Paleo Waffles

This morning, I felt energetic enough to make waffles (vs. my usual "reheat something Mom made"). This is a rather low bar, since "making waffles" in this case means "stirring one cup of mix with 3/4 c. water and pouring it into a waffle-maker," hardly a laborious process. But it's still a rare enough occurrence that I figured hey, let's take some subpar pictures and talk about the lunacy of "paleo" as a diet.

To recreate the experience, you will need one (1) bag of Birch Benders Paleo Pancake Waffle Mix from Costco.

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You may be wondering whether "paleo pancake and waffle mix" isn't a bit of an oxymoron, to which I say yes, it sure is; no one in the paleo period was making waffles, dudes. Or chocolate, or cinnamon rolls, or basically any of the other popular "paleo" treats. "Paleo" as a philosophical ethos is deeply flawed, to the extent that I would argue it is largely nonsense. Nonetheless, I am still very grateful for its existence, as much as the background makes me cringe: It's a very straightforward shortcut for "hey Ames, this doesn't contain anything that will make your body angry," as paleo foods contain no refined sugar or grains, the latter excluding anything with gluten. Does a pancake/waffle mix without flour or sugar taste the same? Fuck no. Different flavor, different texture, whole different ballgame. BUT! As long as you don't go into it expecting a perfect dupe, it's fine. The Birch Benders mix contains cassava starch, almond flour, eggs, a couple of leaveners, salt, and monk fruit as the sweetener. Plus "spices," whatever that may entail.

For waffles, scoop a cup of the mix into a bowl and add 3/4 c. water. The instructions say to add 1.5 T oil, too, but I skip that and it's fine. We're going for bare minimum here, folks. Stir together and let sit for a couple of minutes while you let the waffle iron heat up. Pour it into said waffle maker. I usually don't pour enough so it ends up being a somewhat pathetically malnourished waffle, but it's fine, no one's here to judge. I recommend letting it cook longer than your waffle iron will think it needs, but don't expect it to get crispy, it's not gonna happen. (If you cook them and then reheat them in the toaster oven later, they do get crispier, but still not truly crispy. Such is the curse of paleo.)

Green light = go, but first wait for a few minutes (this would get you honked at in traffic)

Plorp it onto a plate.

Exhibit A: "somewhat pathetically malnourished waffle"

Spread some peanut butter. I used Costco's organic creamy peanut butter, which is made from valencia peanuts and, despite the lack of added sugar, is too sweet for my taste, but the grocery stores have been out of Adam's for weeks so we make do with what we've got.

Exhibit B: Costco's "too sweet" peanut butter, plus my very fuzzy bathrobe

Then pour on some maple syrup. Again, I used Costco's. In an ideal world, I would have put sliced bananas on top, too, but there's a pandemic on and we didn't have any, so again, we make do with what we've got.

Exhibit C: Costco's maple syrup. This post is not sponsored by Costco, we just shop there a lot.

I would say ta-da!, but I forgot to take a picture of just the finished waffle. I'm sure you can use your imagination.

One cup of mix makes enough for 2ish Belgian waffles; I made two somewhat pathetically malnourished and one tragically malnourished waffles, enough for two breakfasts and a snack.