Sweet Potato Waffles

Time change Sunday is always marked by an air of confusion for the Chilliwack Campbells. Mike and I spend the early morning of the change debating whether to ignore the children bouncing on top of us, and to lounge just another 5 minutes, or whether to adopt the new time and Carpe Diem. We generally opt for the ignoring of children (well, as long as possible), and the rest of the day is spent questioning the correct time.

Today the choice was made for us by our brilliant new clock radio. Unbeknownst to us, it was very much aware of the time change - so while we thought we were still on old time, we were actually on the correct new time. Mike and I were both stumbling around, feeling bleary for about an hour or so, before we realized that the time change had been made for us. I fully expect to arrive home tomorrow and find this clock radio folding my laundry, or maybe plotting global domination. Anyway, the silver lining was the gift of an extra hour we had planned to have lost to sleep - an hour used to make waffles, eat waffles, make coffee, drink coffee, make messes, make more messes - you get the idea.

This waffle recipe comes from A Real American Breakfast. The authors, the Jamisons, and I have reconciled, and while I took a few liberties, the results were delicious. These were sweet potato waffles - a recipe not for the faint of dishwasher. Many bowls were dirtied in the process of making these waffles. The upside was that they tasted fabulous, and I was able to trick Coby into eating a vegetable besides a tomato or avacado (both of whose vegetable status is under debate).

Sweet Potato Waffles
Adapted from A Real American Breakfast, by Cheryl and Bill Jamison

Serves 4 - I doubled this recipe and it made enough waffles for several days of breakfasts!

11/3 cup all purpose flour - I used whole wheat pastry flour and they were light and airy
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
1 1/2 cups mashed, cooked sweet potato (2 small, or 1 lrg potato)
2/3 cup sour cream - I used 3 % yogurt with good results
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup veg oil or melted butter
3 eggs, separated
1/4 cup brown sugar

Stir the dry ingredients together. In another bowl stir the sweet potatoes, sour cream, milk, oil, egg yolks and brown sugar. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix just to combine. The batter should be thick but spoonable. If it seems too thick add a bit of milk - waffles are forgiving.

Beat the egg whites with a mixer in ANOTHER bowl until stiff and then fold into the batter.

Cook the waffles on your preheated waffle iron. The directions say to grease your iron, but mine is non-stick and they turned out fine without the greasing.

Cook until brown and crisp. Serve with maple syrup and butter.

Apple sauce is another nice accompaniment - I find I can trick my youngsters into thinking they have loads of syrup on pancakes and waffles with the addition of apple sauce or blueberry sauce.

Ginger Rhubarb Compote

For the last two weeks I've pretended to be a body builder. Every morning I log onto his computer and nod to his body builder wife. In the screen saver she flexes her bicep (or tricep?). Every morning, I'm sufficiently impressed.

The body builder is an English teacher. He is huge and bald and realllly nice. The kids don't know this. They live in awe and fear of his presence. He stands over their desks, flexes, and they work.

While impersonating the body builder, I tried this. Flex: nothing. A snicker.

The body builder runs a ship-shape ship. I wondered if he had a sense of humor as a teacher. The students weren't sure. He does in real life. You see, I know the body builder. In addition to being realllly nice, he's kinda funny.

I liked being the body builder--reading All Quiet on the Western Front, drilling students on expository writing, expounding on the use of the semi-colon. I'm not sure I measured up to his standard. "It seems so empty in here" a grade twelve boy said, looking over me. But I had fun trying.

Somewhere between the papers and the lectures I made rhubarb ginger compote. This was just as worthwhile as pretending to be the body builder.

Ginger Rhubarb Compote

Adapted from Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book

4 cups rhubarb chopped in 1 inch pieces

1 inch piece ginger

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

Put the rhubarb, ginger, and 1/4 cup water in a pot. Simmer over medium heat until the rhubarb is just tender. This should only take a few minutes. Be careful as you don't want the rhubarb turning mushy and breaking up.

Remove the rhubarb from the pot and set aside.

Combine the sugar and remaining water in the pot. Simmer over medium until the sugar is dissolved. Add the rhubarb and cook for two minutes. Remove from heat. Let cool before serving.

This is really tasty over oatmeal and topped with yogurt.

Apple Blueberry Crisp for Breakfast..

Well, the Jamisons and I are on the outs. I have had a recent string of flops from A Real American Breakfast. After my first sub-par waffle results I attributed the fault to myself; however, after a lack-luster bran muffin recipe, I'm putting part of the blame with the authors, the lovely, yet sweet-goods challenged Jamisons. On both occasions I should have gone with my cook's intuition. Both recipes had some steps that I protested as I baked, but being the dutiful cookbook reviewer that I am, I followed the directions as a holy grail. That's not to say the book is a bust. I just think that I need to stick with their more savory dishes.

The blogging timing for such disasters, however, was serendipitous. I had just made my go-to dessert for the Heartland Book Clubbers, and my friend Louise requested a Reems Eats post. How could I refuse the woman who arrived early and helped me in a last-minute toy and shoe clean-up effort? The same woman who claims to enjoy making pipe cleaner crafts with my 3-year-old? I couldn't, so here is my all-purpose crisp recipe.

I've posted a version of this before. I have to confess that I don't follow a recipe for the dessert that Reems's affectionately refer to simply as 'crisp.' So I did make a second crisp this week, in part, but not just because I wanted to nail down accurate ingredient quantities. No, you can never have enough crisp. My favourite bowl of crisp? The leftover breakfast bowl that I always manage to hide for myself.

Blueberry Apple Crisp was a good accompaniment to our discussion of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, not quite as appropriate as a potato peel pie might have been, but I'm fairly sure it was tastier.

Blueberry Apple Crisp
(for a 9 inch dish or similar casserole - I usually double this for reasons I've already discussed)

Combine filling ingredients in 9 inch pyrex dish or casserole:

4 apples - peel and sliced thinly (for an all apple version, double this number)
2 cups blueberries
2 T flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar (could also use honey or maple syrup)

In a separate bowl combine the topping ingredients:

1/3 melted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (2/3 if you have a really sweet tooth)
1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup quick oats
2/3 cup old fashioned oats (could just double the quick oats and leave these out, but I like the texture from the two varieties)

If you use unsalted butter add a pinch of salt.

Combine the topping ingredients until crumbly.

Sprinkle evenly on top of fruit filling.

Bake crisp for 40 min at 350 degrees.

Top with vanilla ice cream for your warm dessert crisp. For your next morning breakfast crisp, a cup of tea alongside will do nicely.

OK, I feel that I should apologize for the photos - my only hope for half-way decent food photos is to take them in natural light, but alas this was an evening job.