This week’s Mouthwatering Monday post is brought to you by my husband, Marty (aka Mr. Mommy Bits).

As a parent, sometimes you get caught between that moment of pride and jealousy when your little one bests you at something. The recipe that follows captures that exact moment.

This morning I got up with the boys and allowed Mommybits here to sleep in, generally it’s the other way around, so this seemed fair. I asked our oldest what he would like for breakfast. I had in my mind waffles already, but he suggested the same. We were in agreement. We were having waffles for breakfast.

A couple days before, I had cooked at Bridge Worldwide for my team’s breakfast. I generally never eat when I’m cooking, so I wanted to try the recipe here at home. My son differed, he said he wanted banana waffles. While I like the flavor of bananas, I seldom cook with them because their taste is so overpowering. It’s hard to use banana judiciously. It’s all or nothing. So here I am wondering how to tell him that I’d rather not use it, without telling him no. I like that he uses his imagination when thinking about food. Then he suggested something that floored me. “Hey dad, let’s use strawberry yogurt in the waffles.” It was at that moment I was stuck between pride and jealousy. He upped me on the recipe.

The recipe that follows is his recipe, his concept. I just did the mixing.

INGREDIENTS

- One package of Hungry Jack Wheat Blends pancake mix
- 1 banana
- 4-6 ounces of yogurt to taste
- 1/3 cup oil
- 1 egg
- 1-1.5 cups of buttermilk
- 1.5 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda

Noted here I did not really measure anything, but rather eyeballed it until the batter looked appropriate.

Grab the Kitchen-aid or stand mixer in this case, it’ll make the job easier.

DIRECTIONS:

First, this is really important, you want to mix the banana, yogurt, oil, egg, 1 cup of buttermilk, baking powder and soda together until it is smoothed out, but it’s a bit lumpy in texture. You have to do this step first, otherwise you’ll over mix the batter and the waffles will be tougher. After the mixture has been tossed around for a minute or so and the banana has thinned out throughout this wet mixture, add in the package of Hungry Jack wheat blend pancake mix. I recommend the mixer being on the slow +1 setting. You don’t want to over beat the mixture. I used the paddle mixer on the Kitchen-Aid for this purpose.

Then allow the mixture to mix to the desired consistency. This makes a pretty light/fluffy waffle. If you like a doughy-waffle, you could remove or lessen the baking soda/powder and use a bit less buttermilk.

Heat up your waffle iron, probably a good idea while you’re making the batter, allow it to heat on the lowest setting. Right before you are about to make the waffles, turn it up to the setting you most often use. I like to use a thin coat of Crisco cooking spray on it while the waffle iron is heating and wipe it off with a paper towel before I put my first waffle on, this seasons it so to speak. It’s really important to use a spray based with lecithin, thanks Alton Brown for that tip. It does make a huge difference in getting the waffles out of the iron.

Next, I add the waffle batter and cook to desired doneness. The boys put just a little maple syrup on them as we discussed the proper pronuciation of syrup. Is it seerup or surup? We still did not decide, but that’s for your family to debate.

Enjoy.
Marty

Related posts:

1. Recipe for Homemade Cranberry Sauce
2. Strawberry Fields Forever…..