practically healthy banana oat waffles

not only is this the first time i have lived with a waffle maker but my apartment currently houses two of them. until now, i was a pancake person. but when you know that there are waffle makers (plural!) just itching to be used, it tends to shift the focus. now i will admit that sometimes i experience a certain pang of guilt when consuming mass quantities of baked carby goodness as my first meal of the day, although you probably wouldn't have guessed that from reading the blog.

conversations of waffles over the weekend provided a) oat waffles and b) hey, let's use this mushy banana i have, or i'm going to throw it out. how did this decrease my guilt? practically healthy banana oat waffles! the banana subbed in for any fat that i would have added to the batter and a combination of flour and oats was way better (think whole grain) than flour alone. and since we didn't have any syrup, my holy trinity of toppings for the day was homemade raspberry jam, peanut butter (crunchy, of course) and honey. yummmmmmm.

practically healthy banana oat waffles

bear with me here. this is one of those not so exact recipes. once you know the kind of consistency you're looking for (a relatively thick but no too thick batter) i don't think accurate measurements are necessary.

• one mashed banana (it needs to be ripe! the mushier, the better)
  
• 2 eggs
• about 1 cup soy milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup quick cook oats
• 1 cup spelt flour
• some brown sugar (a few tablespoons)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt
  
• cinnamon

• mash banana in the bottom of a bowl
• add remaining wet ingredients (soy milk, eggs, vanilla) and mix
  
• this is where i really break the rules: dump in the dry ingredients (flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon) and sort of mix them together on top of the wet ingredients with a fork, before blending everything together. really, i see no need to dirty 2 bowls when 1 gets the job done. don't overmix.
• waffleize!