The Joy of Waffles

Most of my friends have heard me sing the praises of Yam Waffles for a very long time. Erin and I bought some Garnet Yams at the Sunflower Farmer's Market the other day in anticipation of having these waffles for supper sometime this week. I discovered the recipe for Yam Waffles in the Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer about nine years ago and have been a happy waffle maker ever since.

These are made with regular flour as opposed to cake flour which most from scratch waffle recipes seem to call for. Since I had no cake flour when I decided to make waffles that day, I went to my go to cookbook, the Joy. Since I always have regular flour of some form to hand and rarely, if never, have cake flour, I was delighted to find this recipe. We like these waffles so much that I now own three waffle makers and have at least two going at once so everyone can eat at the same time. Clever Mum that I yam...

This recipe has been made with acorn squash, canned and fresh pumpkin, sweet potatoes as well as the yams, both canned and fresh. I have also made this recipe with whole wheat flour as well as a mix of unbleached and whole wheat flours. I have added, at times, chopped candied ginger, toasted pecans, mini chocolate chips and/or crumbled bacon to the batter as well. We happen to prefer the yam or squash kinda chunky, but pureed yam and squash works just as well. This is a great way to use up that leftover sweet potato casserole on the morning after Turkey Day, by the way. Usually these are served with butter and REAL maple syrup from Vermont, but I happen to have wild blueberry sauce to the ready this evening for mine. Yum!

I can't sing the praises enough of the Joy of Cooking. Everyone should have a copy in their cookbook collection as it will get you through just about anything. It is also a great resource for the substitution of missing ingredients. I also find new ways to prepare just about anything.

My sister's copy of the Joy is called the Treasure. It has no covers and falls open to the pages of the family favorites (the pages are also spattered with brownie, pancake, and various other batters from baking with the children). Mine is starting to look like the Treasure as I use it at least once a week, if not more often. As a matter of fact, the cover has been taped back on at least twice now. I am also in search of a copy of the same copyright date to give to Erin and Guy as a wedding gift. It was a request, as Erin is not so fond of the newer editions (nor am I for that matter). I mean why waste space that could hold a good recipe to tell us how to make our own tofu? Every grocery store carries tofu these days and it's SO much easier to pick up a container of it then to go through the process of making it. That's how great this book is, depending on the copyright version, the how-tos are/can be fascinating.