Wednesday, March 23, 2011

What's Cooking Wednesday - Breakfast for Dinner

Wow!  Wednesday again already!  Last Wednesday I took James to the doctor for pneumonia.  Since then I've gone back with four out of five kids and I may need to take one of them back today.  So I have been in the high-maintenance parenting mode that involves lots of medicine and TLC while dealing with children that are less-than-content and really pretty miserable. 

Enter Breakfast for Dinner.  Who can be too sad when there are waffles for dinner?  I do know that food can not fix everything, but it is a good tool a mom can use to give comfort and cheer now and then.  So last night we had blueberry waffles, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and fruit salad for dinner.  The sickies ate and were merry.  They forgot for a moment that today we will be stuck inside at home again, with no ballet or piano, no trip to the library.  The highlight of the day may be looking out the window and watching it snow (but it's the wrong time of year for that to be too exciting).

Another good use for Breakfast For Dinner is when I have a grocery crisis, since these ingredients are usually on-hand.  I always have eggs, and breakfast meats have nice, long expiration dates so they are easy to keep on hand.  Waffles, pancakes, or biscuits can be made out of pantry items, and if I have some fresh fruit, that's a bonus.

My sweet children gave me a very nice waffle iron for my birthday recently, so we have been experimenting with waffles a lot lately.  Last night's blueberry waffles came from a mix, and though they were indeed blueberry, they were not nearly as tasty as the plain waffles I have been making with the Bisquick recipe.  (Watch out for trans fat in Bisquick!  Look at the label.  I buy the Heart Smart version, or the grocery store or ALDI brand which do not have trans fat.)  But I would rather leave the Bisquick behind and use only ingredients I can pronounce.  So here are some healthier (?) waffle recipes I will try in the near future.
  • Pumpkin Pancakes, from the Raising Homemakers blog - I made these tasty pancakes and they were a huge hit.  I love the idea of adding vegetables to a pancake or waffle and getting away with it!  I need to research exactly how to change a pancake recipe to a waffle recipe.  I am fairly sure it involves using a bit less liquid (milk) and adding some vegetable oil.  The oil may not be needed since this recipe already has melted butter in it.  (If you double the recipe you can just use a can of packed pumpkin.)
  • Blueberry Waffles - without the mix.  I will try this next time we want blueberry waffles.  This recipe has blueberries and blueberry yogurt.
  • Whole Grain Waffles - Some version of this, with whole wheat flour, will most-likely become my basic waffle recipe.  We are used to the taste of whole wheat and really have no business eating too much white flour.
Another food-related thought for today: I just discovered a web-site called E-mealz.  It is a service that plans a seven meal menu that feeds four to six people based on the specials and sales at a specific grocery store.  It seems to be a southern thing, based on the grocery stores they use, but they have Wal-Mart and ALDI on the list, so I may give it a try.  I don't know if I am the kind of person who can stick to a plan like that, but I think it would be nice to go on auto-pilot for dinner plans for a while.  I'll definitely write about it later if I try it!

5 comments:

Bridget M said...

You gave me such a chuckle! BFD! I'm definately going to use that.

Tonya said...

We have breakfast for supper sometimes too, especially if we have eggs, milk or other breakfast items that we need to use before the expiration date. We usually have bacon or sometimes breakfast pork chops along with scrambled eggs, biscuits, gravy and sometimes fried potatoes. We even occasionally have fried salmon patties. I know that is quite a bit of fried food, but we don't have it that often so maybe it's not too unhealthy. It sure is good though!!

wednesdaygrace said...

Hey Tracey,

I grew up on homemade pancakes and was making them myself by the time I was 8 (I know it was 8 because I remember feeding my four siblings and hungry mama the morning #6 was born, 3 days after my 8th birthday.)

2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
2 c. flour (Mom often used half cornmeal or WW, and sometimes fresh cracked wheat kernels!)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 c. oil
chocolate chips or blueberries if you wish

You just mix it all up and grill 'em, and I think we often used the same batter in our waffle iron. For your crowd I might do about 1.5 recipes depending on their appetites.

These days it's just Mike & me so I just whip up a small batch, heavy on the eggs for extra protein and yumminess:

2 eggs
2/3-3/4 c buttermilk
2/3-3/4 c (ish) flour
1/2 tsp BP
1/2 tsp BS
1/4 tsp salt
2-3 TBSP oil

I get about 9 4-5' pancakes out of that. I swear since I have the hang of it it's almost as fast as doing cereal.

Tracey said...

Ugh. Bridget, thanks for pointing out that my original abbreviation might be taken to mean something else. It really never occurred to me! I hope no one was offended...

Let'sMakeADifference said...

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