Happy New Year!
2020 started out strangely. Terry and I dozed off around nine o’clock New Year’s Eve but both of us woke back up after two o’clock New Year’s Morning. We both migrated back downstairs and dozed off again for another four or five hours. Ah the exciting life we lead!
I had promised Terry a breakfast of bacon and waffles. I put the bacon in the oven, and forgot to set a timer. Meanwhile, I continued drafting a newsletter for my local book club and lost track of time. I’m not sure how long I was editing, but I did eventually remember the baking bacon before it was reduced to charcoal.
Next I had to rearrange the kitchen counters a bit to make room to mix up a half batch of waffle dough from my King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook. In the process of shuffling items around I managed to drop and break a small measuring glass. This event foreshadowed how the rest of my morning evolved. Strike one!
After cleaning the glass shards from the kitchen floor, I pulled out the dry ingredients from my pantry. I also pulled out two unopened boxes of King Arthur Flour Cake Flour and my sifter. My container of pastry flour was nearly empty so I first opened one box and dumped it into my storage container. Then I sifted two cups to use in the reduced waffle recipe. Then I topped off the storage container with another box of Cake Flour. I cut one of the boxes up and inserted the identifying cover and nutritional information in the storage container before sealing it and returning it to the back of the pantry.
I started measuring the dry ingredients into my large mixing bowl, starting with the sifted flour, then moving on to the sugar, baking power, baking soda and salt. However, despite the fact that I clearly only had two cups of sifted flour in the bowl, I proceeded to measure out the full recipe amounts for the other four ingredients. I then grabbed a large glass measuring cup (no, not the one that bounced of the floor with my small shot glass measuring cup that shattered) and pulled out the liquid ingredients.
I didn’t have any buttermilk, so I followed the tip in the recipe shown above to ‘clabber’ some organic half-and-half left behind from my daughter’s visit last week. I did remember to cut the liquid measurements in half, so I put 1/8 of a cup of apple cider vinegar in the 16 ounce measuring cup and added two cups of half-and-half from three separate containers (two of which were already open and partially empty). I let that concoction percolate for the prescribed five minutes while I scrambled two eggs and stirred the dry ingredients.
It was at this point that I realized my error with the leavening. I had twice as much sugar, salt, baking powder/soda as I needed. I did not want to increase my flour and I didn’t have enough half-and-half to double the liquid. So I bit my tongue and combined them. Strike two! The batter bubbled quite vigorously while I rearranged the waffle iron on the counter.
I touched the back of the waffle iron, which had been heating for several minutes while I finalized the batter. I did not use an oven mit, not realizing how hot the back side where the hinge is located got. I now have large blister just above my palm on my right hand middle finger. Strike three!
I asked Terry to take over cooking the waffles so I could cradle my burned hand and contemplate the auspicious start to the new year over my orange juice. Terry finished cooking a few waffles so we could eat the bacon (which did not burn) and waffles (which were edible despite my misguided recipe reading) with syrup in relative peace (aside from my occasional wince of pain while trying to use my injured right hand).
I sincerely hope your first day of the new year started out smoother then mine did.
Terry and I had a pleasant afternoon playing the game Pandemic, which I purchased a copy of after my son took his 10th anniversary edition back to Texas with him. We did well our first time, barely curing all four diseases with only one player card left in the draw pile. In the middle of the game, my father showed up unexpectedly (the only way he knows how to these days) and visited with us for a couple of hours.
The sun will set soon on this first day of January. It’s been a very windy but sunny day. I’m ready for dinner, a movie and a food coma.
And maybe a margarita.
Bacon-flavored charcoal. Hmm. May have product potential.