Today though, is a day of celebration. My sister Carole arrived this morning from New York with her granddaughter Emma who’s 10. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be in the same room with her, listening to her stories. Her life is even more chaotic than my own. (hard to believe, I know)
She looked amazing even after that long flight and even had energy enough for a drive around town and a visit to a local museum. I always feel like a pretzel after a long haul flight but they were both wide awake and ready to play.
Before they arrived I cleaned out the pantry and tossed out the things that could kill us because they were past their use-by date, vacuumed up all the crumbs in the drawer below where the toaster sits. (why can’t men close the freakin drawer before making toast??) and cleaned the waterside windows because it was getting tough to see through them. I’m a food blogger, who has time to clean? It’s a good thing my sister doesn’t travel with a white glove.
Young Emma loves animals and our Charlie is in heaven. He has a new friend that will toss his ball and give him a cuddle anytime he wants one. He hasn’t left her alone since she got here. They even went swimming. Remember, it’s winter — and it was raining! Nuts, I tell you!
We arrived home from the airport about 9am and I decided it was time to christen my new waffle maker. I looked for a Belgian waffle maker but couldn’t find one so I compromised and got the ordinary sized one from Cuisinart. Why waffles? Carole lives in New York about 90 miles north of NYC and she makes her own maple syrup – over an outdoor fire no less.
So I had to have something to soak up that goodness and holy cow these breakfast waffles were good. Carole brought enough syrup to last the whole time she’s here and maybe longer. So we’ll do waffles again and pancakes and cook with it too.
- 1½ cups plain flour
- ¼ cup self-raising flour
- ¼ cup caster or superfine sugar
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1½ cups milk
- 60 grams butter, melted
- 2 tbsp water
- Sift flours and sugar into a bowl, make a well in the middle of the flours.
- Combine egg yolks, milk, butter and water in a measuring cup and add it to the well in the flour and mix until smooth.
- Whip egg whites until soft peaks form and fold into batter in two batches.
- Preheat waffle iron and drop ⅓ cup of batter into the center of the hot waffle iron and cook about 2 minutes.
Not sure if you’ve noticed but we’re testing our new index in the nav bar on the blog today. I really like it and it’s completely customizable from choosing the photos to the size, shading, fonts and more. We’re looking for a few beta testers so if you’re interested, send me a message.