I am so blissfully breakfast full.

Tuesday is my “chill out and sleep in until 8:30” morning, and I decided to extend the luxury of the morning into a gourmet breakfast.

I’m not one to normally make big breakfasts, so this was a treat for me.

As fancy as this might look, it was really quite a practical meal.  Leftover in my fridge I had ricotta cheese, lemons, strawberries and blueberries.  The typical university student fare, right?  Perhaps not… Anyways, you can imagine my excitement when I found a recipe on Canadian Living that used all four of these ingredients.

Now, since I had no desire to be eating these pancakes for the remainder of the week, I cut the recipe in half and tweaked a few things to make up for my lack of raspberries, etc. I also added twice the amount of lemon rind, mostly because I got overly enthusiastic while zesting.  That’s my bad, but I will stick by my guns when I say you can never have too much lemon rind.  Also, I didn’t put blueberries in my pancakes as the original recipe requested.  I’m not a huge blueberry person.  If you are, however, a lover of these petite berries, throw them in. They’ll go nicely with the lemon. (PS: you can find my recipe under the pictures)

The pancakes turned out great.  I drizzled them with some real maple syrup and piled my fork high with pancake and berries.  I am not even ashamed to admit that I ate five (GLUTTONY).  There was actually just the right amount of lemon, and the flavours made me feel like I was sinfully indulging in dessert for breakfast.  Morning calorie splurges are well deserved.

Recipe: Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Fresh Berries
Adapted from Canadian Living
– 3/4 cup all purpose flour
– 1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
– 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
–  1/4 tsp salt
– 1/4 cup smooth ricotta cheese
– 1 egg
– 3/4 cup milk
– 2 tbsp butter, melted
– 2 tsp grated lemon rind

Berry Compote
1/2 cup sliced strawberries
– 1/3 cup blueberries
– 1 tbsp sugar
– 1 tsp lemon juice

Berry Compote: In bowl, combine strawberries, blueberries, sugar and lemon juice. Set aside.

In large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Put the ricotta in a separate small bowl. Whisk in egg, milk, butter and lemon rind. Pour over dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened.

Brush large nonstick skillet with vegetable oil; heat over medium heat. Using a muffin scoop, pour in batter, spreading to form circular pancakes.

Cook until bubbles break on top but do not fill in, about 1-1/2 minutes. Turn and cook until bottom is golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Serve with berry compote and maple syrup.