VeganMoFo Day 1 - Heart Healthy Breakfast - Dr. Barnard's

I know I said my VeganMoFo theme is meals from the heart-healthy books, but the first dinner won't be until tonight, so I decided on a peace offering from another heart-healthy plant based doctor. These waffles are from Dr. Neal Barnard and have appeared in a few of his books as well as his 21 Day Kickstart daily recipe emails. I'm sure I've seen the same recipe in McDougall newsletters, too.

Let me start out by saying I rarely ever, in the 36 years I've been married and the decades before that, made waffles. When my son was young I used to buy him store-bought frozen waffles, but as I got deeper into McDougalling I decided I wanted to get him away from the overly processed, white flour ones and turn him on to healthy whole grain ones made with healthy sugars. So I bought a waffle iron, just a little 2-waffle one that looks like this one, but white:

No matter how much I greased it up, no matter what recipe I used, the waffles stuck like crazy. I scrubbed it one last time about 28 years ago, packed it up, and put it away. It got moved from one house to another, to Florida, and back to NJ, bounced around from closet to closet until it settled in the bottom of an old cabinet. 

Until now. While trying to find foods that would tempt my husband to eat, one day I did the unthinkable and offered to make him pancakes (my choice) or waffles (Please say pancakes!). He chose waffles, so I dug out the waffle iron, gave it a quick wipe to make sure it was still clean, reviewed all the waffle iron tips and tricks on-line, and got ready to bake up some waffles.

Oatmeal Waffles
Serves: 3 (full waffles)

2 cup rolled oats
2 cup water
1 medium banana
1 tbsp raw sugar, or other sweetener
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Let stand a few minutes; if batter becomes too thick, add enough additional water to make batter easily pourable. Pour into a heated, oil-sprayed waffle iron. Cook for 10 minutes without lifting the lid.

I was determined not to use any oil at all, and since so many people on all the whole foods plant based forums, blogs and Facebooks said none is necessary if using non-stick, the waffle iron went un-oiled. I did plug it in as soon as I started gathering my ingredients and waited until well after the red light lit before pouring the batter on the griddle plates, maybe 15 to 20 minutes total pre-heat. I closed the waffle maker up tight and let it sit. My husband and son got a bit worried, seeing all that steam coming off of it. My son wanted to open it up after 5 minutes, insisting the waffles were burning. He didn't believe me that it wasn't until he did what all 20-somethings do when they want to learn something - he watched a YouTube video:

Of course, because that chef drowned the waffle maker in non-stick spray my son told me I did it all wrong, but at least he now believed the waffles weren't burning.

When the steaming stopped and the green light came on the waffle maker I opened it up.

And half the waffles were stuck to the top half of the waffle maker, the other half stuck to the bottom half. I closed it up and let it cook for a few more minutes, hoping the 2 sides would bake together. They never did. This is what always happened to me in the past, why I put that darn waffle maker away almost 30 years ago!

One of the hints I read was on removing the waffle from the non-stick waffle maker with a chopstick. I gently pried up a side and started pushing the half-waffle towards the center, and it naturally rolled up upon itself. I turned the waffle maker over and did the same for the top half. Here's what I ended up with:

He liked them! My husband put maple syrup one one but ate the other plain, saying the syrup made it too sweet. 

I got the waffle iron cleaned after a bit of a struggle, wrapped and packed it all up again, and it has now been returned to its place of dishonor at the bottom of a closet. It's only pancakes being offered from now on.