Friday, March 28, 2008

Look what I found...


A long long time ago, I blogged about a very ugly mug that Sean bought. (btw- it still lives) Today I stumbled across the picture I took of it, so here it is, for your viewing pleasure.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Flax Meal Waffles 1.0

Ok, ok, I know I haven't blogged in a while, so here I am. The more that happens in life, the more I find to blog about and the less time I have to do so. Since the big stuff takes a lot of time and energy to relate, this morning I will wow you with my most recent adventure into culinary chaos: the flax meal waffle.

As many of you know, my husband Sean & I have been dieting since early January. It has been really fun and interesting (for me) trying new recipes and adjusting old ones to fit within our new lifestyle (I made Chicken Saltimbocca the other night- Yum!). One such recipe that I've had great success with is the Friday Night Pizza. Unfortunately, this morning's foray into the mystical land of alternate waffles was not a happy one.

Flax is (apparently) one of those 'Superfoods" that everyone should eat more of. Trouble is, it tastes like crap. Even so, once a week we trek out into Burnaby to go to a little bakery in the middle of an industrial park called Red Square Bakery. We buy special low-carb flax bread and crackers there from little old Russian men who talk a bit too much. The bread is not fantastic, but it's the best option out there. It tastes ok, doesn't have too many seeds and the texture is ok too. The important thing is that it lets Sean have sandwiches for lunch. On one of our Red Square trips, I picked up some Golden Flax meal. I figured I could make waffles or pancakes for a treat on weekends. Well, as they say, the path to Hell is paved with good intentions.

I tried a simple waffle recipe of flax meal, eggs, buttermilk, baking powder & splenda. I let the mixture sit for a half hour, and came back to a thick ball of dough. I forgot to mention that flax has ridiculously strong absorption powers. If we ever have a flood, we'll be set. After folding in some more buttermilk I poured some mix onto the griddle and cooked as per usual.

The smell was heavenly, and all was progressing as planned. When the griddle stopped steaming, I opened it up and removed the beautiful golden waffles.

We smothered them with margarine and sugar free syrup and dug in...

and they tasted like flax. The distinctively nutty flax flavor paired with the tangyness of the buttermilk and almost gritty texture of the meal was not nice. On the upside, they turned out as fluffy as you could hope considering the density and weight of the flax. I poured on some more (really good) SF syrup and made the best of a bad batch of waffles (then made Sean an omelette). Here's hoping version 2.0 will be more successful.