One Glorious Hour

I LOVE daylight saving. I know it's just one hour but it always feels like so much more. I purposefully put off changing my clocks as long as possible just so I can keeping telling myself, wait! it's really an hour earlier! It makes it seem like the day goes on forever. Knowing that I had some extra time, I set out to accomplish as much as possible. I made a large to do list on my mini whiteboard located on my fridge and woke up after 10 hrs of sleep (that NEVER happens) ready to begin tackling each task. I'm happy to say that it is 8pm and I have 2 items left on the whiteboard. I'm putting them off though to blog instead :)

I did take the time to create 3 lovely meals for myself. I love the weekends because I can take time to cook what I'm craving. Fall is my favorite season and I didn't waste any time utilizing fall food for breakfast.

Pumpkin Waffles with Maple Walnut Apples

I make my own waffles and keep them in the freezer. The recipe I usually use is for wholegrain waffles and it is out of my Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook. For these seasonal waffles, I used my normal waffle recipe with a few tweaks borrowed from Karina's Kitchen to incorporate the pumpkin. I was inspired to include the apples after seeing a recipe on Foodnetwork.com

Waffles (yields 8-10 waffles)

1 1/4 cups unbleached white flour

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 tbs baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg (to taste)

1/4 cup ground flax seed

1/4 cup cornmeal

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 tablespoons raw agave nectar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 1/2-2 cups Silk Light Vanilla Soy milk (regular milk would be fine)

Sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the ground flax and cornmeal and mix well. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. In a separate bowl lightly beat the eggs and add the pumpkin, oil, agave, vanilla, and about 1 cup of the milk. Combine with the dry indredients. At this point you need to decide if you need more milk. You want a batter that is a cakelike consistency. I kept adding milk little by little until it was the right consistency. This ended up being 1 1/2 cups of the soymilk for me. Use about 1/3 cup batter for each waffle.

Maple Walnut Apples (1 serving)

1 apple (I used Cortland)

1-2 tbs of real maple syrup

2 tbs of smart balance (or real butter if you swing that way)

Handful of walnuts

Cinnamon

Peel and slice the apple. Melt smart balance/butter spread in a pan. When the "butter" has melted add the apples, sprinkle with the cinnamon and toss them around to coat each one with the "butter" and the cinnamon. Continue to cook over medium heat until the apples start to become tender. Stir in the maple syrup and cook for another minute. The maple syrup will become almost caramely. Add the walnuts in and stir to incorporate. Remove from heat and enjoy!

I use a dinky $10 waffle maker but it seems to do the job. It makes 2 waffles at a time and I'm realizing that I might be pouring too much batter into it. My waffles come out rather thick. If you prefer thinner waffles, spread the batter out and you will also get more waffles!

As soon as the waffles cool, I place them in a plastic bag and into the freezer. Whenever I want a waffle, I just pop it into the toaster. Nothing like homemade waffles on a weekday morning to start your day right.

I didn't even need syrup on the waffles, I just scooped up apples with every bite of my waffle. Delightful!