It's.... INTERNATIONAL WAFFLE DAY!!! (March 24)

 
and it's time to celebrate!  (I'm posting this a bit in advance, to give ample inspiration for waffley breakfasts tomorrow.)

What a wonderful week. A supermoon, the first day of spring, warm weather, two best friends' birthdays, and International Waffle Day on March 24.

Not gonna lie, I've been waffling all week in anticipation. Monday night I made cinniteff waffle sandwiches with pizza sauce, cheeze, and mixed greens on them. I also came to the discovery that (at least in my belgian waffle maker, with cinniteff waffles) thinner batter makes soft, flexible, moister and lighter waffles, whereas thicker batter (which is what I usually do for breakfasts) makes crispy belgian-style waffles. I liked the lighter option for dinner, when I want proportionally more protein and less carbs. So keep that in mind!

Also, I ran out of teff flour Monday. Which led me to create the above-pictured Goldi-squares Stairway to Waffleheaven #Winning Waffles. We'll just call them #WinningWaffles for short..... (TIGERBLOOD!!!!)

They pretty much are amazing. Light, faintly sweet but still neutral flavor allows for unlimited possibilities. Such as:

PIZZA WAFFLE!!!! huge success. I used Bridgford Turkey Pepperoni, and Prego VeggieSmart sauce. yum.

OMG  it's a WAFFLEDONUT. okay not really, but that's what it tastes like. Just sprinkle on top: Organic cocoa powder, coconut sugar, and shredded coconut. And it tastes like a chocolate powdered sugar donut! Slash some kind of intensely amazing pastry delicacy.


So, for the substrate behind all this madness:

THE RECIPE:

1 egg
1 tbs extra light olive oil  ---> whip together until a bit frothy
up to 3/4 c almond milk
1 tsp vanilla
5 drops stevia
1.5 tbs millet flour
1.5 tbs garbanzo bean flour
1 tbs Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose GF Flour
1 tbs coconut powder (ie, finely shredded coconut/coconut flakes)
scant 1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda     ----> mix all together, pour into [belgian] waffle iron and WAFFLE IT UP!

Ghee (or coconut oil) it after it's off the iron.


#WINNING

Egg and Cheese Crepes

Over spring break I was in Paris for a few days. My overall experience there may have been slightly sub-par, due to a vomiting/grumpy boyfriend, mediocre weather, and sugar-induced fatigue from a downward spiral into Hagen Daas waffle-eating. However, my crepe (and gaufre, and baguette, and Eiffel Tower!) experiences were superb. I never knew that crepes could be a fast-food, sold on street corners in the Latin Quarter.

So, the one and only Parisian crepe that I consumed was this junk-food-esque crepe, filled with egg, cheese, and chicken. It was SO, DARN, GOOD.

And the coolest part? The crepe chef poured out the crepe batter onto the griddle. (and smoothed it around with the crepe spreader dealy.) And then, he broke the egg RIGHT ONTO THE COOKING CREPE. And it cooked itself straight up through the crepe-- awesome. Then sprinkle on cheese, chicken, and fold into a quarter-wedge... hold like and sandwich and bite in.

So anyway, I can now replicate the yumminess pretty well:

RECIPE:


egg
cheese

Batter:
2 eggs (if you don't care about it folding well, just one egg is fine)
1 tbs extra light olive oil

1/2 cup fake milk
1/2 cup (millet + garbanzo + all purpose baking) flour
dash of salt

--> basically, you want the consistency of this to be thinner than pancake batter, but still "batter-y"; aka, thicker than milk or water or any other liquid alone.

Directions:

Heat a nonstick large skillet. To really make sure crepe won't stick, you can spray with a non-stick cooking spray first, but this shouldn't really be necessary.

Hold handle of skillet in one hand (non-dominant). Hold cup of batter in the other hand (dominant). Pour a small pancake-sized amount of batter into skillet, then quickly swirl the pan in a circular motion to spread the batter out, letting it run to the edges of the skillet, while maintaining a circular shape. This skill may take a couple of tries. The smaller the crepe, the easier it is to cook and flip it, but the less satisfying the result. Ideally, you will succeed in making a super-thin, skillet-sized (9 inch? 8 inch? How big is a big skillet??) crepe.

Let the first side of the crepe cook. If you were a genuine crepe chef, you would have a super-hot griddle which would cook your super-thin crepe so fast it would cook both sides at the sampe time. If, like me, however, you are an amateur using a teflon pan that can't be heated above "medium", you will need to flip your crepe.

To do so, loosen around the perimeter of the crepe, then slide the turner under and go for it. After the flippage, crack an egg on top of the cooked side. Use the turner to gently scramble it, trying not to puncture the crepe or make the egg spill too much over its edges. Then cover the skillet with a lid to trap the heat so that the egg will successfully cook.

When egg is cooked, sprinkle some fake cheese on top of it. Slide crepe onto a plate. Fold it in half twice to get the easy-to-handle quarter shape.

OMG cheese. And yes, shoutout to Almond Breeze in the background.

Coconut Almond Golden Waffles

Version 1: ADVANCED.

I decided to get fancy with my breakfast batter. I used my usual waffle proportions, with the following awesome ingredients:

THE RECIPE:
1 egg
~1 tbs extra light olive oil           ----> stir together
~ 1 cup soymilk
~ 1/4 tsp almond extract
~ 15 drops stevia                      ----> stir together
~1/4 cup all purpose gluten free pancake mix (I used Trader Joe's brand)
~ 1/4 cup millet flour
~ 1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
~ 1/4 cup flaxseed powder
~ 1/8 tsp salt
 shredded coconut
slivered almonds                     ----> stir together

So, I actually started out with this being pancake batter, and thus I made it thinner than waffle batter. (That's the only difference). I had half left over, which I ate later in the week. By this time it had thickened from being in the fridge, and thus was perfect to be cooked into the lovely waffles which you see above. These were pretty darn delicious, especially with extra almonds and coconut sprinkled on top.


Okay so then I made a simpler version, which basically was the same general result, except more versatile because the coconut and almond is only in the topping:

Golden delicious. (Waffle, not apple.)

VERSION 2: BASIC.

THE RECIPE:

1 egg
~1 tbs extra light olive oil           ----> stir together

~ 1 cup soymilk                        ----> stir together
~1/4 cup all purpose gluten free pancake mix (I used Trader Joe's brand)
~ 1/4 cup millet flour
~ 1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
~ 1/8 tsp salt                            ----> stir together

Yes, this produces a golden waffle with a natural hint of sweetness. It's a great universal substrate waffle, for either sweet or savory use. I opted for sweetness for my last two dinners, sprinkling on slivered almonds and coconut, and drizzling on agave nectar for syrup.

I'm a huge fan of this flour combination. I am a huge un-fan of commercial "All purpose gluten free flour mixes"-- each of the three I've tried is phenomenally gross. Trader Joe's and Namaste Food brands have the same chalky taste (Is that... the sorghum flour?? excessive tapioca flour?? no idea. ), and Bob's Red Mill uses way too much garbanzo bean flour. However, the sweetness of millet flour generally softens out the strangeness of any of these. Millet also contributes the yellowy gold color (garbanzo helps too) which makes these waffles look so appealing. As a general rule, combining many GF flours helps to mellow out each of their "unique" flavors-- and in this case, "all-purpose", millet, and garbanzo blend into a balanced harmony producing a neutral and pleasing flavor.