Happy Halloween! Almost...

Halloween falls on a Monday. Boo. So we celebrated all weekend by watching Halloween movies and for breakfast today I made Pumpkin Waffles.


Seriously, maybe the best waffles I have ever had. They're a little sweet once you get the whipped cream and syrup on top but that's why you make ham and eggs to balance out with some saltiness right?


I don't know what I'd do without my ipad! Its the best cookbook.


Everything's all mixed up, egg whites folded in and the waffle iron is hot!


If you're interested in making them here's the recipe with my additions in (parentheses).

Best Ever Pumpkin Waffles

INGREDIENTS
makes 4 round “Belgian” style pumpkin waffles or 8 small square waffles

• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 3 Tbsp. cornstarch
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tsp. ginger
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg*
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk ( I subbed in Vanilla no sugar added almond milk)
• 1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin

(• 1 vanilla bean scraped in (add to the milk/egg/pumpkin mixture).........)

• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and warm

*Grated and lightly packed into the spoon, use 1/2 tsp. Grated and loosely scooped, this is about 1 tsp. of nutmeg. If you have to use pre-grated, dried nutmeg, use 1/4 tsp.

DIRECTIONS

1. Lightly oil the waffle iron with vegetable oil, and set it to the desired temperature.

2. Combine brown sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl. Whisk together to break apart the cornstarch. Add the remaining dry ingredients, and whisk to blend.

3. Separate eggs: yolks go in a medium sized bowl and whites get set aside in a smaller bowl.

4. Add pumpkin and milk to the egg yolks. Whisk to blend and set aside.

5. Whip egg whites with a hand mixer on high until stiff peaks form – about 1 1/2 – 2 minutes. Set aside.

6. Pour melted butter into the yolk/milk/pumpkin mixture. As you pour, whisk to combine.

7. Add the pumpkin mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix them together until just combined. A little lumpiness is fine. That will smooth out when the egg whites are added.

8. Slide the whipped egg whites out of the bowl and onto the mixture you just prepared. Gently fold them in until no white bits are obvious.

9. Once the waffle iron is heated, you’re ready to pour the batter! I continued to cook them until they were a nice golden brown color and a little crispy. They are much more moist and do take a little bit longer.

Yum.

Busy , busy, busy

Work is getting really busy and that means less time for me to do general life necessities like laundry which means even less time to do blogging. Soooooooooo, instead here's a recap of my weekend via instagram (which I LUHUV).

We went to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles for dinner on Saturday. It was awesome as usual and if you're ever in LA a definite must!


Sunday, we rode our bikes to Thyme Cafe for Breakfast! We shared a frissee et lardon salad and a cornmeal waffle with lemon curd and fresh berries!


I love our Sunday mornings. They refresh me for what is inevitably too long a work week.


Jack took a picture of me via instagram that is now my favorite picture currently.


Later that night we grilled steaks and enjoyed our new patio lights.

We grilled a ribeye, roasted radishes, roasted tomatoes and an arugula salad with a simple dressing from my new Julia Child Cookbook. It was tres magnifique!


We also bought a yogurt machine. It makes seven 6 oz jars of homemade yogurt at a time. The consistency was very runny but the taste was great. I used an organic whole milk, a little bit of powdered milk, and a vanilla bean.


The weekend overall was amazing despite having to work unexpectedly on Saturday Morning.

P.S. Add me on instagram if you'd like - my user name is jackandtill

Cinnamon Apple Cornmeal Waffles

This morning we made breakfast at home. Sometimes we go out but we're trying to continue to save and work towards a healthier spending vs saving ratio. We went out last night for sushi so breakfast in it was. While laying in bed and discussing what to make I suddenly got a craving for cinnamon apple waffles. One of my favorite quick tricks is to use a box of Jiffy Corn bread mix for waffles. It gives you a crispy but slightly salty sweet dough. Its the only way I really like waffles now. First, I chopped up two small apples. I chopped 1/2 of one of the apples into small pieces and mixed those in with the batter.

The rest I put in a small saute pan with some butter and olive oil ( for some reason this is a good combo for sauteing/browning fruit) along with some cinnamon and brown sugar.
They smell fantastic while cooking and tasted equally as good! The only advice I'd offer is that the apples make the batter a little bit wetter. To remedy this you could cut back on the liquid a bit or leave the apples out of the batter. We cooked a few eggs to go with the waffles. I like sunny side up with the runny yokes and surprisingly a little bit of yoke with the waffles was really good combination.
We put on a Regina Spektor and Ray LaMontagne record while eating breakfast and sipped on giant mugs of hot coffee.

MUTANT STRAWBERRIES ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD...

or just my cereal bowl. This weekend strawberries were on sale and Jack pointed out that we got a mutant strawberry in our box. I of course declared that it would be mine ( yeah I've got a case of the youngest child persona). This morning I got the mutant strawberry in my cereal bowl. We figured that it probably would have been at least 3-4 normal strawberries if it hadn't mutated. It was pretty delicious in all its mutated glory.
narm narm narm

I'm getting to be an old lady

and I'm getting really predictable. I really like oatmeal, like every morning.


This is my usual breakfast. Cut up banana, strawberries and blueberries with a splash of milk over oatmeal. Yum.