

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Disclosure: I was sent a review copy of Peace, Love & Fibre by the publishers. I was not asked to write about this book and am not being compensated for writing this post. All opinions are my own.

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