Spinach Pancakes: Meat Free Monday

I love this recipe, not just because it tastes nice but also because it makes me feel really healthy! Many people have asked me how I keep up my iron intake as a vegetarian because its most commonly known that you get iron from red meat, but there are plenty of other ways to get iron. I’m not an expert on nutrition but it is shown that by eating iron rich greens (Non-heme irons) such as spinach, broccoli and dark green leaves with a vitamin c rich ingredient then the Iron is absorbed better into the body. In this recipe I have included lemons which are high in vitamin c, so over all this should be an iron rich recipe! It has also been shown that you would have to eat more than 1700 calories of sirloin steak to get the same amount of iron as found in 100 calories of spinach. (please see http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm for more information!). This recipe also includes soya milk – calcium and eggs- protein!

So now to the recipe:

Spinach Pancakes. Makes 8-10 large pancakes

110g Self Raising flour
1 Egg
100ml Soya Milk
100g Spinach
1 Lemon (Juice and zest)
Salt
Chilli flakes
Black Pepper

Mix the flour, beaten egg and soya milk in a jug and whisk together making sure there are no lumps in your mixture. Wilt the spinach and then press out some of the moisture with a paper towel. Finely chop the spinach then add it to the pancake mix with the juice of 1 lemon, 1/2 lemon zest, chilli flakes and some salt and pepper.

Heat a frying pan with some spray oil and using a ladle spoon the mixture into a hot pan. Spread it out as thin as you can (it wont be as thin as a normal pancake) then when it is browned on the bottom flip it over and cook on the other side. This should take a couple of minutes in total.

Pile up on a plate, sprinkle over some parmesan and a squeeze of lemon and tuck in!