Simple Waffles On New Waffle Maker

We had an amazing Christmas even though I spent Christmas day at the fire station. My wife surprised me with a gift that wasn't on my list but I had mentioned several times, a waffle maker. She bought me the Black & Decker 3 in 1 Grill, Griddle, & Waffle Maker. So far I love this thing! It's got removable grates, which after the torture of cleaning my last waffle maker those are a must! Also it's got an adjustable thermostat, which I haven't played with a whole lot, but we'll see how helpful that really ease later. I also got me the Chicago Metallic Baking Essentials Cupcake/Batter Dispenser, which is something I really wanted. I've used it about three times and the last time I tried a different recipe that was just to thick for it, but it worked great for the thinner batters.

The first time I decided to use my new waffle maker I used the recipe that was included in the manual, which is a pretty good recipe. It also freezes nicely and I just tossed it in the toaster to warm it up. As you can see this waffle maker makes square waffles, which is actually pretty neat. I'm considering looking for a whole wheat waffle recipe and using it to make a breakfast sandwich.

Ingredients
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions
1. Lightly brush waffle cooking plates with vegetable oil. Close unit and preheat at WAFFLE setting.
2. In medium bowl, Beat until smooth.
3. Pour 1 cup batter evenly on preheated cooking plate. Close unit; bake until light goes out (about 5 minutes).
Makes: 2 (4-sectioned) waffles

Make-Ahead Ooeh-Gooey Sticky Buns!

I made these for the morning that we celebrated Christmas, which was actually Christmas Eve as I had to work on Christmas Day. My wife and I always tried to have something delicious before we had our daughter and that was used to be the packaged cinnamon roles. Well with my daughter's peanut allergy it's safer and easier to fix everything from scratch, like I need more reasons! Well I found this recipe in my go to cook book, The Complete Cooking Light cookbook, that has almost any recipe I would want to make. This recipe is great and I am hard pressed to go looking for another recipe. I will be doing this recipe again because it's so GOOD!

Prep: 40 minutes
Rise: 8 hours 45 minutes
Cook: 23 minutes

Ingredients
1 package dry yeast
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup warm water (100º to 110º F)
4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup evaporated fat-free milk, divided
14 cup water
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Cooking spray
1 1/4 cups packed dark ground sugar, divided
1/2 cup dark corn syrup (I used dark Agave Nectar with excellent results)
2 tablespoons stick margarine or butter
3/4 cup chopped pecans (I omitted these for my daughters peanut allergy)
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Directions
1. Dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon granulated sugar in 1/4 cup warm water in a small bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups level with a knife. Place 3 3/4 cups flour, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, nutmeg, and salt in a food processor; pulse 2 times or until blended. Combine 2/3 cup milk, 1/4 cup water, and egg. With processor on, slowly add milk mixture and yeast mixture through food chute; process until dough forms a ball. Precess 1 additional minute. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic (about 8 minutes); add enough of remaining flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent dough from sticking to hands (dough will be tacky).
2. Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in a warm place(85º), free from drafts, 45 minutes or until doubled in size. Combine remaining 1/3 cup milk, 1 cup brown sugar, corn syrup, and margarine in a small saucepan; bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Divide pecans evenly between 2 (9-inch) round cake pans coated with cooking spray. Top each with half of brown sugar mixture.
3. Punch dough down; let rest 5 minutes. Roll into a 24x10-inch rectangle on a lightly floured surface; coat dough with cooking spray. Combine remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl; sprinkle evenly over dough, leaving a 1/2 inch border. Beginning with a long side, roll up jelly-roll fashion; pinch seam to seal (do no seal ends of roll). Place long piece of dental floss or string under the roll; slowly pull ends to cut though the dough. Arrange 12 slices, cut sides up, in each pan. Cover with plastic wrap coated with cooking spray; let rise in refrigerator 8 to 24 hours or until doubles in size.
4. Preheat oven to 375º.
5. Bake rolls at375º for 23 minutes. Run a knife around outside edges of pans. Place a plate upside down on top of each pan; invert onto plate. Yield: 2 dozen

Pumpkin Pancakes

It's now November and I still have a good amount of pumpkin puree to use up and I'm having to think a little out of my comfort zone on certain recipes. Until this year the only pancakes I favored came from a box, well due to my daughter's peanut allergy I had to start making them from scratch. I started with my butter milk pancakes from cooking light, then moved to eggless pancakes which are very delicious and perfect for the fall. Well I finally decided it was time to branch out more and try making pancakes with pumpkins. As I've been very conscious of calories and have been selecting my recipes on if they have calories listed or not, I hit the internet. I found a recipe on About.com Low Fat Cooking. It's a great recipe that's quick easy and pretty light in calories for a meal that will fill you up.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp canola oil
1 cup nonfat milk
1/3 cup pure pumpkin

Directions
Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salkt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg together in a medium bowl. Combine egg, oil, ilk and pumpkin in a small bowl. Stir pumpkin mixture into dry ingredients. Leave to stand for five minutes.

For each pancake, scoop 1/4 cup of batter on to a hot griddle or nonstick skellet spraged with cooking spray. Turn pancakes when bubbles appear and edges are cook, after about 2 minutes. Cook for 1 1/2 minutes on seconds side.

makes 8-10 pancakes

Serving size 2 pancakes, Calories 226

Blueberry Pancakes

With the recent diagnosis of my daughter being allergic to peanuts I have had to go through my pantry and cupboards with a fine tooth comb and throw out anything that either "contains" or "may contain peanuts". Which to my surprise my quick and lazy box of pancake batter was marked with the dreaded "may contain peanuts". So instead of looking at the store for a box of pancake batter that was safe I did the next logical thing, make my pancakes from scratch! This was something I had thought about doing long before having to worry about peanut allergies, but had not followed through do to pure laziness. My search for a recipe was pretty short, like looking in one cookbook short. I opened up my Cooking Light Cookbook as I wanted a recipe that was a little healthier and this book has always come threw for me in the past. Sure enough, it had two pages dedicated to pancakes and waffles. I settled on the recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes, as I always preferred the box buttermilk pancakes. The recipe is super easy to follow and has doubled with no problems. The final product was a light fluffy pancake with wonderful flavor. In fact it was so good, I am going to have a hard time trying some different recipes.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup low-fat or nonfat buttermilk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Maple syrup

Directions
1. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup, level with a knife. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. Combine buttermilk, oil and egg; add to flour mixture, stirring until smooth.
2. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter onto a hot nonstick griddle or nonstick skillet. turn pancakes when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked. Serve with maple syrup, if desired. Yield 3 servings (serving size 3 pancakes). Calories 276

I added blue berries to these, as their one of my daughters favorites. I always keep a bag of frozen blue berries and thaw them with luke warm water in a measuring cup. I then add the blue berries after I pour the pancakes on the griddle. I do this to prevent the pancake batter from turning blue from the blueberry juice and the pancakes cook more evenly with thawed blueberries instead of frozen ones.

Stuffed French Toast

I was requested by my wife to make stuffed french toast for dinner one night, and only because it's so delicious I had to say yes. So with a quick visit to the Internet I pulled up an old recipe from, yup you guessed it, Guy Fieri. I'm not sure when exactly he had featured this recipe or when I saw the actual episode, but I knew it was one I wanted to try. I made one small change to the recipe and used whole wheat bread, which worked out quite well.

Ingredients
1-1/2 cups milk
2 eggs, beaten
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
8 (2-inch) thick slices bread (I used regular whole wheat bread with no problem)
2 bananas, very thinly sliced
1 cup strawberries, very thinly sliced
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
Maple syrup

Directions
Combine milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla in a shallow bowl. Set aside

For assembly, spread a thin layer of the cream cheese onto 1 side of the bread slices. Top half the slices with the fruit.
 Place another piece of bread on top, cream cheese side down, creating a sandwich.

Preheat a griddle to 30 degrees F. Lightly brush with the butter.

Give the milk mixture a quick stir, and dip the sandwiches into the batter, coating all sides.

Place on the griddle. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes per side, then turn on the edges and cook to brown evenly.

To serve, slice sandwiches in half on the diagonal and transfer to a serving platter. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with maple syrup.