Holiday! Celebrate! Waffles!

I had a very low-key holiday season this year, with one exception - I was supposed to go to New Orleans but was prevented by a blizzard. That was frustrating, and required me to spend a lot of time on the phone trying to contact airlines and travel agents, but what can you do? I'll make it to New Orleans someday, and in the meantime my airfare's being refunded.

And the blizzard also meant I got a great chance to try out my new snowshoes (a Christmas present) on the rail trail behind my dad's house, which was a lot of fun. Sadly, the blizzard was a coastal storm so by the time I got back home to the Valley there wasn't any snow to speak of, but I'm sure it will come soon enough. Hopefully I'll be able to procure some gaiters and trekking poles by the time it shows up. I also got a lot done around the house while I was not in New Orleans (including a redo of my bedroom, pics to follow).

I got a NordicWare Belgian Waffler for Christmas. This is a stove-top waffle maker (not electric), and it's how we made waffles in my house growing up (and by "we," I mean "my dad"). I wanted one of these because, dammit, sometimes you want waffles, and pancakes won't do! But I didn't want a big counter-top appliance that I would have to store someplace. The Belgian Waffler fits in my cabinet with the cookie sheets and the muffin pans. It's a bit harder to master than an electric waffle maker, but I was able to make recognizable (and delicious) waffles on my first try.

I made Overnight Waffles from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. (Actually this was either from the original, yellow cover copy of HTCE or HTCE Vegetarian but the same recipe is in all three books.)

The great thing about this yeast-risen waffle recipe is that (as the name suggests) you mix it up the night before so, #1, you hardly have to do any work in the morning to actually prepare the waffles and, #2, you get to go to sleep dreaming of waffles. I was slightly uncomfortable about leaving dairy-containing batter out overnight, but I put my trust in Bittman and sure enough, my fears were unfounded. If you don't feel like whipping egg whites in the morning, don't worry about it, just throw the eggs in. I whipped the whites because I had just rescued my old hand mixer from my dad's attic, where it had been since sometime in 2002.

I put the extra waffles in the freezer and I heated one up for breakfast this morning - ace! I will be making some whole-grain waffles for the freezer soon, since I generally try to make my weekday breakfasts healthier than white-flour waffles. For the past couple of months I have been eating like some kind of feral animal that lives behind a candy factory, so although I'm not making a formal New Year's resolution, I am going to try to eat healthier in the coming months.