From our Food Goddess, TaMara:
When I was sick last month, I watched a lot of cooking shows while resting on the couch. One that caught my imagination was different things that can be made in a waffle iron. That spurred the idea for tonight’s recipe exchange. Unexpected recipes for various cooking appliances.
First up, Biscuit Breakfast Sandwiches made in the waffle iron. Not as elegant as JeffreyW’s delicious looking waffle, bacon and egg sandwich pictured above, but it’s a quick- less than 10-minute – tasty breakfast. Click here for recipe and directions.
One of the best ideas I’ve heard in a long time is Grilling Pizza outside on the grill. Recipes and instruction here.
And finally, make a spinach lasagna in the slow-cooker that tastes like it was oven-baked, with this recipe for Slow-cooker Lasagna here.
What’s on your plate this weekend? Anyone else have unusual recipes for kitchen gadgets? Anyone harvesting from their garden yet? It’s just about time for my favorites here, peas and new potatoes, along with lettuce, spinach and asparagus.
Tonight’s featured recipe solved my biggest issue with hash browns, how to make them easy, quick and crisp. The waffle iron was the unexpected answer.
It’s so easy. The best part is, there is no need to wring the water from the shredded potatoes, my least favorite step of making hash browns. It’s messy, but without that, skillet fried hash browns never crisp up properly, even with my cast iron press.
The waffle iron to the rescue. Mine is 7 inches across and enough for one potato, but it’s so fast, it was easy to make enough for everyone. I just put the finished ones in the oven to stay warm.
I shredded the potato and lightly patted the shreds with a paper towel, I mixed in a little olive oil, salt, pepper, shredded onion and garlic powder. I brushed oil on both plates and pre-heated the iron, mine has temp settings, so I put it on the highest setting. I spread the shredded potato thinly over the iron, closed the lid tight and let cook for 2 minutes, checked on them, then removed when they were crisp enough. Over the four potatoes I made, the longest time was 4:30 minutes, shortest time was a little less than 3 minutes.
It was so easy and the cleanup was basically wiping out the waffle iron with a paper towel. The next time I do it, I think I’ll add some shredded green or red pepper. It’s definitely a good way to put my waffle iron to use.That’s it for this week. No Bixby update, although he learned how to use a drinking fountain yesterday. Pretty damn cute. I’ll try to get video for next week. Hope you have a good weekend – TaMara
NotMax
Heh. Need to specify a non-stick waffle iron.
The one I still use is over 60 years old now* (weighs about 8 pounds) and still works just peachy. For waffles.
Wouldn’t dare try anything else as would be cursing while cleaning it with a stiff bristled toothbrush for days afterwards.
*So ancient it has a woven cloth power cord.
Mike E
@NotMax: And, after all those waffles, I’ll bet it’s now thoroughly ‘non stick’.
chris whitehead
I guy I used to work with wrote a fun cookbook, “Will It Waffle,” on waffle recipes. Look at http://www.willitwaffle.com
jharp
I put my garden in today and had a great time doing it.
Central Indiana. A beautiful day.
NotMax
@efgoldman
No prongs on this one, it is wired directly. Do have an electric frying pan of the same vintage with a detachable cloth cord, though.
Best way (IMHO) to ensure crisp hash browns is to thoroughly pat dry the potatoes (otherwise they steam, not fry) – can even put them in a layer under the broiler for a short time to start the crisping – and cook ’em on a griddle with maybe just a touch of bacon grease.
NotMax
@efgoldman
The lid is so heavy and on such industrial-strength springs that it would mush the taters.
Cliff in NH
I highly recommend this iron, it’s cheap and works great.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00451B7XE
When you flip it it’s clamped down.
Cliff in NH
@NotMax:
It turns out, for me at least that the non stick was mainly the quantity of butter in the recipe, pancake batter would stick, but the high butter waffle recipe would come out perfect.
yummy waffles and bread:
http://www.amazon.com/King-Arthur-Flour-Bakers-Companion/dp/0881505811
Joel
I’m going to buy one of these:
Kettlepizza.
Might spring for the Serious Eats edition. Always wanted a bona fide pizza oven.
Cliff in NH
@Joel:
Just stick a stone on your grill; the open front will compromise your temps.
if you can hit 500deg on a stone It will turn out awesome.
check it: https://www.flickr.com/photos/64725711@N07/sets/72157627175778700/
even the dough straight on the hot hibachi turned out great.
Mike J
@Cliff in NH: Stone on the grill is what I do.
http://i.imgur.com/XlKSJDI.jpg
Cliff in NH
@Mike J:
Looks yummy! nice crust!
Hal
Speaking of cooking shows, has anyone ever seen Hungry Girl? I don’t think it’s in production any more but I’ve caught a few episodes and the food the host Lisa Lillien makes looks disgusting. She’s obsessed with fat grams and uses all processed garbage to make her recipes low fat. Like low fat bbq chips to make bbq chicken or claiming her substitution taste just like the original and you won’t ever be able to tell, like using half avocado and half mashed peas for guacamole. Apparently she has huge online following though.
TheMightyTrowel
Having friends over for dinner but it’s early autumn and i want comfort food so I’m compromising by making a mushroom and speck chicken pot pie and orange chocolate brownies. Yum!
PurpleGirl
@Hal: I don’t watch cooking shows now but have in the past. Back in high school I watched Graham Kerr, later I watched Yan Can Cook, that Cajun guy who started doing Turducken, others on occasion (i.e., the cooking guy on NY1). The one requirement I have is that recipes sound good to eat. Hungry Girl sounds horrible (imagine ‘horrible’ in inch high letters, bold). I have nothing against using prepared food for substitutions but any substitutions have to make sense.
PurpleGirl
@Cliff in NH:
@Mike J:
Do you a picture of having a stone on the grill. The pictures of the pizza are great but I’m having trouble picturing a cooking the pizza on a stone on a grill.
TheMightyTrowel
Ot: just one of those small world things… someone in the thread below mentioned that the md atty general went to school with their kids. I have am immediate family member who works in that school system too and is equally proud of this particular alum. Jeez.
Cliff in NH
@PurpleGirl:
I don’t have a pic of a stone on a grill, but a good size would be 2/3’rds or 3/4 of the diameter of a round charcoal grill, get a temp gauge for your grill too. Ideal is 400-600 for most people.
If you are doing pizza you can get the same quality with a stone in your oven, it just wont have that slightly smoky flavor, usually you can get your oven to at least 450, many ovens will let you type in up to 550, it depends on the brand. If you can’t get to 500, just adjust the time a bit, Pizza is done when the cheese in the center of the crust is bubbling, and starting to brown (once the bubbling starts it will brown within about 30-60 seconds or so) so keep a eye on.
This is the stone I have in my oven, It’s worth it, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000E1FDA
that’s the one that replaced the cracked one in the pics. It’s way better than the old stone, even though it will take longer to be fully hot. (10 min after oven says it’s warm)
Mike J
@Cliff in NH: My stone came from putting in granite counter tops. When they cut out the hole for the sink, I saved the slab for a pizza stone. I don’t know if it’s the cheapest or most expensive pizza stone in existence.
PurpleGirl
@Cliff in NH:
@Mike J:
Thank you both for your comment back to me or the further comment you made. Now I can imagine what you are talking about.
John M. Burt
I always thought tomato juice was too thick. I tried diluting it with soda water and liked the effect.
I usually use a dash of Tapatio Hot Sauce (which I buy solely for this purpose, a teaspoonful of lemon juice to dissolve the hot sauce, four ounces of V-8, four ounces of soda water.
Betty Cracker
My mother-in-law gave us an old waffle iron a couple of years ago. It has removable plates, and there’s a special set just for canolis! Of course, we had to make canolis, and they were great. It is a bitch to clean, though.
Regarding pizza stones, we make homemade pizza frequently, but we don’t use a stone. We get a good crust by using a pizza pan with holes in a 550 oven. The pan with big holes works best. I’ve thought about getting a stone to use on the grill.
@John M. Burt: Sounds like if you add some horseradish and Worcestershire sauce, you’d have a fine bloody Mary base too!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike J: Granite counter tops, eh? We’ll be sending the inspectors over shortly.
ThresherK
My wife’s mother gave me Full Scrounging Rights of her kitchen upon her move into assisted living. (Why me and not my wife? I’m the cook.)
Old school kitchen had many great and useful things. But no waffle iron. My wife said the one they had was not non-stick and at a certain point her mom just hove it out because she was tired of cleaning it.
So if anyone knows what I should look for in a tag sale waffle iron…or even a new one…
tbone
Hash browns, without a doubt, ate o one of the hardest things for me to make.
Brewed up a black pepper saison last night which is fermenting away nicely this morning.
NCSteve
@NotMax: My grandmother had one of those. It was used frequently up through the seventies. May have been used as recently as the 80s. Certainly was not used in the 1990s. I have wonderful memories of breakfasts made by that thing. In my memory, it’s waffles were far better than my modern non-stick extremely safe UL approved iron, from scratch recipes and real maple syrup nothwithstanding.
My mom, who once made a Belgian waffle in the 1970s, but her discovery that it involved the measuring and mixing of ingredients put an end to that foolishness, lives in my grandmother’s house now. And that old 1940s vintage waffle iron of my grandmother’s is still down in the shelves lining the furnace room in her basement that my grandmother used to fill with home canned beans, tomatoes, pickles and jellies. There it sits, gathering dust next to her ancient extra-stick tube cake molds and muffin pans.
When I go down to the basement at Thanksgiving and Christmas, looking for some piece of cooking gear banished to the dungeon by my mom and only released for the holidays like Eleanor of Aquitaine, I always eye it. It sits there in it dusty chrome art deco beauty, old frayed cloth cord coiled menacingly around the base, whispering “take me hoooooome . . . . I’m ssssstillll gooood . . . perrfectly ssssaffffeee. Plug me in and maake the delissssioussssness of your childhood come alive . . . they built things to lasssst in my day . . . what could go wroooong?”
But, unfortunately, I am nearly certain it was sent down sometime after I moved to NC precisely because it almost started a fire. Unfortunately, no one seems to remember that for sure, so it maybe an invented collective memory of my mom and my sister. Or so that old iron whispers to me whenever I see it . . .
p.a.
@PurpleGirl: Cajun guy: Justin Wilson? He was great.
Alexis Marlons
I love the waffle and the potatoes. Feel so hungry when I saw this food.
Betty Cracker
@tbone: Black pepper saison, you say? Interesting! I’ve got my fourth bucket ‘o brew in process. So far, I’ve made an IPA, a honey cream ale and a chocolate milk stout, all of which turned out very well. The current brew is an Irish red ale.
Mohagan
@NotMax: My parents had one of those too! Haven’t though about the woven cloth cord for years. I barely remember my father making waffles with it. What I do remember is that it hung out in the garage for many years along with the other junk after the cord became so frayed it was dangerous to use.
tbone
Right on Betty, sounds like the brewing is coming along nicely!