Light, Airy, Crispy Bacon Waffles (Best. Waffles. Ever.)
Posted: December 15, 2013 Filed under: Breads, Breakfast Foods, Pork | Tags: almond milk, bacon, baking powder, Better Homes and Gardens, eggs, flour, light, milk, Oh Boy! Waffles, olive oil, salt, waffles 2 Comments
(Becky, the Mama.)
If there was one dish I loved more than any other as a child, it would be my mother’s homemade waffles. Life was good when that enormous waffle iron was plugged in and heating up. She used a recipe for “Oh Boy!” Waffles from her stained, yellowed, old copy of her red and white checked Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. I asked for them for my birthday and every special occasion I could find or make up.
I’ve tried dozens of other waffle recipes, and none compares to this very old standard. Today I substituted almond milk for a little more than half of the diary milk and used a light olive oil in place of the vegetable oil in the original recipe.
Insert me high five-ing myself right here. No kidding. The BEST WAFFLES I’VE HAD IN MY LIFE. Period.
Light as air, crispy…. Simply perfect. To me there is nothing worse than a heavy waffle, the kind where, if you take one bite you feel like you already ate the whole waffle and need to go lie down. If you, like me, prefer an airy, tender waffle, brown and crisp on the outside, a waffle that leaves you perfectly, lightly satisfied instead of feeling like you swallowed a ball of dough, prepare to fall in love.
We also love bacon with waffles, and I’ve found that cutting the bacon up before browning (I use kitchen shears) and then stacking the pieces atop the waffle to serve not only looks pretty, but allows you to easily get a little bite of bacon with each bite of waffle. Plus you get a little syrup (we indulge in pure maple syrup and close our eyes at the price), on the bacon: maple and bacon together make a very happy coupling in your mouth.
Airy, Crispy, Bacon Waffles
Make 5-6 Round Belgian Waffles
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I always give the flour in my canister a little stir, then lightly put the flour into the measuring cup, leveling off)
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups almond milk (I used 30 calorie per cup brand)
1 c. dairy milk (I used 1 percent)
3/4 cup light olive oil (plus oil for waffle iron)
8 slices bacon, cut in 1/3’s, cooked crisp and drained
Directions:
Heat waffle iron to your desired temperature, putting a little olive oil on the bottom iron, closing the lid to let it distribute well and let the oil get hot. (I always use the Dark setting to get them extra crisp)
In a large mixing bowl, whisk the flour baking powder salt and sugar together. Make an indention in the middle of the dry ingredients and put eggs, almond and dairy milks and olive oil in the indention. Whisk the wet ingredients in the middle of the bowl and graduation pull in the dry ingredients around the sides until thoroughly whisked. Batter will be loose, and you make think it is a bit on the then side. Also as it sits it will begin to rise a bit in the bowl.
Using a long-handled measuring cup, put about 3/4 cup batter into hot iron. Cook to desired crispness.
Put waffle on a plate and pile up the bacon pieces in the middle, like a little bacon haystack.
Add butter and syrup and enjoy a little bite of bacon with every piece of waffle… (I also like a little squeeze of fresh orange atop my waffle, for a bright citrus taste.)
Leftovers: Since this recipe makes quite a bit of batter you can use leftovers in two ways: 1) go ahead and make more waffles, on the light side, put them in ziploc bags and refridgerate or freeze. When ready to heat, put them on a cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees until re-crisped and golden. 2) Save leftover batter in Tupperware container in fridge. Just before making waffles, add another 1/2 t. baking powder to batter to help revive the “lightness” and cook as above. This is my favorite method.
Green Chili Huevos Rancheros (with Perfect Poached Eggs)
Posted: February 22, 2013 Filed under: Breakfast Foods, Gluten Free, Main Dishes, Mexican Dishes, Pork, Uncategorized, Vegetarian | Tags: corn tortillas, eggs, green chili, huevos rancheros, Julie and Julia, perfect poached eggs, poached eggs, pork, refried beans, salsa Leave a comment
“I thought eggs were going to be greasy and slimy, but it tastes like cheese sauce. Yum.” Julie Powell, “Julie and Julia”
(Becky, the Mama.)
The short list of foods my husband Greg can cook are: hamburger patties, grilled cheese sandwiches and pancakes. So it may come as a surprise to you, as it did to me, that Greg is the one who taught me to poach a perfect egg. His mother taught him as boy, and he taught me as a newlywed, and I have to say that when I cooked one correctly: whites firm, yolk thick but still with plenty of liquid gold, it was something of a revelation.
I’ve never been a fan of eggs. And I have no clue why poaching an egg in boiling water, rather than scrambling, boiling or frying (without benefit of bacon fat or butter!) transforms the lowly egg into something exquisite, but it does. To Julie Powell it tasted like cheese sauce; to me, with a tiny sprinkle of sea salt, a poached egg tastes like melted butter.
Last week I had a little left-over homemade green pork chili, along with some left-over homemade refried beans, and decided to make Huevos Rancheros. It was so good, hitting all the right flavor notes, I proceeded to have it every day for breakfast and lunch for the next three days. There was just something comforting and delicious about the combination of the flavors of warm corn, earthy beans and tangy green chilis topped with one perfect, buttery poached egg. Where had this dish been all my life? And why had I not made it before?
Green Chili Huevos Rancheros
Serves 1 or 2, depending on how hungry you are!
Ingredients:
2 large eggs
2 t. vinegar
Sea salt & pepper
Water – to fill about 2 inches depth in a small skillet
2 corn tortillas
½ cup refried beans, warmed
½ cup *pork green chili, warmed. Or if you prefer, any kind of salsa you like
Optional: garnish with slice of fresh jalepano
Directions:
Fill a small skillet 2/3 full with hot water. Add 2 t. white vinegar. Bring to boil. Carefully crack at egg into a small heat-proof bowl. Slip it carefully into the boiling water. Repeat with other egg.
Some of the white will float away, like foamy clouds. That’s okay. You can capture them later with a slotted spoon and eat them or ignore then and toss them away with the “bath water.” Cook about a minute, but this is not an exact time. (I like to cover the pan with a lid for a few seconds to insure a film forms over the yolks.)
When you see the whites are firm and yolk is still soft and gooey, remove carefully with a slotted spoon and let drain on a couple of folded paper towels. Sprinkle them with a little sea salt and pepper while still hot.
Wrap corn tortillas in a damp paper towel and microwave about 15 seconds until they are hot and soft. Immediately put them on a plate and put ¼ cup warm refried beans on each tortilla and spread just to edges. Next, carefully set a poached egg on top. Finally ladle all with ½ cup of warm green pork chili or salsa. Garnish with slice of fresh jalepano if desired.
*You can find green chili of all varieties in the Hispanic food aisle of most grocery stores. I made my own quick green pork chili by blending 1 cup chicken broth with ¼ cup mild canned green chilis and 1 clove garlic in a blender. Then I mixed 1 1/2 T. flour with 1 T. olive oil and 2 t. butter until it made a smooth paste in a hot skillet. Then I slowly added the contents of the blender plus another cup chicken broth and ¼ cup more green chilis – whisking all the while until it was a desired thickness. (You can add more broth if needed. It should be the consistency of a good stew broth.) Finally I added about 2/3 cup of cubed leftover pork loin, a pinch of sugar (to balance tang of green chilis), then seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. You can use veggie or miso broth and omit the pork and make this a filling and delicious vegetarian meal.
Quick Buttery Coffee Cake (made with Pancake Mix)
Posted: November 8, 2012 Filed under: Breads, Breakfast Foods, Desserts, Uncategorized, Vegan, Vegan Options, Vegetarian | Tags: almond milk, almonds, breakfast cake, butter, buttery, cinnamon, cinnamon roll cake, coffee cake, crumbly, eggs, nuts, oatmeal, pancake mix, pancakes, pecans, streusel, walnuts 19 Comments
(Becky, the Mama.)
This is our second week of condo living in regions of the U.S. where the sun is shining, the grass is green, the birds are singing and this week, in Oceanside, California, the ocean is waving.
The sentence (and scene) above is brought to you by our much younger selves, when we each bought Time Share, never dreaming that someday we’d end up married to each another, with four vacation weeks to use up, per year, between us. (And it is a use it or lose it proposition. So what can we do but go play?)
Neither of us would say that Time Shares are great financial investments; but man oh man, they have been AWESOME investments in terms of fun, extended get-aways for our marriage. We’re both blessed with jobs we can do anywhere, as long as we have laptops and cell phones.
Some ways that we save money and also get business done while we’re away:
1) We drive instead of flying whenever possible, getting crazy good deals on hotels using Hotwire.com or Priceline.com. I stock up on books on tape from the library (Greg listens with earphones while driving), and we have wifi – via his cell phone– and a plug for my lap top (goes in the cigarette lighter) in the car, creating a roving office-on-wheels. I get some of my best writing done on the road, my feet up on the dash, computer on lap, pillow behind my head. Greg also sees clients everywhere we go.
2) We always look for places to stay that have a full kitchen, bringing along a couple of boxes of kitchen essentials so that I can cook “on location” rather than eating out.
For whatever reason, cooking is an enormous treat for me, and especially when on vacation. I like the challenge of creating good meals from whatever supplies I bring, plus fresh local meats and produce.
It has been a long time since I’ve baked something sweet, at home or “abroad,” but today after a nice long walk through an artsy Farmer’s Market with Greg, I began thinking that a warm coffee cake with a crunchy, buttery, cinnamon topping sure sounded good.
Coffee cakes are one of my favorite treats to make because they typically aren’t overly sweet, they whip up and cook quickly, and it makes its own topping while baking. If you have a good basic recipe, you can swing it a dozen ways! Add blueberries or chopped apples, a variety of nuts, a little citrus zest, or even chocolate chips and you can dress up a basic cake anyway you want to go. The added bonus: you get to eat cake for breakfast. What’s not to love?
I didn’t bring baking powder or soda with me, however (a HA!) I brought some pancake mix. Sure enough, I sleuthed up a recipe online for coffee cake made with pancake mix that got some lovely reviews. I used it as a starting point, played with it a bit, and within 30 minutes… from stir to cut and serve…I was eating a fluffy, moist, perfectly balanced coffee cake. So good, this will be my Go-To Coffee Cake Recipe from now on. This recipe makes a small cake (perfect for a couple), so I plan to double the recipe when I get home and make this for our big family next week, arriving for what we call “Thanksgiving Camp.”
Quick Buttery Coffee Cake (with Pancake Mix)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
1 c. pancake mix, any kind (I want to try Trader Joe’s pumpkin pancake mix! Vegans use an egg & dairy-free mix)
1/3 c. sugar
1 egg (vegans can use fave egg substitute)
1/3 c. almond milk (or any kind of milk you like)
¼ c. butter, melted (I used ½ olive oil, ½ butter, Or use your favorite vegan butter.)
Topping:
2 T. softened butter (or vegan butter)
¼ c. brown sugar
2 T. pancake mix (or flour)
2 T. oatmeal (or mixture of oatmeal, hemp seeds, chia seeds)
1/3 c. chopped pecans (almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, peanuts)
Instructions:
In a medium sized bowl whisk pancake mix and sugar together. Add egg, milk, butter and stir until smooth.
Butter a small pan, such as a round cake pan. (I found a small broiler pan in the condo that worked well. It’s smaller than it looks in the pictures, only about 8 by 10 inches. )
Mix topping in another small bowl and crumble on top of batter.
Bake for 20 minutes. It will look a bit like the surface of a crater, but with each “dent” there’s the yumminess of melted butter and cinnamon going through the cake. Sooo delicious. Serve warm and crumbly!! (Or if I serve it later, I’ll zap a piece for just a few seconds in microwave.)
This was printed from: We Laugh, We Cry, We Cook
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The title: Quick Buttery Coffee Cake
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This was printed from: We Laugh, We Cry, We Cook
Becky Johnson
Rachel Randolph
We Laugh, We Cry, We Cook 