Happy St. Patrick's Day Pancakes

As you can see, we are celebrating with green pancakes. I loved doing stuff like this as a kid, and my eldest little boy thought these were the coolest thing ever.

Here is the recipe I used, inspired by the original pancake recipe from The Joy of Cooking.

First, make the soy buttermilk. Combine 1 1/2 cups soy milk with about 1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar. Stir and set aside to thicken.

Mix together in a large bowl:
2 cups flour (1 cup whole wheat, 1 cup all purpose)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tablespoons sugar (you can leave this out if you don't want your pancakes to be so sweet)

In another bowl, mix well:
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 tablespoon flax seed mixed with 1/4 cup very hot to boiling water
3 tablespoons canola, or other mild oil
1 tsp vanilla
soy buttermilk you just made
up to 1 tsp green food coloring--depends on how green you want your pancakes =)
2/3 cup water

Heat either a well seasoned cast iron skillet or a heavy bottomed nonstick skillet over medium heat. You will know that the pan is ready to use when water sprinkled on the pan dances across the surface. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet. Stir until just combined, taking care not to over stir. At this time, if the batter seems too thick, add a little extra water. (Alternatively, use your first pancake, what we call a "test" pancake in my house, to determine if your batter is so thick that it isn't raising well or cooking through before getting too dark on bottom.) Spray hot pan lightly with oil. Drop 1/4 cup of batter into pan. You can cook multiple pancakes at a time if you skillet is large enough, but don't crowd the pan or nothing will cook well. When bubbles begin to rise to the surface around the edges of the pancake, flip. When you can no longer see raw batter around the edges of the pancake and it is fluffy in the center, it is done.
Serve with maple syrup, or, as we did, with apple butter. You can freeze the leftovers to toast later.