Belgian Waffles: ATK vs. Bisquick

In honor of the Belgium VS USA soccer game, I decided to try out American Test Kitchen's gluten-free Belgian waffles.

Normally, I would just use the gluten-free Bisquick mix, but if I'm going to commit to this Julie/Julia idea of mine, I gotta try it out.

But this recipe turned into a really interesting dilemma. It wasn't a home run hit like the rest of the recipes that I've have had. So... let the battle begin!

1. Preparation- Bisquick

Does this seem like a surprise? With Bisquick, it's dump the mix out, pour in the milk and oil, add the eggs and badabing badaboom. Done.
Meanwhile with ATK, separate your dry from your wet (except sugar went with the dry)-

 A phrase which here means a lot of extra steps.

 

This is me, mixing really fast... with one hand... while I take a photo

2. Flavor- ATK

This time, I've got to give a slight edge to ATK's waffles. Both have a good flavor, but ATK has almost a nuttiness to the batter. Don't ask me where that came from! Maybe it's the brown rice flour? Bisquick has a very light almost tasteless taste. (A tasteless taste?...) The buttermilk helped ATK's batter with a little extra tang- not tangy, but definitely not watery.

3. Texture/Fluffiness- Bisquick

Now, if you want a fluffy light waffle, hands down, go with Bisquick. As a batter, I thought it just wouldn't rise, but put it on the waffle iron and watch it rise to its fluffy airy goodness. ATK has a thick batter. I was mixing and mixing that batter to make sure there were no lumps. (Yes, I put my phone down to mix it.) If you like a thicker, heartier waffle, then ATK's waffles are for you! They have substance and easily fill you up. I'm really glad that I had bananas to eat with this. Those waffles were heavy! Without the bananas, I would've dropped into the apartment below me.

4. Longevity- Bisquick

This is a no-brainer, unfortuately. Bisquick waffles behave like those with regular flour. After a while, they soften from the steam and being stacked on top of each other, but a toaster does well to fix that moistness. Sure, if they're left out too long, they get stiff too. But ATK, I'm prrrrrreeetty sure that just goes straight to the stiff stage. You get a very heavy frisbee if you don't eat that up quickly.

Overall, Bisquick wins this waffle war. I might come back to this recipe later to try it again to see if it wasn't something I did (e.g. using a hand or stand alone mixer instead of hand whisking it). It just goes to show that cooking is a science, and the slightest of changes affect everything.

Quinoa Patties AKA Veggie Burger Tastiness

Hey everyone! I just got back from my vacation, and even while I was down there, the fam was trying out the ATK drunken noodle recipe! We couldn't find large rice noodles, just vermicelli. It's amazing how this dish needs larger rice noodles to soak up that delicious sauce.

Anywho! While I was on vacation, the possibility of making quinoa patties came up, but it never occurred. After making it today, I'm ok that cooking them didn't work out.

Don't get me wrong! It's certainly a tasty dish. The patties just took a LOT longer than I expected. There's a little chunk of prep work at the beginning: green onions, garlic, quinoa.

One thing I really appreciated was using the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes to cook the green onions and garlic. Once those were ready, I added the quinoa and water....... and then I realized that I didn't have a cover for my pan... So I ended up using my cookie sheet. !!! Warning !!! Use an oven mitt to uncover the cookie sheet. Or. Better yet. Use a skillet that has a cover.

After letting the water boil down 20 minutes, then you have to wait about 30 more minutes for the quinoa to cool down. Meanwhile, more prep: cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, lemon zest and juice, even separating eggs.  

Combine all that good stuff together when the quinoa cools, pat out some patties, and then put them into the fridge to cool for another 30 minutes.

In the ATK cookbook, it says to have the patties cook 8-10 minutes on each side, and I underestimated my oven top.

My "medium" is just too hot, and I can't get distracted by watching the FIFA world cup. Appearance-wise, my patties definitely fell flat. Flavor-wise, they did very well: a tad salty, but savory. The lemon juice and zest kept the patties light, while the sun-dried tomatoes were delicious and a vital ingredient. I found adding mustard and sriracha sauce to compliment the patties was a nice touch and zip.

The patties can be very crumbly. Be gentle when you flip, or suddenly you'll deal with a quinoa crumble.

In honor of the World Cup, I'm pulling a Suarez as I dig in. 

Enjoy! Go USA!

Crêpes- Fruit's Delicious Blanket

So, quickly-going-south bananas dictated what I worked on next.

The bananas whispered to me, "Make me into crêpes." (Yes, I will use the circumflex. It's not everyday that I get to use it corrêctly.)

At first, I was really apprehensive. I recently had a bout of stomach issues. (Some how I ingested some gluten. I don't know what for sure, but my body let me know that I definitely DID.) So the idea of me eating some possibly heavy deterred me.

I'm so glad I changed my mind.

Please note that, in my first crêpe batter, I dealt with my botched ATK flour mixture. I actually had switched the amounts of tapioca flour and potato starch around. While that didn't dramatically change the taste and texture of my food, I noticed the batter was a lot clumpier. Not massive chunks, but little bits of misshapen globules that was residue in my mixing bowl. It made me wonder if the melted butter was too hot and cooked the eggs.

Those two ingredients--the eggs and the melted butter-- are the most fickle yet most important ingredients for making these crêpes.
The eggs, along the the milk (it calls for whole milk, but it easily works with 2%), will be separate from the dry ingredients and well incorporated with each other.
Then! The butter has to be melted, and that always takes finessing. First, make sure to have the butter sitting out to slowly warm up. The less time that the butter can spend in the microwave, the better. I usually have to do about 20 seconds in the microwave, and then stir up the rest of the remaining clumps with the remaining heat of the melted butter. But don't put that in yet! No no no no. There's a process. There's this fine line between hot liquid and clotted too-cool-for-the-room butter.

You pour in half the liquid into the dry ingredients, stir that around (no clumps), THEN you add the melted but cooled butter, stir that around (no clumps), and finally adding in the rest of the of the liquid (no clumps!). Actually, I've yet to have a batter that hasn't had residue. It may just be the nature of the crêpes. I'll keep working on it.

First try

Looking nice!

Getting warmer

The heat from the skillet is such a hard thing to get right. You don't want to wait forever with little heat, but if too hot, the crêpe will turn into a brown crispy frisbee. Like a pancake, you want to look for those slightly browning edges before you flip the crêpe over. Also, I don't know if this is the same with others' batters as well, but the batter will become a little translucent as it's cooking on the other side after I've flipped it. When it's more translucent, that's usually the cue that both sides are done.

So far, I've yet to have a bad combination with crêpes. And that's saying a lot!
Here are some of the combos I've done:

• bananas and peanut butter
• bananas and nutella
• bananas, nutella, pecans and a little cinnamon
• strawberries and nutella

Nutella just seems to go so well with the crêpes. I know that it's a simple thing, but it's a blissful combo. What are your favorite crêpe combos? Has anyone tried out more savory crêpes yet? I'm curious.
This recipe is definitely a keeper.