Breakfast: the most wonderful meal of the day!

I am a firm believer in breakfast. Not because it "gets your metabolism going" or "gives you energy for the rest of your day", but because it has the best food! At what other meal can you have something sweet or savoury (or both) and get away with it? Crepes, bacon and eggs, omelettes, you name it - breakfast has it.

I used to eat the same breakfast every day for over two years. It was a slice of multigrain toast with low-fat peanut butter and flax sprinkled on top. Delicious! But, over the past year or so, I've decided to expand my breakfast horizons. It started with making smoothies for breakfast during the week (a very portable breakfast, so you can get an extra 15 minutes to sleep in) and on weekends I began making waffles.

My obsession with waffles comes from the restaurant Cora's. They have delicious waffles, and topped with a mountain of fresh fruit and a bit of whipped cream - it's heaven! However, I know waffles aren't a good thing to be eating every morning, so I searched for a healthy, whole wheat version. I'm not too sure where I originally got this recipe, it's been a while, but I've made some modifications to it, so we'll call it mine! Here it is:


Whole Wheat Waffles
Makes 6 waffles (on my waffle maker)

2 eggs
1 3/4 cup skim milk
1/2 cup apple sauce
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar

Directions

1. In a large bowl whisk eggs, milk, apple sauce, and vanilla together.
2. Add to the wet ingredients the whole wheat flour, bran, all purpose flour, baking powder and sugar and wish it all together
3. Spray your waffle maker with PAM and pour in 1/2 - 2/3 cup batter and cook to desired brown colour. Your waffle iron may be different, so follow it's cooking instructions and adjust the amount of batter accordingly.

This recipe is pretty versatile. You can substitute one egg with the equivalent measure in egg whites. The original recipe called for 1/2 cup flax and 1/4 cup wheat bran instead of 3/4 cup wheat bran - so if you like flax you can use those measurements instead. These waffles also freeze REALLY well, so you can make a batch, freeze them, and have your own homemade waffles any morning - just pop them in the toaster (I have to bread mine in half to make them fit)! And of course you can put anything you'd like on top of them. I enjoy them with some defrosted frozen berries, but I'm sure they would be great with other fruit, syrup, peanut butter, or whatever you like on your waffles!

I highly suggest everyone invests in a waffle maker. It doesn't need to be a fancy one that can make enough waffles to feed an army, it just needs to work. I got mine for 17$ in the states and it's the best 17$ I ever spent (I actually say this every time I make waffles).