Product Review: Nordic Ware Waffled Pancake Pan

So one day I was gushing over gadgets in the latest Williams-Sonoma catalog to Coco. As a result, I got a very nice Christmas gift selected from said collection:


Oh, it looks like a sweet little pan, but let me tell you this - it's the Devil dressed in Teflon. At least for the first batch of Paffles.

I love trying new recipes - so I was happy one came attached with the pan for Buttermilk Paffles. See:


This particular recipe had a tip that I loved - to keep your paffles warm between batches, place the cooked paffles on a wire rack over a cookie sheet in your 200 degree oven. Duh! This way they don't get soggy - now pay it forward, folks.

Like many pancake and waffle recipes, this one calls for you to whisk the egg whites into stiff peaks and fold them last into the batter. This really is a crucial step for bangin' pancakes and waffles. I want to take this opportunity to pay homage to my stand mixer. Who the hell wants to do that by hand?


Thank you, Kitchen Aid. That picture just doesn't do you justice.

Back to the pan. It is designed to make little paffles, like silver-dollar pancakes. You are to use approximately two tablespoons of batter per well. This was like rocket science to me for some reason. I simply had to overfill those little bastards.


Then you are to flip the paffle, and gently press it back into the well. Yeah, right. I know a learning curve is to be expected, but that first batch was a bitch. And made me have very low self-esteem.


Finally, I made it through all the batter (I only made a half-batch). I like to think you can see improvement from the first batch to the last. If you disagree, keep it to yourself.


Many people, The Boy included, might say, "Well who cares what it looks like. How does it taste?


Good enough!

Little Beach

Children are funny. And not just hysterically funny, which they are, but really strangely funny too. At least I sometimes find the toddler strangely funny, with his changeable obsessions (currently all things Backyardigans ), fickle palate (won't eat the same thing on successive days), and sudden fears (the dark and the beach). My mother says these are phases, as in, "Oh I wouldn't worry about it - he's just going through a phase." I'm not worried about any of it, although at times these "phases" can be trying, as in "trying my patience".

But as I mentioned previously, quality parenting requires loads of patience. It also occasionally requires outsmarting your child. So while I may be frustrated over the toddler's reticence in going to the beach, it is much more fruitful to circumvent the current fear. In other words, trick him. Since I want to go to the beach, we will go to the beach. Little Beach.

Little Beach is what some in this area call the Redneck Riviera. It is on the bay and lined with mangroves. The water is calm at Little Beach and each beachgoer has something of their own private area since access is limited to the inlets between mangrove stands. It is more mucky than sandy, but not as mucky as a lake. The toddler loves it there and we recently had a chance to take a family daytrip to enjoy each other and the beautiful weather.

The toddler jumps right in . . .

splashes darling hubby . . .

kicks around in his floaty . . .

skips rocks . . .

and takes in the view.

We left our mark for the day, which by now is washed away.

I got my day at the beach.

Mission accomplished.

Peanut Butter Banana Waffles

Wow. That's a nice stripe you've got there. How did you manage that?

Oh yes, that. Well, some people live dangerously by riding motorcycles, or going skydiving. But me? All I need to do is use an appliance or the Wusthofs. In this case, the rotisserie attachment on the new grill. Stupid new grill.

I see. Can I ask you another question?

What's that?

What have you got against bananas?

Um, I can see how one might believe I have something against bananas, but what I've really got is a finicky toddler. He requires a lot of variety, the little tyrant, so if I don't feel like picking up his banana slack, then I just have to get creative.

I've been enjoying vegan blogs lately. I feel like vegans get really creative in the kitchen. So I went poking around a nice vegan blog and found a recipe for Peanut Butter Banana Waffles.

Oh, no, those sound terrible.

I know, right!

First, I must put the pesky toddler into action so he helps me assemble the ingredients. (I am not a vegan, so whatever vegan ingredients that were listed that I didn't have, I simply replaced with a non-vegan substitute I had on hand.)

In the dry corner: 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup whole wheat flour, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp cocoa powder, and one pinch of cinnamon.

In the wet corner: ripe bananas, 1/4 cup organic peanut butter, 2 tbsp cream cheese, 2 tbsp canola oil, 1 cup organic milk, 1 heavy tsp pure vanilla.

(Now that I've done these waffles once, the next time I would use plain organic yogurt in place of the cream cheese, and probably an egg instead of the canola oil. And I don't know why Blogger sometimes makes my pictures sideways but I don't know enough to fix it!)

So, a wet vs. dry? I take it that this means more than one bowl this time.

Yes - and look what I find when I get out the mixing bowl for the dry ingredients:

Oy - that toddler! Now he really had better get to work. Here he is getting ready to mix the dry ingredients:

Moving on to the wet ingredients in the stand mixer:

He loves to watch that mixer go!

Time to slowly introduce the dry ingredients to the wet:

And then we mixed until smooth. We preheated the waffle iron and sprayed non-stick butter flavored spray before adding a heavy 1/2 cup of the batter.

It took 3 - 4 minutes per waffle for them to cook - keep a close eye on them! And you must remember to spray with non-stick spray in between each waffle or you will have a disaster on your hands.

But - if you are a good waffle monitor and conscientious non-stick spray user, you should get 5 or 6 waffles to eat with warm syrup and sliced banana.

Yum!

The Haircut

I promised some peeps I would post pictures of the toddler's new haircut. It is much shorter than usual. Darling hubby was surprised and wouldn't commit to liking it, but I adore it. It is so cute; I feel like "all those beautiful curls" were detracting from his adorable, little round face.

The pictures come from our day at a captivating and enormous park on the water in a neighboring county. (Click to enlarge.)

How to Go Through Four Turkey Dogs in 15 Minutes

I used to love the hotdog sandwiches my mother would make for me and my sister growing up. She would boil the hotdog, slice it lengthwise (being sure not to slice entirely through the hotdog so it would open like a book), lay it on toasted bread and then dress it with ketchup and mustard. It really was a delight, and I thought an ingenious way to marry the desire for a hotdog with the lack of a bun.

Hey. The title of this post is "How to Go Through Four Turkey Dogs in 15 Minutes", not "How to Wax Nostalgic About Some Crummy Hotdog Sandwiches my Mom Used to Make". Sheesh, I'm getting there, will you give me a break?

Anyway, I suddenly remebered these sandwiches right when I needed one. The toddler had been clamoring for a sandwich (with mustard!) - but while there was bread, there were no other sandwich fixings. Hm, except maybe, let me see . . . oh yes, turkey dogs! Memory is tricky like that. I don't even remember the last time I had a hotdog sandwich.

But Mr. Italics is right - this post is about how to go through four turkey dogs in 15 minutes. So let's get it on.

Step 1: Own a dog.

Excuse me. There is not even the suggestion of a dog in your profile. A reef tank, yes. Dog, no. OMG, must I divulge everything all at once? Some things need to be exposed slowly, like a flower opening in the spring.

That's right, own a dog. The first turkey dog I cooked was much, much too hot to give to the toddler straightaway. It needed to cool. So I sliced it lengthwise as described above, and placed it on a plate to rest. My mistake was in exiting the kitchen, for when I returned the dog was there but the turkey dog was not.

Step 2: Overcook the turkey dog.

It may seem difficult to overcook a turkey dog, but it can be done. Especially if you decide to be lazy and nuke the second dog because you don't want to wait for the water to boil. But you are so lazy, you just hit "Add Minute" on the microwave and then get distracted so that the turkey dog cooks for the entire minute and winds up turning itself inside out. There is no way the toddler is going to eat that.

Step 3: Have a toddler.

I could easily make Step 3 the same as Step 1, "Own a dog" but that would be a cop-out. The dog didn't drop the turkey dog and then immediately gobble it up. The toddler dropped the turkey dog, and the dog, being an opportunistic sort of animal, immediately gobbled it up. Dog 2, Toddler 0.

Step 4: Monitor closely all steps in this process to the point where you nearly hold the sandwich for the toddler to eat.

Believe it or not, the toddler did in fact successfully eat his first turkey dog sandwich. He loved it, and nodded his head vigorously in affirmation.

Thanks, Mom.

Everything Has a Place - But Where?

Quality parenting requires patience in spades, depths of compassion, and a copious sense of humor. During the toddler years, the sense of humor will save your sanity.

You must understand that now is not the time for everything to be in its place - at least not the place you expect everything to be. So if your toddler one day leads you proudly to the computer to show you how to eject the DVD-ROM, you must not be surprised when your debit card pops out.

Please be sure to laugh off the clouds of smoke caused when you press the toaster button without realizing that it had become storage for your toddler's crinkle fish collection.

And the toddler sincerely believes that the dog's food and water should occupy the same dish, not two separate ones. Very space-saving of him.

So similarly, when the toddler tells you that his blue Bakugon is inside the subwoofer, take this as a matter-of-fact. You know then that there are already other things inside the subwoofer.

I admit to having fished out a number of objects already from the subwoofer. My method was not well received by darling hubby. (But why shouldn't I vigorously shake the subwoofer up and down?) It occurred to me this time that the toddler is now at a sufficient size to do his own fishing.

Oh no, son, you are going to have to really reach in there.

We'll use the side table for collection.

Final tally: three plastic balls (purple, green and red), one soft baseball, a ball in a cylinder, one semi, three straws, a (mostly) empty Capri Sun pouch, a Little People farmer, two rubber sheep, an Oakley sunglasses pouch, a fabric book cover, three crayons (yellow, orange and gray), a strange foam square, and TMNT Donatello's bo staff.

No blue Bakugon.

I'll give you something to blog about . . .

After reading a bit by Seth Godin, I felt a little off-kilter about my blog. What is my blog about? Pretty much everything that has to do with darling hubby, the toddler and myself. Well, that leaves a lot to get blogged about doesn't it.

I suppose I could blog about the awesome new grill Coco bought for darling hubby as a late birthday/early Father's Day gift . . .

. . . or the best feature on said grill:

Or how the toddler worked some bubble magic waiting for darling hubby to get grilling.

I could blog about Ironman's creepy, detachable forearms the toddler keeps leaving on the kitchen counter. (A bit too Edward Scissorhands for me. Very tragic.)

I might write about needing a cook-book addiction support group. That's right, 21 cookbooks, 7 recipe magazines, and a manila envelope full of recipes culled from the web. (And I really only use three of them.)

I could even blog about ole Winnie the Pooh here, with a bird feeder stuck on his head:

While I have fancied all of the above blog ideas in my head, I'm not really blogging about any of them at this moment (and don't worry, I probably never will).

This entry is all about how the whimsy of a toddler brought us to serendipity at the park.

Diversity of Experience

It began this morning when the toddler and I had competing, and equally earnest, ideas about what we should do today. Suddenly it hit me - I am on summer vacation! So is he! Oh crap, I've gotta entertain this kid for the next two months, almost entirely on my own.

Well, we compromised this morning, and agreed on taking a drive together. We would take in the picturesque sites of downtown and the shore of the bay. As we were driving, it occurred to me that a very nice park and playground were ahead of us - an unintended destination. I remembered that it has fantastic views of the water and downtown, as well as a fishing pier and cafe. We would visit it. Maybe we should visit all of the city parks this summer. It would certainly give us something to do.

Arriving at the playground was uneventful. It has a very large play structure, but the toddler is scrappy. He has no fear whatsoever and dove into play right away. At the time of our arrival, there were about 7 kids there - nothing spectacular.

Then the toddler had to use the potty, so we took a break from playing. When we returned from the restroom, the tenor of the playground had changed. New people had arrived. Adults. Adults that were playing tag with each other on and around the play structure.

The toddler slowly approached the play area but stopped at a ride-on rocket ship to observe the frolicking of the grown-ups. Most of the other children had stopped or slowed down their play to watch the adults play tag as well - it seemed to me that the kids were puzzling over exactly what was happening. After all, their adults (i.e. parents/grandparents/nannies/etc.) were monitoring their kids from the sidelines, and certainly not playing a game of tag with each other.

Even I was taken aback for a moment - at first I thought they were just big kids where big kids shouldn't be. But quickly it came to me what we were all watching: four intellectually disabled adults on a field trip to the playground with their caregiver. (Their caregiver was also playing tag. It was she who told me her preferred label for her charges is intellectually disabled and confirmed my assumption. Our conversation would be a separate entry altogether.)

Just as the realization came to me, two children, a brother and a sister, joined in the game. Other children looked at their parents - this was okay? The toddler gave me the same longing look - did I approve? I waved my hand at him in a shooing motion and he took off for the nearest grown-up in the game, attempting to tackle him.

In what seemed a single, momentous burst, every single person on the playground was suddenly engaged in a rollicking, spirited game of tag.

And even some parents jumped in as well!

Summer Season

There are plenty of quotes in the world about education. A sampling:

Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. - W. B. Yeats

Children need models rather than critics. - Joseph Joubert

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child. - George Bernard Shaw

Many things can wait. Children cannot. Today their bones are being formed, their blood is being made, their senses are being developed. To them we cannot say "tomorrow." Their name is today. – Gabriela Mistral

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. – Thomas Carruthers

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach. - Aristotle

Yesterday was the last day of the 2008-2009 school year for the kids, and today I packed up my room and made like a tree. When I pack up my room for the summer break, I do so in such a way that you would not even know I was there, much less 86 kids for the previous 10 months. It's like a beautiful secret that will mysteriously reveal itself in August with the new school year.

I love a fresh start! And now I have an entire, exquisite summer, stretching out luxuriously before me, to plan for it.

:o)

Progress

I am proud to live in the city. I love my city, and so does the Superbowl, so it must be a pretty nice city. Well, the city needs to fix my neighbor's wall.

Over a week ago, a drunk driver slammed into his wall in the middle of the night. I know, because the commotion woke me and darling hubby up. As soon as business hours were upon us that morning, my neighbor began his quest to have the city fix the broken wall.

Finally, progress. The city marked the broken wall today.



Yup, that's where it's broken all right.

Toddler in Pictures

A gratuitous sampling of recent, cute photos of The Toddler. I am currently in the market for a new camera, so most of the pictures I post are from my phone. Please forgive me; he is adorable nonetheless. (If you click on the pictures, Google magically makes them bigger. Then you can really see how cute he is - and how grainy my phone pics are!)

Sweet Sunday

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. Usually we reserve Sunday for just the three of us to spend in our cozy little nest. Darling hubby gets to get his arm all salty and aggravate his aquarium inhabitants, and I get to play at being domestic by baking treats for the toddler's breakfast for the coming week. We top it all off with an old-fashioned Sunday dinner. Not tonight though - tonight we are going to Ichiban, yum!

I loathe waste as much as I love Sunday. I really, really do. Admittedly I have some wasteful habits, like my paper towel and paper plate addictions, but truly I try to avoid being wasteful. I especially try to not be wasteful with food. So on this Sunday I am taking care of a couple items so they don't go to waste.

Part I: Talk Carcass to Me

First on deck is making chicken stock. I roast a chicken at least once a week and then save the carcass to use later. I like to have at least two carcasses before I make stock, since it is kind of a time-consuming process. Not that you're busy the entire time making stock, but it does take two days so I like to make it worth my while. While I'm waiting for those carcasses to show up, I add things to the carcass bag in the freezer along the way. I save the trimmed ends from carrots and celery. If an onion or the garlic is looking wilty, it goes in too. This way, by the time Stock-Making Day is here, I've got everything I need in the bag.

This is so sexy, you're thinking. I know, carcass talk is always sexy. So let's get this thing started.

Step 1: Stick the carcasses and veggies in a stockpot and cover with water.


Step 2: Bring to a moderate boil over medium heat.

Step 3: Lower the temperature so the contents of the stockpot are gently simmering. Hold down the contents with a sieve. I use my steamer basket for this.

Step 4: Occasionally skim the scum that forms on the surface of the water.

Oooh, "skim the scum". I like the way that sounds. I know. I told you this was sexy.

The carcasses and veggies will gently simmer in this manner without any intervention, except for the scum-skimming, for a number of hours. I try for seven hours, but I will take five.

When simmering and skimming is complete, strain the stock from the stockpot into another, smaller pot. Refrigerate this overnight. The fat will coagulate on the surface which will make it easy to scrape off the top. If you were a really vigilant skimmer, there may not be much of a fat layer at all.

Underneath that fat will be the stock, all nice and wiggly like jello. It is the gelatin you've harvested from the bones of the carcass that make this so. It also allows your stock to have lots of flavor without all that fat, you lucky skimmer, you.

Oh, yeah, talk carcass to me. Focus!

You still have to divvy up the stock into manageable portions for freezing. I like to save it in mostly two-cup portions. When you are ready to use the stock in a recipe, boil it for two minutes for safety. Alton Brown told me that.

Part II: Time to Bake

So, now you think you're stuck at home with a pot of chicken bones. Sounds like a lot of fun, right? While I monitor the stockpot, I take this time to bake. Now the toddler only has one week of school before summer break and he already has breakfasts in the freezer. Time to bake for others - namely my girlfriends at school.

Let's see. What is there around here that I don't want to go to waste. I know. Those bananas over there look like they need to be used.

I want to bake banana bread so I must find a recipe that is eggless because the Rad Librarian does not eat eggs. She prefers that they hatch into chicks. I go to my favorite baking resource, The Fresh Loaf, where I immediately locate an eggless banana bread recipe. That's why it's my favorite baking resource!

First up is the mashing of the bananas. The kind individual who posted the recipe gave a faboo tip - stick them in your Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

Wait. You mean I can mix all the ingredients in a single bowl? Only one bowl to wash? I know, I know, too good to be true. Let's do this thing.

The toddler must help when I am baking. It ensures him first dibs on things like chocolate chips. So he peels and mashes the bananas for me.

I see. Child labor. Mind your own business.




We assemble the line-up: 1/2 cu applesauce, 3/4 cu white sugar, 1 cu all-purpose flour, 1/2 cu whole wheat flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 1 heavy tsp pure vanilla, and (yes!) chocolate chips.

The toddler adds the ingredients to the mixing bowl.


I pour the mixture into the mini-loaf pan Coco gave us.

The pan goes into a 325 degree oven for approximately 25 - 30 minutes. When the loaves pass the toothpick test, they rest on a rack until completely cooled.

But the crumb! The crumb! I want to see the crumb!

Here it is: