this post is sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill. thank you for supporting the partnerships that allow brewing happiness to grow and exist. xoxo.

My phone is full of notes – mostly recipe ideas, some poetry dabbled here and there, and occasionally a little nonsense. Here are some examples…

• “baked apples w/ caramel date sauce or possibly drizzle with something” (lol) Not quite English.
• “Do not let your body be bullied. By expectations. By society. By your own mind.”
• “therapy. true crime. relationships. adventure.” WHAT?

This recipe was born in the same way, through a quickly scribbled note as I was sitting in a cafe with my family in Spain. I tried something very similar to this recipe, and I knew immediately I had to figure out how to make it at home. So when Bob’s Red Mill asked me what recipe I wanted to develop, I knew the answer very quickly.

I really love lemon in my sweets – it just cuts through the sugar with it’s bright and bitter flavor. So when complimented with the creaminess of ricotta, the healthy-ish factor of chia seeds and whole-wheat flour, and a drizzle of maple syrup – you end up with the perfect pancake bite. (Do I see brunch or breakfast in bed in your future???)

*COUGH COUGH* Valentines Day is coming up. 

More recipes like this: Health-ified Lemon Cream & Berries Waffles (vegan!) + Baked Donut Holes with Lemon Cream + Lemon and Berry Chia Seed Pudding

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Whole-Wheat Lemon Chia Ricotta Pancakes

These Whole-Wheat Lemon Chia Ricotta Pancakes stuffed with lemon, chia seeds and ricotta are the perfect healthyish brunch or breakfast in bed!

Course Breakfast, Mornin' Eats

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 2 -4

Author Brewing Happiness

Ingredients

• 1 cup Bob's Red Mill Organic Whole-Wheat Flour
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 lemon, zested
• 1 cup non dairy milk
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
• 1/2 cup whole-milk ricotta

Top with:

• raspberries
• ricotta
• maple syrup

Instructions

1. In a large bowl add your Bob's Red Mill Organic Whole-Wheat Flour, chia seeds, baking powder, baking soda, and lemon zest. Mix until combined. 

2. Add in non dairy milk, lemon juice, vanilla extract, egg, and coconut oil. Stir or whisk until well combined. 

3. Gently fold in your ricotta. 

4. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Coat with oil (I used coconut oil). Use 1/4 cup measurement to scoop batter onto your skillet. Smooth into a circle with the back of the measuring cup. Let cook for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until nice and golden brown. 

5. Top with raspberries, ricotta and maple syrup.

6. EAT UP. 

Let’s talk about the art of making friends as an adult. It’s really hard. And most of the time pretty lonely.

When I first moved to Atlanta, the only person I really knew there was my sister. And two years later, when I left the city I had really only gained two new friends.

I tried many ways to make new friends. I tried Bumble BFF (like online dating for friends) and just found a group of girls with “yoga, brunch, my dog, wine and the Bachelorette” as their interests. No thanks. I tried reaching out to bloggers (sometimes that worked). I tried meeting the people in my building. I tried meeting people at my dance studio. I tried.

But there’s a difference in friends and friends. 

I met my friend Brittni of Paper & Stitch by forcing her into having a “blogger lunch” with me and then making the official decision that we were gonna be friends. Luckily she liked me enough in return to throw an event with me, and later became one of my favorite people to laugh-so-hard-you-cry-during-lunch-in-public with.

The only other friend I made in Atlanta was set up by our sisters. They took us on a weird sister double date, because they worked together and were convinced we’d be friends. They were right. Julia is one of my soul sisters. We got spontaneous tattoos together, bonded over vintage clothes and flowers, and later I got to watch her fall in love and get married to the man of her dreams.

I got pretty lucky with the quality of those friends in Atlanta, but I will say that quantity was missing. So I knew that when making the move from Atlanta to Brooklyn, I’d have to make adult friendship more of a priority if I was going to flourish. So I developed a new strategy.

Fortunately for me, I moved to NYC with my best friend, so I already had a support system in place. Which is incredibly helpful for my personality. (I’m pretty introverted until I become comfortable with you, and then my extroversion comes out.)

Being an ambivert, as well as a person who’s largest love language is quality time (aka. if I don’t hang out with you a lot, I find it hard to connect) presents it’s challenges in making new friends. It usually takes me time to warm up. But I knew that if I was going to feel comfortable in this city quickly, I had to challenge myself on that.

So here is what I learned about making friends as an adult…

1. You have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. You have to go to that party that makes you anxious. You have to talk to those strangers. You have to put yourself in the world in order to connect. There is no other way.
2. You must get vulnerable. Quickly. I find that we have WAY more common ground with the people around us than we imagine we do. We just have to let ourselves go there. And I’ve found that if you initiate the deeper conversations, you are almost never disappointed. Go deep. Trust that the good ones will dive in with you. It’s a good litmus test.
3. Be a good host. The more you welcome people into your home, the more they feel safe there. Feed them food (’cause food is love). Make them Whole-Wheat Lemon Chia Ricotta Pancakes. Brunch is important for bonding.
4. Provide a safe place. The thing that I have found most true (especially about adult millennials in this world) is that we all just want to feel at home. We want to feel safe. So my best advice is to be a home for someone else’s heart. As much as you can. Open your home and your heart and let people feel free to be themselves and come and go as they please. This is the best way to make friends quickly.

These rules aren’t perfect, and I’m still working on refining these skills in myself. (Vulnerability is hard.) But I will say that I have already found a beautiful group of people in this city who feel like a home to me. I am very fortunate.

If you are an adult millennial just searching for a heart-home kind of friendship, I wish you the same fortune. Take risks. Attempt to be vulnerable. Be a home for others and in return, you just might gain shelter for your own heart.

And most importantly, feed them pancakes. xo.