Honest Pretzels

Honest Pretzels is one of Molly Katzen's cookbooks for cooking with children. It also contains my absolute favorite waffle recipe. My only complaint with any of Molly's books is that they *never* contain nutrition information. Sometimes a girl wants to know just how much sodium is in her vegetarian masterpiece, you know? (Actually, I don't usually care about sodium, although Aunt Charlotte says that is a mistake. But I do sometimes count my calories and I do sometimes wonder just how many are in each one of these waffles.)

Anyway, it's a bit of work, but I've rewritten it here as a mix--so make the batch once and then if you're loving it, next time grind a bunch of your wheat in advance or open a big bag of flour. The biggest "time consumer" here is the difficulty in obtaining a quantity of quality whole wheat pastry flour without spending too much. I just go ahead and buy it in a 50 lb bag, make gobs of mixes, and then store what's left in a six-gallon bucket with one of those fancy spinning lids on it.

The mixes go in a separate six-gallon bucket. Sundays are waffle days. We have them either for lunch or dinner. With the mix, it's a simple and easy meal to put together. It would probably be more balanced with some ham or something, but we never bother. And I never get even one waffle ahead of whomever is at the table. It *should* make enough to freeze some for later in the week, but with my boys, it somehow never does. So without further ado, Cinnamon Waffle mix:

Put into each large ziplock storage bag:
2 cups unbleached white flour
1.5 cups whole wheat pastry flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons cinnamon
(seal)


Make yourself a card (I set mine on top of the pile of mixes in the bucket and take it out each time you go to make the mix. At some point you'll have it committed to memory.) with the following information on it:

You'll need:
the bag of mix
2 tsp vinegar (any kind)
6 Tblsp melted butter
6 eggs
2 Tblsp sugar
3 cups milk
vegetable oil cooking spray
(waffle iron, an electric mixer, some mixing bowls)

1. Separate the eggs into yolk and whites. Set yolks aside. Whites go into mixing bowl. Add sugar to egg whites. Beat until they hold their shape. I move these into another bowl so I can use the mixer for the milk/vinegar step.
2. Preheat the waffle iron
3. Mix the yolks, vinegar, melted butter, and milk.
4. Mix the dry mix and liquids together. Don't stress about lumps.
5. Fold in egg whites with a spatula.
6. Spray the waffle iron with cooking spray. Start cooking waffles.

Cook up all the batter. Let extras cool, then put them in a ziplock back in the freezer. Reheat in toaster oven at will.

These are especially good topped with apple sauce, but I love them so much plain, I regularly eat them with nothing on them at all.

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Word is that 2-lb baby boy is exiting the honeymoon stage and entering the fighting stage. Let's keep praying. Specifically, we need him to be okay with less oxygen in his air. Too much oxygen is hard on a baby's lungs over the long haul. So we need to pray that his lungs mature "enough" this week to reduce the oxygen load. Thank you for joining me in this.