Rourke's Random Musings

The partial success of my attempt to reproduce the Sunflower Inn’s raised Belgian waffles prompted to me upgrade my four year old waffler. The Villaware waffler I’ve been using was a gift from Jen that I’ve been using with reasonable success for just about four years now. Jen and I both started lusting after a new waffle iron after staying at a Best Western that allows guests to make their own waffles using a commercial waffler that rotated the waffles 180 degrees. Gravity pushes the batter against all surfaces of the waffle iron and you end up with a crisper, more even waffle. On top of the rotation, I’ve read reviews that seem to indicate that the Villaware irons just don’t get as hot as higher quality waffle irons. When making waffles, heat is everything.

I’m on a quest to reproduce the Breton-style savory crepes they serve at Ti Couz in San Francisco and Beau Monde in Philly. The first time I tried this I made Alton Brown’s crepes and substituted half whole wheat flower, but I wasn’t too satisfied with the result. AB’s crepes are a great place to start because they handle really well and are easy to work with, but they definitely don’t stack up to what Ti Couz is serving.

I’ve been making waffles at home for a few years and I’ve tried quite a few mixes and recipes. In every case, the waffles came out thicker tasting, cakier,?and not as crisp as I’d like. I wanted?a waffle that had sharp edges. I wanted a waffle that crackled under your fork. Turning the waffle iron all the way up didn’t work. Thinning out the batter and adding butter didn’t work.

Blend just yogurt and soy milk together and you’ll end up with something that doesn’t taste very good. You need to add fruit. Sepcifically, frozen fruit. Frozen fruit is what gives a smoothie its texture and its pleasantly cold temperature. Even one unfrozen ingredient will noticeably impact the smoothie’s texture.

Grocery stores and organic food megamarts sell a wide variety of flash-frozen fruit. Unless you have piles of free time, these stores will provide you with the bulk of your frozen fruit. The good news is that you can find a huge variety of frozen fruit in most stores — including cherries, blueberries, strawberries, peaches, pineapples, blackberries, raspberries and even premixed fruit blends.

I make smoothies every morning before work. I know, I know; how very California of me. Years before moving to California I bought a blender and started trying to make smoothies. The blender came out a couple of times, but making smoothies was always too much work to do regularly. What’s different now? I’ve learned how to blend quickly and easily.

The smoothie recipes that you find in cookbooks and in smoothie books are all fairly complicated and take too long to prepare. I’m going to explain how I make great tasting smoothies quickly and without hassle. These days it takes me less than five minutes to make two smoothies, pour them into to-go cups, wash out the blender, and clean off the counter top.

It really does. Alton Brown covered making popcorn without a special popcorn maker or a microwave on Good Eats using this recipe. Inspired, I bought some white and yellow popcorn from the bulk food aisle at Whole Foods and tried this over the weekend. “Real” popcorn truly is better than microwave popcorn. Even without a topping, the popcorn I made came out at least as good as the best movie theatre popcorn I’ve had. Adding just a touch of real melted butter really completed the “dish.”