Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes and Banana-Orange Maple Compote

I love making breakfast. I also love going out for breakfast. I was really hungry, after church and we had decided to treat ourselves to breakfast at our favorite place. Alas, the place was packed full and I couldn't wait. On the way home, I started to think "oatmeal". I have this uncanny way of remembering a recipe that I wanted to make that could date back a year or more. Just like that, I recalled Rachael Ray's Oatmeal Cookie pancake recipe that I had printed into my "To Try" cookbook binder at least two years ago.

Poor Rachael Ray. She really endures a lot of criticism for her over-the-top chatting and "Rachaelisms". I still enjoy making her recipes at times when I'm very hungry and very tired. Her dishes are fast, made with ingredients I usually have on hand, and are usually very good.
Rachael did not disappoint me with this recipe. Breakfast was on the table in 30 minutes, whoo-hoo.

The dry ingredients consisted of flour, old-fashioned oats (a pantry staple) baking soda, baking powder and brown sugar:


The wet ingredients consisted of sour cream, milk, eggs, melted butter (I forgot to add and they turned out fine) and vanilla.

I opted NOT to add the banana to the pancake mixture. Somehow, it didn't seem quite right, since I never add bananas to my oatmeal cookies! Instead, I thought I'd make a banana, orange, maple syrup compote. It's good thing that I made that decision, because I was running low on maple syrup!

Here comes one of my Foodie Purist moments-- I do NOT buy or use pancake syrup. I avoid high fructose corn syrup whenever possible-- and that's why I love Trader Joe's so much! I recalled a recipe from Food Network years back for a banana compote.

These are dense pancakes, so I prepared by brushing it with oil and then some butter, for flavor.
I kept the heat on a medium to low temperature, and allowed these to cook for about 2-3 minutes per side.

The compote and pancake recipe got two thumbs up from my husband and me. My son gave it a thumbs down-- but he's a pancake syrup purist. He still pouts over my boycott of Log Cabin syrup, and he doesn't like raisins. I smiled when I saw how he had picked out the raisins and piled them off to the side of his plate. Kids. Well, he's 20, but he's still my kid.

Personally, I tried the compote and then just the maple syrup and I liked them both ways.
You decide! Just to be safe, I'd better stock up on more maple syrup, the next time I head to Trader Joe's. I'm so thankful to have TWO TJ's to shop at!