Bean and Potato Waffle Latkes

I was cleaning up the kitchen when I suddenly had the hankering to dirty the waffle iron I just got done washing.

There are a slew of recipes for waffle hash browns out there on the interwebs that immediately intrigued me.  I do love me some potatoes.  Some leftover beans in the fridge added a little more nutrition and I even was able to use up the last of the jalapeños before they went bad.  Score!

I was only cooking for myself at the time, so multiply this recipe by how many Latke waffles you want to create.

Ingredients:
1 medium Red Potato (2-3" diameter -- I suppose you could use the frozen kind, but I only had the real thing)
1/4 cup Vegan Re-fried Beans
1 Jalapeño, seeded and chopped
2 cloves Garlic, chopped
1/8 cup chopped Red Onion
1T Red Wine Vinegar (Malt Vinegar would have been so much better)

Directions:
Thoroughly wash the potato then shred with a grater.  It looks super ugly at first, but don't fret.  You'll want to put your shredded potato into a strainer and rinse thoroughly to get all the starches rinsed off.  Press the water out of the potatoes then add to mixing bowl.  Dump in all of the other ingredients, use fingers to mix all of the goodness together.  Once evenly mixed, spray preheated waffle iron with cooking spray then pour in the goodness.  Allow to cook until browned (mine took a little over 8 minutes, I just waited until I smelled all of the delicious goodness wafting out of the iron)

They turned out oh so pretty and totally delicious!  Next time, I will have to garnish with salsa or something equally amazing.

Jalapeño Cornbread Waffles

Hello and Happy SuperBowl Sunday!  We don't particularly care so much about football as we do the trashy American foodstuffs that normally comes out en masse during one of the most American of American days.

Who is playing, anyhoo?

A co-worker of mine has been working on downsizing her belongings.  Much to my delight, I found out that she's one of those "kitchen gadget hoarders" who is trying to reform.  Therefore, I was able to score some items that I wouldn't normally spend money on because I know they will go to the back of the kitchen cupboard reserved for the graveyard of pots, pans, and random blenders that don't quite blend right.  The most coveted item out of the pay load was a Belgian Waffle Maker, lightly used, and perfect for a table for two!

I've been tempted for awhile now to purchase a waffle iron, however, I was not really convinced we would ever use one.  We're not really tempted by sweets, but I have seen some savoury recipes floating around Pinterest lately that sound intriguing.

This morning I decided to take the plunge and make something "waffley."  None of the recipes I could find sounded all that great, so I took the plunge and basically threw a bunch of random ingredients into a bowl and stirred.  The end result turned out crispy and delicious!

Ingredients
1 cup Masa Flour
2 cups Water
1t Baking Powder
1T Sea Salt
1T Ground Black Pepper
1 Flax Egg (1T ground flax, 3T water)
2T Olive Oil
2 Fresh Jalapeños, chopped
6 Cloves Garlic, chopped

Mix, chuck in waffle iron.  Let it cook in waffle iron until brown and crispy.  My waffle iron took about 15 minutes per waffle to cook this nosh all the way through.  I chose to garnish mine with some good, old fashioned Canadian Maple Syrup.  The mixture of sweet, salty, garlicky and spicy surprisingly did it for me. 

Behold, the magical Jalapeño Cornbread Waffles!
 

Collard Green Chips

Yes, I play with my food #smittenforthemitten

I had a beautiful bunch of collards in the fridge that were begging to get noshed.  Basically, I washed, trimmed out the stems, then tossed 1lbs of greens in 1T hot sesame oil  then baked until crispy at 250F.

In retrospect, I should have thrown in some proper sesame seeds and such to add a bit of crunch and flavor.  Great snack!