Savoury New Year's Day Waffles!

Happy 2015!!

I tried to entice some friends to stay the night after partying by offering up these tasty morning-after-NYE-party treats.  Nobody took me up on it (can't blame them... nothing better than sleeping in your own bed); even Hubs slept in QUITE late.  So G and I had a lovely breakfast, just us two!

These Savoury Dill & Cheddar Waffles are inspired by some that Ni made for the family one holiday morning.  Honestly, it's not much different from how I made regular cornbread... just enter a waffle iron!

The key here is Jiffy cornbread mix (America's favourite!!)  Yes, I am endorsing the use of a mix.  The ease afforded to you cannot be understated!  Go buy some, it's well worth the 50¢.

Savoury Dill Cheddar Waffles

Makes 3 Belgian-sized waffles (enough for two adults and a toddler!)

Adapted from the Jiffy box

• 1 package Jiffy corn muffin mix
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp (1/8 cup) shortening, melted (or be like me, and use some of the rendered fat from making bacon!!)
• 3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
• 2 sliced green onions

1.  Preheat your waffle iron.  Mine is really basic; it's either on or off (no temperature setting).  Spray with non-stick cooking spray or brush with melted butter.
2. Mix the muffin mix, egg, milk and shortening/bacon fat until just combined (it will be lumpy).
3. Stir in the cheddar, dill and onions.
4. Pour/spoon about a 1/2 cup into the waffle maker.  I overestimated the first time and ended up with batter overload... try the "less is more" approach.
5. Cook until browned.  In my experience, the outside of the waffle might look a bit "overdone," but you want the inside cooked fully (raw cornbread batter is icky).
6. Serve nice and hot, ideally with more melted butter if you're feeling decadent.  

I love savoury/sweet combos, so I stuck with syrup and added a side of thick-cut peppercorn bacon (thank you, President's Choice!!)  Paired that with a cup of freshly-ground vanilla hazelnut coffee (thank you, Costco!!), and G-man and I had a lovely breakfast together (his consisted mostly of a kiwifruit, banana, and grapes, but he got some waffle and bacon love too!)  A great way to start off what will hopefully be a fantastic year!

  

Bidding you all good eating in 2015,

-Honeybee

Waffle Weekiversary

Yes, "weekiversary" is not really a word.  But I'm well-known for abusing the suffix -iversary.

After an absolutely whirlwind 7 day period (which began with gettin' hitched and contained a two-day inter-province road trip avec UHaul), I figured Hubs and I deserved something a little special for breakfast.  Among the many things we'd moved from Windsor, I found the Belgian waffle maker that my mother graciously "loaned" me... and that I haven't given back.

Her loss, clearly.

I have great memories of these waffles.  They'd make an appearance for birthday breakfasts,  the morning after a girls' night, or on lazy Saturday mornings.  I credit our Aunt Sue with introducing them to us many years ago during a family visit.  We all loved them (and it was relatively simple for us kids to "help" by pouring in the required amount of batter).

So, I took it down from the top of the cupboards and got crackin'.  Initially, our family just used prepared boxed pancake batter... but I always found those waffles to be a bit too heavy and cake-like (plus, I haven't bought pancake mix since I learned how simple it is to make batter fresh).  I graduated to using a recipe from my mom's "Women's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery", a truly behemoth ~20-volume hardcover set from the 1970s.  While tastes in haute cuisine and food photography have certainly changed since that day (thank goodness!), it still contains a wealth of good basic recipes.  Alas, I have no such thing here... Internet to the rescue!!

You know I'm thinking of Mom when I break out the math symbols...

I found this batter recipe at Allrecipes.com; it showed promise (and saved me the step of whipping egg whites separately, which can be a pain).  The waffles were, I kid you not, PERFECT.  Crisp on the outside, but soft and fluffy and moist on the inside with a perfect golden brown colour.  You can't beat these puppies.

It was all I could do to take pics before devouring.

So, we ate them in a very standard fashion.  I mixed up some Dream Whip (yup, I'm that lazy... but honestly, I love the flavour of the stuff!), made a quick mixed berry syrup from some frozen fruit, and poured the syrup over.  Mmmm.  A lovely sit-down breakfast for us newlyweds!

Hubs' creation... with an extra quarter of waffle for good measure.

 The only problem: this recipe made 6 waffles.  We are only two people... and we weren't QUITE that hungry.  The solution?  Dinner waffles!

This isn't your Aunt Sue's waffle, that's for sure (though she has excellent taste and would more than likely approve!)

Savoury waffles aren't a new thing.  I remember seeing (probably in that same encycolpedia), a recipe for waffles & chicken à la king.  The Southern combo of waffles and fried chicken with syrup and gravy also works here.  I had been perusing Nemmie's back entries again, and came across her huevos rancheros post... and the inspiration hit.

Fried eggs...

Plus black beans with bacon, onions and spices...

Get that waffle in there...

Top with some shredded cheese and broil until melted...

...aaaaand top to your heart's content.  Mine has avocado, diced tomatoes, black beans, green onions, more shredded cheese, cilantro, and sour cream.

Hubs doctored his with a liberal dash of habañero hot sauce.  Very appropriate.

Deliciously messy.

I'm stuffed!!

These were absolutely FANTASTIC.  I couldn't even eat my whole dinner waffle; I took the rest to work the next day for lunch (and got some puzzled looks from my coworkers... So worth it).  I've since made "real" huevos rancheros (with tortillas instead of waffles) and those were also delicious.  I think they'll become a new staple!

 

Different carb for the base, but same basic idea.  Yummy!!

Wondering if she can convince enough people that waffles are the traditional one-week wedding gift,
-Honeybee