How to Make Local Oat Waffles

Erik — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:39:05 +0000

In honor of International Waffle Day (March 25th), Lindsay and I made waffles for breakfast this past weekend (we’ll be out of town on the 25th). It was difficult to choose which recipe to make. I am a bit of a waffle enthusiast, and have made excellent yeast waffles, half whole-wheat waffles, hazelnut waffles, bacon brown sugar, and Liege waffles. That’s before even talking about the toppings. In the end, based on what we had on-hand and the fact that it was the most “local” recipe for posting, we decided to make oat waffles.

Local Oat Waffles

Makes 5-6 waffles

Amount	Ingredient	Preparation	Where we bought it (SWM = Somerville Winter Market)
5.5 oz	Oats	Toasted and ground	Sherman Market
4 oz	AP flour	We used whole wheat AP flour because that’s what we had	Wild Hive Farm
3 TBsp	Sugar
1 tsp	Baking powder
1 tsp	Kosher salt
0.5 tsp	Baking soda
3	Large eggs	Beaten	Red Fire Farm CSA
2 oz	Unsalted butter	Melted but not piping hot	Shaw Farm
16 oz	Buttermilk	We substituted yogurt and lowfat milk – see below	Shaw Farm

Directions

As Alton Brown always reminds us, in baking, it’s always preferable to measure your major dry ingredients (i.e., the flour) by weight. Variations in humidity and grind density can throw you off if you measure by volume (e.g., cups), and having too much or too little flour can have a big impact. Waffles are baked, so the raw oats and the flour listed above are by ounces by weight.
Place a saute pan over medium heat. Once it’s nice and hot hot, add the raw oats and toast them for about 5 minutes (until you can smell them getting toasty). Give them a second to cool off, and then grind them in a food processor. Pulse until you get more or less to the consistency of coarse flour.
In a large bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients (AP flour, oat flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda). Whisk until everything is combined evenly.

Melt the butter in the microwave. Time will vary depending on the microwave, but start with increments of 15-20 seconds. You want it melted but not dried out. Let the butter cool for a minute and beat the eggs in a medium bowl (it will need to be able to contain the buttermilk), then beat in the butter. Whisk in the buttermilk last. We did not have any buttermilk, local or otherwise, so we used 1 cups of our homemade yogurt mixed with 1 cups of low-fat milk (all from milk from Shaw Farm). It worked as a substitution, but wasn’t perfect, so get buttermilk if you can.

The skill in making waffles is in combing the two bowls that you now have: dry ingredients and wet ingredients. The key is to fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients using a rubber spatule. DO NOT WHISK OR ZEALOUSLY STIR. Pour the wet ingredients onto the top of the dry ingredients.
Then, in one fluid motion, use the spatula to cut a line down the middle of the bowl and turn your wrist to bring the bottom contents of one-half of the bowl to the top. Turn the bowl 1/4 turn and do it again. Repeat until most of the pockets of dry flour are gone.

Don’t overdo it,though. You do not want a perfectly consistent mixture. There will still be a few pockets of dry ingredients as well as lumps in the batter. That’s fine. The risk here is over-mixing, so err on the side of lumpy (see below). Turn on your waffle iron and let the batter rest in the bowl for 5 minutes. Also take you maple syrup out of the fridge so that it can get a little warmed up.
Make your waffles according to your waffle iron’s instructions. Measuring the amount of batter for each waffle is the hard part, and each waffle iron is different, so I can’t help you. I have a large ladle that I know more or less matches the batter volume of one waffle, so that’s a big help.

Carrot Almond Macaroon Recipe

Lindsay — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:06:04 +0000

I’m almost completely unable to throw out food. I hold on to bits and pieces like we’re in the Dust Bowl and it’s 1933. My great-grandmas would be proud of me. Erik thinks there isn’t a use for the last tiny bit of jam or apple peelings, but there is! Flavoring yogurt and pectin stock for jam and jelly! So there!!

Until I found this recipe, I was throwing out the pulp from making carrot juice and almond milk (and dying a little inside). I mean, you get tasty carrot juice and almond milk that’s much cheaper and less-filled-with-junk than store-bought, but still! All that perfectly good pulp…it made me sad. Plus, I like cookies, especially macaroons and especially when they use up stuff that I was previously tossing/composting while tasting rich and delicious.

Also, it’s a well-known fact that cookies have no calories when they’re mostly made of ingredients that were otherwise destined for the garbage.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to make almond milk or carrot juice first to enjoy these. I adopted this recipe from 101 Cookbooks, which uses chopped nuts and grated carrots.

We aren’t lucky enough to get oats or almonds at our farmer’s market, so we get both in the bulk section at our grocery store. They might not be local, but buying from the bulk section creates significantly less waste than buying pre-packaged.

I’d like to experiment with using ghee instead of coconut oil to increase the local-ness, but the coconut oil really makes them macaroons and isn’t as bad as it was once thought to be. Plus, I’ve replace my moisturizer with coconut oil, so we always have some on hand.

Carrot Almond Macaroons
Makes about 3 1/2 dozen

Ingredients:

Amount	Ingredient	Preparation	Where we bought it (* Union Sq. Greenmarket)
1 cup	Whole wheat flour		Cayuga Pure Organics *
1 tsp	Baking powder
1/2 tsp	Kosher salt
1 cup	Rolled oats	Not instant or quick cook	Bulk section. Does anyone know of a source for oats in the NY area?
2/3 cup	Almond pulp	Leftover from making almond milk or substitute finely chopped almonds	Bulk section
1 cup	Carrot pulp	Leftover from making carrot juice or substitute shredded carrots	Paffenroth Gardens *
1/2 cup	Maple syrup		Deep Mountain Maple *
1/2 cup	Unrefined coconut oil
1 tsp	Fresh ginger	Grated

Directions:

Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, oats, baking powder, and salt) in a large bowl.
Add the carrots and almonds and whisk long enough to break up most of the clumps. Our juicer sometimes leaves a few chunks in the carrot pulp, so I fish these out now, too.
In a glass measuring cup, melt the coconut oil in the microwave until just melted. This usually takes about a minute, but it depends on how warm the apartment is.
While the coconut oil melts, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or grease them with non-stick spray or butter.
Add the maple syrup and ginger to the measuring cup and stir to combine
Pour the liquids over the dry ingredients and stir to combine.
Use either a 2-teaspoon scoop or a tablespoon, drop the cookies onto the prepared pans. They won’t spread much, so you can place them pretty close together.
Bake for about 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for as long as you can wait.
Our oven runs hot, so I always set the timer for 8 minutes and then check every 2 minutes after that. To speed things up, I fill one pan and get it in the oven right away (top rack). The second pan takes me about 2 minutes to fill (thanks to the scoop!), so I put it in the bottom rack and rotate the pans when the initial 8 minutes are up (i.e. move the top pan to the bottom and the bottom pan to the top). Then I just remember that the second pan (now on the top) needs a few extra minutes.

These pack well, so I have been taking some along on my weekly business trips. It’s a nice little taste of home.

UPDATE: I just made these gluten-free by using buckwheat flour (instead of whole wheat) and gluten-free oats. They’re still delicious!

EatLocal365 » maple syrup

How to Make Local Oat Waffles

Carrot Almond Macaroon Recipe