Waffle Wednesday (and a cat-nap)

Waffles. Jack and I love breakfast, and these are one of our favorite “breakfast foods”, so several years ago we declared every Wednesday to be (ta da!) Waffle Wednesday ! It takes very little to amuse us…

Anyway, since we both work from home it’s not a big deal to make a breakfast that is slightly more complicated than a bowl of cereal or defrosting muffins.. I would go through the preparation while Jack was in his office, then I would call him in to the kitchen.

For the past 5 weeks, it has not been that way.

Aware of our Waffle Schedule, my friend Jenni brought us enough waffles for the first few weeks after I broke my ankle. She made a multi-grain waffle recipe from Eating Well, then wrapped them individually and froze. Now these were excellent waffles. I didn’t realize that they could be frozen, reheated, and then still taste great. Alas, these were soon gone. As soon as I can get around the kitchen better I plan to make these repeatedly.

Today I had planned to make a pumpkin waffle recipe. In order to streamline the time it would take to prepare them in the morning I was going to mix the dry ingredients while Jack cleaned up the dinner dishes last evening. Unfortunately, when he went to the basement shelves to find a can of pumpkin, there was none.

I am also out of the pancake/waffle mix which I make in large quantities from a Mollie Katzen recipe.

And so we were left with a store-bought buttermilk pancake/waffle mix. Not bad, but not as healthy as we would like. I added some oat bran, a bit of baking powder & soda, cinnamon, cornstarch (my secret ingredient for making light waffles) and plain yogurt to bump up the nutrition quotient. The result was a nice crisp waffle, relatively low in fat (for a waffle!) with a bit of fiber. Not bad at all for a mix!

Um, a very plain waffle photo... Jack wanted to place a grape in each of the recesses!

Add-To-The-Mix Waffles

1 ¼ cups buttermilk pancake/waffle mix

⅓ cup oat bran

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon cornstarch

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Mix in a medium bowl.

Into a one-cup measure, spoon ⅓ cup plain fat-free yogurt. Add water to the ¾ cup mark. Mix well, then add more water to the one cup mark. Add 1 tablespoon vegetable oil.

Pour the water mixture into the dry ingredients, stirring slowly with a whisk. You may need more water. Now, here is the tricky part. The oat bran, as it sits, will absorb moisture so you need to make a rather thin batter. Not watery, but thin. Mix just until ingredients are combined and allow to sit for 5 minutes to thicken. Check and add a little more water if necessary, only (gently!) stirring enough to incorporate. Allow the batter to rest for another 5 minutes while the waffle iron heats up. You can’t hurry this 10 minutes’ worth of resting or there will be little crunchy bits of oat bran in your waffle!

Hopefully, you have made waffles before and know the consistency which the batter needs to be in. It will be slightly thinner than pancake batter but not at all runny.

This recipe makes 3 Belgian-style waffles.

Spooky, for a probably-around-12-year-old cat, is quite active. He has also had to adjust to my immobility since I was the one who would play with him and, yes you are reading this correctly, take him for walks. Having to take care of the house and meals, Jack simply doesn’t have the time. So I have put together some interactive toys for him which I can use from a seated position. His favorite seems to be a long thin dowel on to which I have attached a plastic handle with a bunch of feathers at the end. Or, rather, there were a bunch of feathers at the end. It’s currently down to two, and Jack will have to pick up a replacement feather-toy when he goes out grocery-shopping tomorrow.

So Spooky has had to increase his nap time. This is probably not too difficult for him. :)

He is stretched out behind me, on a pad on the living room radiator. I can’t resist ending this post with a cute “cat sleeping” photo.