Sunday Dinner - Breakfast Edition

I have quite a collection of holiday food magazines and cookbooks. Whenever I leaf through them I always marvel at the breakfast menus that are trotted out for Christmas morning. At our house, we eat breakfast every day but never a huge feast. Just enough fuel to get us up and out the door and keep us satisfied until lunch. So I like the concept of Christmas breakfast but don't think I have the appetite to pull it off. That includes getting up early enough to prepare the darn thing.

Then I had a brain wave. Why not make breakfast for this week's Sunday dinner? It's a week before Christmas, the kids are off school for two weeks - there are no rules right now! So that's what we did. Gingerbread waffles, diner style potatoes and turkey sausages:


Everyone loved the gingerbread waffles, which I found at Tasty Kitchen. These smelled amazing when they were cooking (waffling?) and really, it's like demanding your children eat cake for dinner. Who's going to refuse? The potatoes are another Cook's Illustrated find from America's Test Kitchen TV Show Book 2010-11. They were wonderful. I've tried dicing / frying potatoes for breakfast before and they never seem to turn out. With these babies you dice the potatoes then cover them with water, add some salt to the pot, and just as they start to boil you take them off the heat and strain them. Then you put them in a hot skillet with both butter and oil. Delish.

So that's our last Sunday dinner before Christmas 2010. So no blog posts about holiday heroics in the kitchen, or at least none relating to 'official' Christmas dinner. Although I am on tap for dessert. I already made a Sticky Date Pudding for our dinner with D.'s family but I plan on making one more thing...for a Christmas food craving I have yet to satisfy.

Gingerbread Waffles

• ⅔ cups Brown Sugar
• 2 whole Large Eggs, Yolks And Whites Separated
• 1-½ cup Buttermilk (or Regular Milk Plus 1 1/2 Tablespoons Vinegar)
• ½ cups Molasses
• 6 Tablespoons Butter
• 2 cups Flour
• 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 2 teaspoons Ground Ginger
• 1-½ teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• ¼ teaspoons Ground Cloves
• ¼ teaspoons Ground Nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoons Ground Cardamom (optional, But Recommended)

In a small bowl, mix brown sugar and egg yolks until smooth and creamy. Stir in buttermilk, molasses, and butter.

Into a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, salt, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamom.

In a glass or metal bowl, whip egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks have formed.

Add liquid mixture into sifted dry ingredients and stir together. Fold in egg whites.

Cook according to waffle iron instructions.