Good Ol' Plain Waffles

It all started with a deal. On the Saturday when I was still sick, we were jam-packed at home. It was only half past two in the afternoon, barely two hours since we had our Korean barbecue lunch, when we were talking about what to have for snacks. I can't remember who brought up the idea of pancakes which eventually became waffles when mom mentioned we have a waffle-maker. We do??? I can only remember the sandwich maker which made the best melted cheese sandwiches ever when we were still kids more than 20 years ago. I never knew we have a waffle maker, so I asked mom to bring it out just to make sure it's for real. So there goes the deal - I have to make waffles if she finds the waffle maker. And she did. As it was really scorching hot and no one wants to lose his/her place in the air-conditioned room, I asked if it's okay to use a pancake mix. They agreed, as long as the waffles are crisp on the outside. Then mom threw in the idea that since we still have the sugar rock crystals we bought in Vietnam, we can have our version of Belgian waffles.

I have nothing against boxed mixes as they are supposed to be convenient, especially if you want to prepare something safe, quick and easy and all you have to do is to be creative with the add-ins. But after checking every shelf of our pantry, we actually ran out of boxes of pancake mix. Oh no... Everyone is set to have waffles for snacks. So, there's no other choice but to make waffles from scratch. Good thing I always have stocks of baking needs in case I have cupcake or cake orders to make.

Again, thanks to Feastie, searching for good waffle recipes wasn't a hassle. The one from Mother Thyme caught my eye (and my tastebuds are also imagining how the waffle will taste based on the ingredients). I just tweaked it a bit as I want to use the makeshift buttermilk instead of plain whole milk.

Fluffy Blueberry Pancakes

I am not a morning person. But I miss waking up early in the morning and have a normal day just like most of you. My job supports our New York Wall Street office and being in the world of finance, I deal with numbers, tight deadlines, auditors, and anything urgent needed by our New York counterparts. Luckily I don't have to work during the dawn and follow their time zone (a.k.a. graveyard shift), but working from early in the afternoon until midnight (or sometimes ungodly hours past it) doesn't make it more glamorous either. The only time I got to work normal hours were the months I was working in the London office back in 2008 and in the Wall Street office in 2011.

For those rare times that I can bring myself to wake up earlier than the usual on a weekend, I try to have a nice and happy breakfast different from what is usually served with the hopes that the weekend will bring in good vibes.

Thanks to Feastie, a photo of enticing pancakes one Thursday morning made me crave for fluffy blueberry ones. It was an agony waiting for the weekend to come, and even if I came home late on Friday, I still mustered myself in waking up early to make my long-awaited fluffy yet moist pancakes.

Baked Eggs with Fresh Herbs and Cheese

Butter. Eggs. Cheese. Back in the days when we were still kids, we always wanted our eggs, sunny side-up or scrambled, cooked in butter and loads of cheese. We usually have it for our afternoon snacks, but there were times when we would want it to be part of all our meals for the whole day on very rare instances. As years have gone by, I've outgrown having my butter-eggs-cheese fix the way we knew how it was done probably for the reason that my palate grew to like more mature and more cultured dishes and veer away from the usual fried or scrambled eggs. Since then, the urge has never resurrected while our eldest brother still raves for sunny side-ups with lots of butter and melted cheese to this day with the addition of finely chopped garlic that adds more class to the usual fried egg.

Then I came across this book by Samantha Sotto in August of 2011. Since this is not a blog about book reviews, I'm stopping myself from writing down how the story went. Let's just say it's somewhat Time Traveler's Wife but with more hope. Apart from how Shelley and Max have met through a European group tour and how their love story have gone in the book, Max's baked eggs and cheese played a major role how the mystery of immortality was laid down in the story. Check out the video teaser, too. Bottomline is that the book left me wanting to try Max's baked eggs and cheese just the way how I imagined it.