MyPlate Sweet Potato Pancakes with Maple Balsamic Mushrooms and a Livliga Twist

Livliga has been honored to be a National Strategic Partner of USDA MyPlate for a number of years now.  The ChooseMyPlate.gov website is an incredibly robust resource available for free to the public. It amazes me how many people are not aware of this.  One of the areas of information is the many healthy recipes available that are also budget-friendly. Every recipe provides the nutritional information as well as the MyPlate Food Groups represented so you can ensure you prepare a healthy, balanced meal. 

We thought we would try out the Sweet Potato Pancakes with Maple Balsamic Mushrooms recipe. Not only is it a budget-friendly recipe, it is also one that is both savory and sweet and can be served either for brunch or dinner. We love upside-down dinners in our family so these pancakes fit the bill.

The pancakes are beautiful to look at and so appealing with the mushrooms layered between each pancake. In execution what I found was that three medium sweet potatoes made the pancakes more like eating smashed sweet potatoes.  I thought I could make the pancakes a little lighter and provide a specific measurement of sweet potato other than “three medium sweet potatoes” described in the current recipe. Depending on what your grocery store offers, three medium sweet potatoes can vary greatly in size. The first time I did this recipe I ended up with over 3 cups of sweet potato, which was way too much. With a little experimentation, I found 1 cup of sweet potato was the right amount to make wonderful pancakes.

The sautéed mushrooms with maple syrup and balsamic vinegar was delicious with the sweet potato pancake. I added a pinch of Gayle’s Herb Salt to the mushroom mixture, which further enhanced the flavor.  With the syrup as the sauce for the mushrooms, there is no need for added syrup or butter that you might add with traditional pancakes.

To complete the meal I added an arugula salad with a few mixed berries and light vinaigrette. The plate was so beautiful to look at and the tastiness of the sweet potato pancakes with the arugula salad was so satisfying. We served our meal up on Livliga’s Celebrate pattern.

This meal seemed festive and special, even though it was so easy to prepare. The whole family thought it would be a great meal to offer up to friends and family for a Sunday brunch in addition to becoming an anytime family favorite.

MyPlate Sweet Potato Pancakes with Maple Balsamic Mushrooms and a Livliga Twist

Ingredients

For Sweet Potato Pancakes:

• 1 cup sweet potato, baked and mashed (about 1 medium sweet potatoes or yams with orange flesh)
• 1 cup non-fat milk
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 
• 1 cup white whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• Cooking spray, as needed 

For Balsamic Maple Mushrooms:

• 1 pound cremini and/or white button mushrooms, quartered 
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 pinches of Gayle’s Salts (or 1 pinch of Herbes de Provence and 1 pinch Kosher salt)
• ⅓  cup maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 

Directions 

1. Bake or microwave sweet potato until soft; let cool. Peel and mash potato, using an electric mixer. Measure 1 cup.
2. Add milk, egg, and vegetable oil to potato; mix. Sift together dry ingredients and add to potato mixture. Mix on low until just blended. 
3. Heat non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat; coat skillet with cooking spray.
4. Use ¼  cup of batter per pancake (LivSpoons are handy for this), ladling into hot skillet. Wait until pancake bubbles and looks slightly dry on top before flipping over.
5. While pancakes are cooking, heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in another skillet (preferably cast-iron) over medium flame.
6. Add quartered mushrooms and toss  to coat with oil and add Gayle’s Salts . Let simmer, stirring occasionally, until juices run. 
7. Add maple syrup and balsamic vinegar to pan and stir until mixed. Let simmer until sauce reduces and thickens.
8. To serve, use 3 pancakes and ¼ of the mushroom mixture. Place one pancake on a plate then alternate with balsamic maple mushrooms as you stack the pancakes. Leave a few mushrooms and some of the syrup mixture to top off each stack.

Nutritional Information:
Serves: 4. Serving size: 3 pancakes with ¼ of the mushroom mixture. Calories: 342. Total Fat 8.9g; Saturated Fat 1.4g; Sodium 725mg; Total Carbohydrate 57.5g; Dietary Fiber 4.7g; Total Sugars 24.5g; Protein 11.3g.



#StartSimpleWithMyPlate #MyPlate #ChooseMyPlate #MyPlateRecipe #HealthyEating #HealthyRecipe #Vegetarian