on the menu: banana coconut waffles

The waffle experimentation continues here chez sphinx. Going strong with my All-Clad Belgian waffle iron.

banana coconut waffles

This time I substituted all of the oil for coconut oil and about 1/4 of the flour for coconut flour, then say 1/2 c of moisture for mashed banana. Buttermilk over milk every time. I also added sparkling water, which, in conjunction with the baking soda/vinegar (from the buttermilk) mix, makes the batter bizarrely fluffy, and the waffles deliciously fluffy (want to try it with sparkling wine later…). I adapted the buttermilk waffles recipe from the Cook’s Illustrated cookbook, which is often too elaborate for my taste but which is full of good techniques. I didn’t use buttermilk powder, for example, as the recipe suggests, I just used buttermilk.

1 1/2 c all purpose flour
1/2 c coconut flour
1 T coconut sugar
3/4 t table salt
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t nutmeg
1/2 c milk (to sit with 2 T cider vinegar for a few minutes*)
1/2 c mashed ripe banana
2 large eggs
1/4 t vanilla extract
1/4 c coconut oil
1 1/4 c unflavored seltzer water

*The standard buttermilk recipe is 1 c milk to 1 T lemon juice or vinegar but I love vinegar, so my ratio is more like 1 c of milk to 4 T vinegar…still doesn’t read as vinegar in the final product.

Whisk dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients excepting seltzer, gently add seltzer to wet ingredients, stir wet into dry being careful not to overmix (batter should be lumpy). Can add berries or chocolate chips at this point, or any other debris. Iron away.

banana coconut waffles

Jars Ceramics plate

It’s increasingly rare that waffles go wrong for me.

banana coconut waffles

Now if I could only work out pancakes, with which I find experimentation a risky proposition.

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so fancy: the underwear edition

There is a wonderful uselessness to pretty underthings that sometimes appeals to me. An unnecessary-ness. A superfluous fanciness. To make matters more conspicuously impractical, they are often uncomfortable, too, as one always seems to learn the hard way. Then, too, he fancier they are, the closer their kinship to the realm of panties in my mind; that comical, ultra-feminine diminutive. Hard to say it with a straight face, even, and yet, once in a while, so pretty. So satisfying to secretly (or not so secretly) be wearing.

calvin klein satin gauze underwear lingerie

I usually wear black, white, or tan cotton underwear. I am no devotee of “fancy” underthings…but I can appreciate them now and then. Picked up this gauze and satin number from Calvin Klein on a whim one day. Pink, too.

One feels rather badass in such underwear. With or without pants. Perhaps because—at least when they are novel, strange—in your physical experience of them you are more conscious of your body – cannot forget about your body, as it is otherwise so easy to do. Perpetual awareness of the body affects movement and attitude, for me almost always in a positive way.* This really goes for any physical novelty, high-heels being another good example (if you don’t wear them all the time), or just any piece of apparel in which you feel different, like something new, like you have a new shape, or a new texture (a new haircut has a similar effect, I think).

*If I am self-conscious about some part of my body on a given day I perhaps hope to forget about it, admittedly. I am rarely self-conscious about anything but acne, though, and as I get older I am less self-conscious and more just…cranky. How I hate acne.

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Channeling Scarlett

If you haven’t ventured into the land of unnecessarily pretty underwear, I urge you to consider a trip. Novelty is powerful in the game of style.

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