Improvising

Last night we spent the evening with friends enjoying dinner, sharing the past year and looking forward to the new.

My contribution to the dinner was dessert. Chocolate fondue. We received a chocolate fountain as a Christmas gift from a family in Germany (their daughter was an exchange student here in 2006 and lived with us). A chocolate fountain is not something that I would have ever purchased for us but thought it would add a fun element to special occasions. Not only did we get the fountain, but they also sent chocolate to use in it. Really good German chocolate.

So dinner is over and I excuse myself from the table to begin the preparations for dessert. It doesn't take me long to realize there is something I forgot to consider.....the electrical plug-in. They don't operate on 110 in Germany like we do. I realized the fountain wasn't going to work. So it would be necessary to improvise.

Improvise I did and it turned out fine. Melt the chocolate, prep the fruit and cake then call everyone into the kitchen to enjoy. Mmmm. Adding a dark melted chocolate to strawberries, pineapple, bananas, pound cake and even marshmallows adds a special element.

Now to today. It's a new day and a new year. B3 had a friend sleepover last night and I promised them I would make waffles for breakfast. A late breakfast. More like a 10:00 brunch. Know what? It's 10:30 as I type this and they're still sound asleep.

Lawman and I enjoyed the breakfast/brunch without them. I realized as I was getting my ingredients out that I was out of flour. Completely out. So again it would be necessary to improvise. So I did. And, since I mentioned here that I wanted to replace refined flours with whole grains, it worked out great. I found an open bag of whole wheat flour and that's what I used. Waffles turned out great. Lawman and I liked them but the real taste test will come when the girls wake up. I'm not going to mention that I used something other than regular flour and see if they even notice.

Here's the waffle recipe.

Grandma's Waffles

• 2 cups flour (whole wheat)
• 1 T sugar (optional)
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 eggs, well beaten
• 2 c. milk
• 1/2 c. butter, melted

Sift dry ingredients together. Combine eggs and milk and slowly add to dry ingredients. Add butter; stir until just blended. Pour onto lightly oiled, hot waffle griddle and cook until golden. Serves 6-8.

With the improvising I've done in the past 24 hours, I'm wondering if that's a sign of things to come during 2009. I would say it's making do with what I have on hand and that's about keeping life simple. As Martha Stewart would say, "That's a good thing."