Whole Wheat Belgian Waffles

This recipe came out pretty well. I used about half a cup of batter for each /side/ of the waffle iron, and it yielded 6 waffles (with a little extra batter.)

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/whole-wheat-waffles-recipe

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (from Trader Joe's)

2 teaspoons baking powder (**the next time I cut this down to 1.5 tsp so they'd be a tad less airy. I think I prefer that.)

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk (I warmed it in the microwave for 30 seconds in a glass cup - would have done it longer, the butter still re-solidified a little)

1/3 cup melted butter  (I used salted and omitted added salt)

Preheat your iron while you make the waffle batter.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, and butte

Mix together the wet and dry ingredients, stirring just until combined. (I used a spatula)The batter will be a bit lumpy; that's OK.

Cook the waffles as directed 

I used not-the-hottest setting. (4/5?) I think something more like 3.5/5 would have been better - the first few were a tad overdone.

I ate them topped with sour cream (sweetened with some sugar) and frozen strawberries, defrosted.  

Whole wheat pita chips WITHOUT OIL

Recipes for pita chips tell you to brush them with olive oil first.  While oil adds some taste/mouthfeel and is useful if you want salt or other seasonings to adhere to your pita chips, if you're just looking for a crispy version of pita to use as a simple base for some sort of spread, you can skip it. Spreading oil on bread evenly is kind of a pain because bread is porous, and if you're putting cheese or nut butter on your pita chips anyway, oil doesn't really seem worth the additional step.

I preheated the oven to 450 degrees, split a few whole-wheat pocket pitas so that they were single-layer, and cut into wedges. Put on a cookie sheet, bake for about 5 minutes - watching very carefully - and then take them out when they're crisp but not burnt. Let them cool on the sheet. Other recipes suggest longer baking times at cooler temperatures but this seemed fine.

They don't stick to the cookie sheet, and mine didn't need to be flipped halfway through or anything.

Blueberry yogurt muffins (whole wheat)

I made these using white whole wheat flour and a smidge more than 1/2 cup white (refined) flour. Pans greased with real butter because I still need to buy baking spray for my new house. I don't think the oven was at the full 375 when I put them in, and it may have gone up to 400 mid-baking, because my oven has been a bit weird lately.

And, we shall see...

(white) whole wheat brownies

I'm going to try these: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/tasting-is-believing-whole-grain-brownies-recipe

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter
2 cups light brown sugar
several (6?) Trader Joes unsweetened chocolate baking disks, broken into pieces
3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional but recommended
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups White Whole Wheat Flour

It promises the shiny top crust, which I'm a big fan of.

Notes:
-omitted salt because I used salted butter
-used 1.5 c light brown sugar + 0.5c white sugar
-threw some trade joes unsweetened baking chocolate disks in with the melting butter because I wanted to use 'em up and because I wasn't sure how potent/fresh my cocoa powder was.
-sprayed the hell out of the pan with baking spray because I'm tired of having to chisel brownies out
-oven stayed at a pretty consistent 350 this time, miracle of miracles
-they rose a good bit, seem to have baked pretty evenly, and the toothpick came out clean after just 25 minutes, so I pulled them out of the oven.
-they're kind of cakey, and came out of the pan very easily - but maybe because of all the baking spray



Next on the roster is almond-meal-based brownies. My housemate brought one home from Whole Foods and it was pretty tasty. If I had a food processor I'd do this: http://www.hanneblank.com/blog/2011/04/22/elemental-chocolate-almond-cake/