Nightshade Nightmares: Mashed Potato Waffles

Nightshades: source of aggravated post-workout soreness and nightmares, for some people.  Pseudo-science or fact?

[caption id="attachment_4486" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Jessica the Dawn chases Little Bill the Halfpenny doll.[/caption]

Leftover mashed potatoes happen?!  Yes, yes they do.  Using my stand mixer to whip the boiled red potatoes made short work of the mashercizing process. 

 



Apparently the potatoes suffered no ill effects from being frozen on the bottom shelf of the fridge.



Basically, I made a GF version of Crazy Vegan Kitchen's mashed potato waffles.  I also eliminated the vegan cream cheeze since I don't usually have that on hand (I'm so vegan I barely use dairy substitutes, NOT.  Vegan cream cheeze is a pricey, non-essential treat.)  Very happily this week, unlike previous bad runs of waffles (I'm looking at you, Babycakes-frickin'-NYC Covers the Classics), the protein waffles I made turned out well, and these potato waffles turned out intact and delicious, kind of like big tater tots. 

[caption id="attachment_4468" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Viz., chocolate protein waffle atop leftover strawberry hand pie filling.[/caption]

 

You'll want to make these waffles with "plain" mashed potatoes (a little vegan margarine and non-dairy milk, salt and pepper, maybe some garlic) since they are the base for the recipe. 

Nightshade nightmares, here we come.

[caption id="attachment_4475" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Angie the Dawn is the stuff of nightmares. In a good way. I think...[/caption]

"Recipe Card" plugin is being utter crap and will not display my recipe.  The old way, then!

Mashed Potato Waffles {Vegan, Gluten-free}

Adapted from Crazy Vegan Kitchen

3 cups mashed potatoes, prepared
2 onions
1 head garlic
1/2 tablespoon olive oil (not EVOO)
1/4 cup warm water
3 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1 cup GF oat flour
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
3 teaspoons spices of your choice, total*
oil for greasing waffle iron

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Chop the top off the head of garlic, exposing the cloves within.
Wrap beheaded garlic in foil and place in preheated oven for 45 minutes.
At the same time as the garlic roastage, cut the onions into large chunks (quarters) and toss with oil.
Arrange in a single layer on a prepared baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes or until browned and translucent, stirring every 10-15 minutes.
Once garlic and onion are sufficiently roasted, place in a food processor or blender and pulse to chop. The waffle batter won't ooze properly in your waffle maker's grids otherwise (especially if you have a small-grid iron).
In a small measuring cup, combine warm water and flaxseed and set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together oat flour, xanthan gum, and spices.
In the bowl of a stand mixer (or using a large bowl with a hand mixer), beat mashed potatoes and flaxseed mixture to break up any chunks in the mashies.
Add the chopped onions and garlic and keep mixing.
Mix in the flour and spice mixture and mix until fully combined. The batter will be kind of dry and thick, but that's the way it's supposed to be, almost as if you could make drop biscuits from it.
Preheat your waffle iron according to manufacturer's instructions (out of a possible 6 settings for temperature, I had mine on a 4--medium high heat).
Grease the warm waffle iron.
Dollop in batter and spread it out a bit.
Cook for at least 5 minutes (I waited until the second time the light turned on with my iron) or until batter stops steaming.
Remove from the waffle iron to a cooling rack, re-grease, and repeat with the rest of the batter.
Enjoy with catsup, chutney, tomato sauce, vegan sour kream, etc.

*Suggested spices: thyme and rosemary | curry and cumin | Italian seasoning | chili and lime. You get the picture.



They're the softer cousin of my shoestring potato waffles. 

Parting shots:

Snow...looks like mashed potatoes/ mashed potatoes look like snow.

Then, as usual on the Front Range, the sun came up and the snow melted by the afternoon.  That, my friends, is #coloradolife.

So much stand mixer!

Curse reversed on these Carnival Squash Blondies.  I remade them with agave instead of sugar, the full amount (only 1/4 cup) of fat, and I added butterscotch chips (from Nooch Vegan Market).  They're still pretty singular in taste, but the texture and moisture makes them 1000% better, in my not-so-humble opinion.

It kind of looks like cheese pizza, doesn't it?  Tastes like box mix butterscotch pudding, though, highlighting the "candy" taste of roasted carnival squash.

 

The next thing I made in the stand mixer was a batch of "real bread," AKA: Elana Amsterdam's almond bread (veganized on this blog in 2013).  It's not pretty, but it sure is tasty.  I used a coarse-grind almond butter and coconut flour instead of almond meal, so the texture was a bit rougher, but it still has that same nutty, earthy taste I like.



Almond bread is good with berry protein vice cream.



Finally, I made brownies tonight from The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Cakes and Cookies, one of my go-to cookbooks.  TC asked for milk chocolate brownies, and according to Pinterest, such a recipe is near-impossible to find.  People who pin seem to like chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate.  In order to make Laurie Sadowski's recipe more "milky," I used Earth Balance margarine instead of coconut oil and almond milk instead of coffee.  The brownies came out fantastic, gooey, and chocolatey (with mini chips) but I don't think they're quite "milk chocolate."



One of my longtime friends gave me a Barnes and Noble giftcard for my birthday, and I finally acquired The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket.  I read A Series of Unfortunate Events when I was in high school, as they became available, and having a better grasp of "classic" literature gave these "children's" books more depth.  Nancy Q is on the case to solving what happened to Beatrice and the Baudelaire siblings!



The other half of the B&N order was Motionless in White's album Reincarnate (arrive in my mailbox already!!).  I think with the rest of my birthday giftcards, I can purchase their album Creatures as well.  It's exciting to me to "discover" bands that are growing as artists in real time, including Zola Jesus,  Ludovico Technique, and Gesaffelstein.  Birthday music this year has been (all titles are albums):

IAMX - The Unified Field

Ludovico Technique - Self Titled E.P. (Re-issue), Some Things are Beyond Therapy, We Came to Wreck Everything

Motionless in White - When Love Met Destruction - EP, Infamous, Reincarnate

ThouShaltNot - The Holiness of Now

Hell yeah, East Coast artists! (Ludo Tech, MIW, and ThouShaltNot are all from the East Coast, while Chris Corner/IAMX is from England.)

 

P.S. You can see more adventures of my creepy dolls on Flickr.

P.P.S. TC first introduced me to Gesaffelstein's "Pursuit" while browsing a message board about "Music for a Totalitarian State."