Friday night was Chicken and Waffles night.
Before you go writing me off as unhealthy with a buttered brain, hear me out. I eat good and green all week long. At some point when you’ve either reached the end of the week or you’ve swum/biked/ran enough, you need something more. You’re tired of brown rice and chicken. You’ve sworn off spinach for a day. You’re sick of pretending like things like salmon and vegetables fill you up. You need something hearty. You need fatty fat fat. You need sugar. You need butter. You need…
Chicken and Waffles
It starts with the usual “What do you want for dinner?” Chris and I can toss this question back and forth a dozen times and still get nowhere. But not on Friday night, I had an answer instantly:
Make me chicken and waffles, b*tch.
Right away, Chris is on it. This dish, after all, is his specialty. I once tried to make waffles but was afterward stricken from the waffle maker. Why? Simply put “Liz, you suck at making waffles.” Thank you. My goal is to suck at all sources of nutrition so I can get out of cooking. Of course, since then I have used “you suck” as an excuse to demand Chris make them for me.
Is there anything better than breakfast for dinner? A giant bowl of cereal that begs for more milk or more cereal until you realize you’ve eaten half the box. Omlettes with mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes. Blueberry pancakes. Sometimes breakfast for dinner is more fun than eating it at breakfast itself.
The secret to good chicken and waffles is in the batter. Chris uses Bisquick. And not the low fat kind. If you are going to do something wrong, you should at least do it right. Things like ice cream, chocolate, peanut butter, Bisquick – do not kid yourself with a lowfat version. You sacrifice 90% of the flavor for a few less fat grams. Not worth it.
You coat the chicken in the Bisquick and then fry it up. Meanwhile, you are making waffles with the Bisquick. The chicken should be crispy fried on the outside, tender on the inside. The waffles should be firm but fluffy.
The fun of breakfast for dinner increases exponentially when you make waffles (or even pancakes) in different shapes. Enter the Williams-Sonoma Waffle Maker. It makes waffles in the shape of barnyard things. There is a pig, a cow, a rooster and a barn. I like the barns. They are big and usually softer than the animals. Plus I can walk away from the table saying something like “I ate 3 barns.”
Chicken and waffles are best smothered with lots of syrup and butter. Sometimes the healthy vein that runs in me puts some greek yogurt and berries on top but then I cave and cover that with syrup.
I know what you’re thinking – that doesn’t sound like a healthy dinner. You are wrong. I believe it is the complete meal. There are carbs. There is protein. Served on a green plate, there is also…green.
Finally, done. A plate is piled high with waffles and the chicken is ready.
It takes about 10 minutes to plow through them and after all was buttered and done – there were two animals left.
Two cows.
It should have become a question of who would finish off the chicken and waffles and tip their stomach towards waffle overload. But I had other plans.
I posted a video of myself playing with my chicken and waffles on FB on Friday night and got some strange reactions to it. Some suggested I needed to hire co-workers because working all week with my dog is clearly turning me into that crazy lady who talks to her food. Kind of like The Log Lady, I am the Waffle Lady. Sshhh…listen….the waffle is saying something, the waffle knows who killed Laura Palmer. Others questioned if I had been drinking. Sadly, the answer is no. Others wondered if I had mad skills with knife carving because – look at that cow! Really, it’s just the waffle maker – I did not carve out the cows.
For those of you that missed the video, it had a riveting plot. Two cows talked across two plates until the one cow suggested the other take a butter bath. And then it rained syrup. At that point, the other cow’s leg came off and I called game over. It’s all fun and games until someone loses a hoof.
You should also know that shortly after the video, I tore the buttered cow’s head right off and realized I was one bite over what was an uncomfortably comfortable full tummy of waffles.
I was tipped off that this week’s Bobby Flay Throwdown was Chicken and Waffles. I like Bobby Flay and I like Chicken and Waffles. I also like when he throws down. In fact, he can show up at my house any time to throw down with me. No spatula necessary. Why Bobby Flay? He’s not that hard on the eyes and he can cook. Plus we have something in common: he is the IronChef, I am an IronChick.
Destiny.
We watched a recap of it on Sunday night. As usual, Bobby lost. It’s kind of hard to beat someone at their specialty. Plus his chicken and waffles looked like a giant plate of elephant dump. It was not pretty. But I did get some ideas about future chicken and waffles. You can add egg nog to the waffle batter. And paprika to the chicken. It also gave me the idea that in the near future Chris and I need to have our own chicken and waffles throwdown. I now have ideas on how to make my waffles not suck and I’m ready to throw it down.
Waterstraat, next weekend the chicken and waffles throwdown is on.
Friday I felt sick all night. I ate too many waffles and too much chicken. Plus I went through nearly a quarter of the bottle of maple syrup. Restless sleep, crazy sugar dreams (ever have those when you eat too much sugar before bed?) but I’ll tell you this. I got up the next morning and I rocked my workout. I saw watts that I haven’t seen before and the run off the bike was hard but my body settled quickly into a rhythm of hurt that I thoroughly enjoyed.
It might not be the healthiest meal but if you are looking for a way to supercharge yourself for the next day or just to have some fun with your food – cook up some chicken and waffles. When you have leftovers, throwdown and create your own home video of what happens when two cows meet across the table on two plates.
Let me know how that plot unfolds. Video helps.
