Waffles, Picnics and Eggplant - What a day!

Hooray for Spring! Today was a beautiful day, with temperatures in the high seventies, so we wanted to celebrate and spend as much time outside as possible.

We started the celebration with breakfast. We usually have a pretty simple breakfast - cereal, toast, fruit, yogurt... I mean, not all in the same meal, but some combination of those is usually about all either of us is really up for on a daily basis, with the occasional pancake or french toast day thrown in. Today I pulled out the waffle iron. This is the waffle iron that my husband got me for our one year dating anniversary, so it's always a special day when we use it.

Little miss loves waffles, and was happy to help me make them. Stirring one bowl was not enough - she had to stir everything! At once! Whisking dry ingredients, stirring melted butter - she had a hand in most of the preparation of this batter.

I chose buttermilk waffles today, since I still had some buttermilk left from my Irish soda bread venture a few weeks ago. The recipe called for two cups, and I only had one cup left, so I made the recipe with half buttermilk and half my buttermilk substitute. It worked beautifully, though, and the waffles were light and fluffy, with a little crisp to the outside. Little miss wanted hers plain (okay, she actually wanted it with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, but I told her she had to have a more breakfast-y one first... I know, I am such a kill-joy), but I piled mine with banana slices and drizzled it with honey. YUM. We have plenty of leftovers, too, so I think little miss will have her chocolate sauce and whipped cream waffle for dessert this weekend.

Breakfast done, it was time to play outside. And I didn't want the outside fun to stop just for lunch, so we ran inside, made some sandwiches, and continued our outside celebration of the beautiful weather with a picnic right out front.

For the last leg of our day of fun, I decided that our veggie with dinner tonight, eggplant, would be served in the least-veggie way possible - covered in breadcrumbs and then smothered in tomato sauce and cheese. Not quite eggplant parm, I generally call this eggplant lasagna, because I layer it like a lasagna and use ricotta cheese in addition to mozzerella. Little miss wanted to help with this one, too, so helped me coat the eggplant pieces with breadcrumbs. We baked our eggplant rather than frying them because, well,I still wanted it to be a LITTLE healthy... ish... Once the dish was all layered and ready, it went in the oven for about a half an hour until the sauce was bubbly and the cheese was all melty and delicious looking.

Definitely more of a side than a veggie dish, this was still delicious. Even little miss loved it, despite telling me that she just wanted her eggplant plain.

All in all, a really fun day.

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