Pureed Fruit Pancakes

It's that time of year when there's lots and lots of apples and pears around, which is a wonderful thing, except when you have too many and not much time to do anything with them. These pancakes are a good way to use up autumn fruit that's just a little past its prime (that is, too mushy for pies or eating plain, but still too good to waste); in this particular case, I had some over-ripe pears and a pretty brown banana on hand, but apples or some combination of those would do just as well. Mix up a batch of these on a chilly fall morning and be ready to face the day!

Pureed Fruit Pancakes
Ingredients
~ 1 cup mashed, over-ripe fruit (I used a banana and 3 pears)
~ 6 oz. plain or vanilla soy yogurt
~ 2 tbsp. canola oil
~ 2 tbsp. pure maple syrup
~ 1 tsp. vanilla extract
~ 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
~ 1 tbsp. baking powder
~ 1 tsp. cinnamon
~ 1/2 tsp. each: ground nutmeg, ginger, salt

Directions
~ Preheat a non-stick baking sheet in a 200 degree fahrenheit oven.
~ In a large bowl, mash the fruit thoroughly; if using apples or pears and you want to leave the skins on, it might be best to do this in the blender.
~ Add the yogurt, oil, maple syrup and vanilla extract and stir to combine.
~ In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt.
~ Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet mixture, stir to combine and set aside.
~ Coat a large skillet (cast iron is perfect) with cooking spray, and place over medium heat.
~ When the skillet is hot but not smoking, pour about a half cup of pancake batter into the center, and smooth out lightly.
~ Cook for about 2-3 minutes, then flip and cook another minute or so. As you finish each pancake, transfer it to the oven to keep warm.
~ Repeat until all the batter is used up; I made eight humongous pancakes from this recipe, but you could easily get a dozen of a more, er, reasonable size.
~ Serve with Earth Balance, maple syrup, and maybe some extra stewed apples and/or pears on the side: it's fall!