Monday, October 22, 2007

Menu Plan Change :-)

The problem with making a menu plan is sticking to it. I think I've gotten pretty good at my menu planning, but sometimes what you had planned to make, and what you want to make are two different things. This can be a bad thing when the desired dinner means a trip to the grocery store and added expense for the week. Those changes I don't make too often.

Then there's the menu change because you have something else on hand, and it just is too good to pass up an opportunity. Take today for example. I have white chicken enchiladas on the menu, to be made with chicken leftover from last night. But today I am cooking pumpkin. Pie pumpkins to be exact. Saturday Andy took the kids to the farm stand to pick up pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns, and brought home five pie pumpkins for me. That's a lot of pumpkin! So today I am roasting the pumpkin in the oven to be mashed and frozen for future use. And as I'm roasting this wonderful pumpkin an idea came to me, and well, since I have everything on hand, tonight's dinner has changed to Spiced Pumpkin Waffles. The enchiladas then will be bumped to Tuesday, and the pork roast will be bumped off completely to another week. That's okay, since the ingredients for that are frozen pork and canned sauerkraut- nothing that will go bad over time.

So here are tonight's Spiced Pumpkin Waffles. You can check out the original recipe, as well as reviews, here on Recipezaar. (And for additional fun today, be sure and check out The Recipe Trove. I had some fun playing around over there this morning.)

Spiced Pumpkin Waffles

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 pinch salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 2/3 cups milk
4 tablespoons butter -- melted and cooled

Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt in large bowl.

In a second bowl, add eggs, sugar, pumpkin, milk, and butter; beat well.

Gently fold in the flour mixture.

Cook according to your waffle iron directions.

They come out a nice deep, golden brown.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sound delicious for a Fall supper!

Anonymous said...

i'm with you...often my menu changes because i crave something else, but then it mess up my grocery shopping! i only want to shop once a week, with menu changing sometimes i have to go back to a supermarket.

Erika W. said...

jep, it was delicious. We had them smeared with some homemade pear butter- which was perfect, since these waffles were slightly sweet. We all gobbled them up, and the leftovers went in the freezer for a quick toaster breakfast.

Eliza, I would love to get that midweek shopping trip elminated. I have such good intentions to stop only if I need milk or eggs, but good intentions...