(Homemade) Frozen Waffles

My mother was a child of the depression.

The daughter of a school teacher, she grew up comfortable, but with just the necessities. Her childhood conditioned her to never waste even a morsel of food, which is why, even today, she still wraps up her uneaten pancakes and refrigerates them for another day. She will also ask you if she can have the starchy water your potatoes cooked in to use for soup base.

Oh, Mom...you used to really embarrass the crap out of me.

And then I turned into you.

Now I have OCD when it comes to food. I freeze the kids leftover fruit for smoothies, eat their leftovers and call it a *light dinner* and quiver when I discover an exciting recipe that uses up all my last bits of aging produce. I jump at the opportunity to reduce waste by using fresh beans and vegetables even if a recipe calls for canned. I'm weird and I can own it.

So in my latest fit of OCD brilliance, I decided to start making my own frozen waffles. It all came to me yesterday morning when we plowed through an entire box of frozen waffles in a matter of minutes leaving one more plastic bag for the garbage and another box for the recycling bin.

Don't get me wrong, I do love the frozen waffle. They are soooo easy in the morning and the kids L-O-V-E them. But standing over all the packaging I thought - There must be a better way to do this. Why the heck can't I just make a crap-load of waffles and freeze them myself?

So I did.

Depending on your preference, this could really be done with any mix - plain, blueberry, whatever. Since our windowsills just happen to be lined with the brilliant fall colors of ripening Hachiya persimmons, I wanted mine to use some of those. I found a highly rated pumpkin pancake recipe and simply modified it to fit our needs. Here's what I came up with:

Persimmon Waffles

Most persimmon recipes I have found call for a puree of the fruit in 1-cup measurements. The Squeezo makes this super easy. If you don't have a Squeezo you can always just scoop out the pulp and push in through a fine-mesh sieve. I plan to freeze lots of 1-cup containers that I can use throughout the year, as recipes require. Below we pureed about four persimmons and threw in a couple very ripe figs - just because. In a few minutes, I had my 2 cups of fresh puree.

In a medium bowl combine:

4 cups whole wheat flour
6 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons ground flax (optional)
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon ground allspice
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl mix:

3 cups milk, plus more for thinning
2 cup Hachiya persimmon puree (pumpkin, sweet potato, whatever)
2 egg
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 tablespoons vinegar

Stir the dry ingredients in with the wet ingredients. Add extra milk to thin batter if needed.

Use batter with your waffle maker according to manufacturers instructions.

This recipe yielded 15 large Belgian waffles. The house smelled so good while making these that the kids came running. We dressed them up with sliced bananas and honey and everyone was happy. The remainder went into the freezer. I will take them out as needed and toast them just like the store bought version.