Momma Shaffer is a meat and potatoes cook, but it was always welcome surprise when she would say the magical words, "Breakfast for Dinner." The bacon and eggs were always tasty, but the real dessert of the meal was the Homemade Belgian Waffles.

I remember thinking how pretty the egg whites shine and fluff looked before she folded it into the batter. Those beautiful whites before they go in the batter.

Since those days I have tried several waffle recipes and I like this one the best! The melted butter when it mixes with the milk makes little butter slivers that distribute through the batter. Because these miniature slivers of butter when the batter is poured on the waffle iron they evaporate. This evaporation gives tons of tiny air bubbles, resulting in a light and crunchy texture. And the butter, sugar and vanilla make a crunchy caramelized texture on the outside.
True Belgian Waffles
by Rose Delemeester printed in the Taste of Home, Winning Recipes
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon REAL vanilla extract (sometimes I put more)
In a bowl, combine the flour sugar and baking powder. In another bowl, lightly beat egg yolks. Add the milk, butter and vanilla; mix well. Stir into dry ingredients just until combined. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form; form into batter.
Bake in a preheated waffle iron according to manufacturer's direction until golden brown. Serve with strawberries or syrup.
Yield: 10 waffles (about 4 - 1/2 inches)

 Linking Up
 

Before we share our favorite comfort food recipes with you, we just wanted to remind you about our comfort food linky party. Please, share your favorite comfort food recipes, we don't care if you blogged about it yesterday or a few years ago! 

Al - Flap Jack Perfection
Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes- An Anytime Favorite from Al

Once upon a time I used to be satisfied by the Bisquick buttermilk pancake mix that you just add water too, but then about a year after I got married, Scary insisted that we try a from scratch pancake.  It only seemed fair to ditch the mix since we already made our waffles from scratch. When I got a wheat grinder for Christmas I ended up coming up with this recipe for wheat buttermilk pancakes. It took a while to figure out the perfect amount of sweetness, something that flipped easily, and that lasted to the end of the batter. This is the perfect recipe. You can switch it and use all white flour, all wheat flour, or 50/50. When I am less concerned about healthy, I go with 50/50. Well, here it is:

3 C wheat flour
6 T sugar
1 T baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
3 C buttermilk
2 tsp. vanilla
2 T oil
4 eggs, separated
Mix together dry ingredients. Add buttermilk, vanilla, oil and egg yolks until it is smooth. Turn on skillet or griddle. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold egg whites into the batter. Then make your pancakes. Flip them when they start to bubble through the other side. When they are done, top them with butter, whipped cream and sliced strawberries. Finally enjoy! Yield: 8-10 large pancakes.
*Note:  If you don't have any buttermilk, and you have milk and lemon juice or vinegar you can still make these pancakes; it is 1 T of  lemon juice or vinegar for just under 1 C of milk to make 1 C of buttermilk- keep in mind you need 3 cups. Let this mixture sit for 5 minutes and then it's ready to go.

One last funny tangent. About a week after we moved to Chicago, I was really missing Idaho, my sisters, and sunlight (remember I live in a basement without any windows) bad enough that I couldn't go without buttermilk pancakes as well. We had to go to four different grocery stores before we found any buttermilk. That is how much I love these pancakes. This is definitely my #1 favorite, comfort food!

Nae - Soup and Bread Lunch

Scary - BBQ Dinner at Home
I am glad that Al and Nae have shown you a healthy comfort food but mine is a true comfort and not healthy at all. But for us is more of a special occasion than an every day occurrence.

Slow Cooker Dry Rub Pulled Pork - One of Slim Jim's favorites and much more budget friendly than going to get pulled pork from a bbq joint.

You need one well marbled pork shoulder.
First mix together your dry rub. The recipe is written as a ratio and not exact about because the first time I made this recipe was for Bubba and Nae's wedding luncheon (because pulled pork is Bubba's favorite) which means we had 50 lbs of pork! For one roast I think it is better to do the parts in teaspoon amounts but if you do it in tablespoons than you will have enough to go around.

3 parts paprika, 1 part garlic powder, 1 part white sugar, 2 parts brown sugar, 1 part dry mustard, 3 parts course salt.

Salt the board with Dry Rub and then put pork roast on top of seasoning

Place roast into seasoned cutting board (look at how great the marbling is on this pork shoulder, look for that when you purchase your meat, because the fat is what melts to make the sauce)

Season second large section

Roll the sides in the dry rub and throw it in the crockpot, good and early! By the time dinner rolls around you will be drooling.

I put it in the slow cooker from 7:30 am to about 6 pm on low. Man it was so yummy! Do you want to see?

At the end of the day your pork should be falling apart.

Add your favorite sauce on top (ours is Sweet and Zesty from Famous Dave's)

Added a little shredded lettuce and yummy!

Cream Cheese and Corn Potatoes - Creation by my Mother-in-Law, loved by tons
These cream cheese potatoes are loved by all of Slim Jim's aunts and uncles! His aunts have tried to make it themselves but it never turns out quite right. I asked for the assistance of my mother-in-law so I could get these right. Your welcome, Aunt Nancy!

Ingredients
5 lbs of russet potatoes (the starchiness of russet is really the key to this dish so I wouldn't change it for a more waxy potatoes or the texture would be off)
1 1/2 packages (12 oz.) of cream cheese (or less fat cream cheese)
2 sticks of butter/margarine (1 cup)
1 can of corn
Salt and Pepper

Peal 5 lbs of russet potatoes. Rinse them while you bring 4 qts of water to a boil, salt the water until it tastes salty. Chop potatoes quarters and place in water. Boil until your fork sticks and pulls out without a lot of resistance.

Drain the water from the potatoes and immediately place back in the pan.

To it add 1 package of cream cheese and one stick of butter. I only had low fat cream cheese so that is what I put in (but it is not required), but thinking about the amount of "yumminess" we are talking a little less fat may not be a bad thing.

Mash potatoes with butter and cream cheese, and pepper

Add 2 palm full of salt (My mother-in-law has pretty small hands)  & a fair amount of pepper

Add another 4 oz of cream cheese and additional stick of butter, taste and then add one more handful of salt. Since my hands are pretty large I would probably add only 2, instead of 3. Remember, they should be flavorful if they aren't keep adding salt and pepper.  (I added a lot more pepper after this picture)

Drain 1 can of corn, and stir until combined.

Yummy in my tummy! Paired with BBQ it is perfection

Jo - Family Night Dessert
Chocolate Chip Cookies
When Hubbin and I first got married, he told me how much he loved Chocolate Chip Cookies.  He told me how his mom used to make them for him, and that his how he knew that she loved him.   Well, that was a shoe in for me.  If I made them all of the time, I knew that he would know how much I loved him.  I made them ALL of the time.  I made them so often, that I can do it with my eyes closed.  I can throw in extra ingredients, and know it will still turn out. 
Over the last 10 years, and literally thousands of batches later, I have adapted this recipe, to fit my taste.  I happen to think it is perfect!

Jo's Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup butter (not margarine!, not shortening!) Softened, not melted
1 and 1/2 cups of Brown Sugar (I love that deepness that the molassys gives to the flavor)
1TBS Vanilla
2 eggs
Cream this until it looks like whipped cream.  Maybe five minutes with the kitchen aide.  I usually load the dishwasher at this point.
Now add your flour, 3 cups.  1 tsp of salt. 1 tsp of baking soda.  and mix it until it gets that yummy cookie dough consistency.

Now if you're a Grandma, use 3 cups of chocolate chips.  If your a mom just add 2.  Some things are just reserved for Grandmas, sorry ladies.  My Grandma told me that!
You know the rest! Just put those cookies on the pan.  I put them in the timer for about 7 minutes on 350.  If they look like they need another minute, pull them out!  That means they are perfect!
My first pan full usually comes out a little funny, because this is the point that I remember to turn on the oven.  And for some reason the last panful always burns!  But, those in between pans disappear like nobodies business!  Sorry that I don't have any pictures up!  If you want to see Scary's cookies, they are here.

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Free Printable at the Bottom

A while back I was watching my friend, Vandi family's blog. In the video her 3 year old daughter said, "I can do hard things" as she struggled through a difficult task. I was blown away by the confidence this little girl had in herself, I could tell that her mom had given her such encouragement that she knew that she had the ability and mental strength to move forward.
I knew then that I wanted my children to know with such absolute faith that they could do hard things.
Teaching Our Children
One night Ryder woke up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom. Ryder usually falls asleep with the door open for bedtime we don't leave it open because he in the past has woke up and had "parties" which have resulted in dangerous situations because Slim Jim and I were asleep. Ryder takes great comfort to falling asleep with the door open and I take great comfort in it being shut when I am not awake to catch him playing with knives or turning on burners. This night I knew I didn't have the strength to stay awake while I waited for him to fall asleep. So I told him that to keep him safe we would need to shut the door, this was counter acted by crocodile tears and great fear. I didn't know what to do. I thought back to what I had learned from the little girl and I said, "Ryder, You can do hard things and I know that you can do this" He met my confirming message with less trepidation, and softly responded,"I want the door open." I then repeated my desire to keep him safe and with more emphasis than previously I reminded him that he could do hard things. I saw the confidence beginng to swell inside him and together we began to say together, "I can do hard things" All of the sudden, Ryder knew that he could do the hard thing that I was asking, and bolted to his bed exclaiming, "I can do hard things."
The next morning when Ryder emerged from his bedroom he said,"I did it. I can do hard things!"
Reminding Ourselves and Our Spouses
As part of our journey with panic disorder, Slim Jim was unable to travel. This meant for years he was unable to go home. He longed for home and I wish there was some way that I was able to help him. Ryder and I had gone down to attend a family event and when I got there I knew what I should do. Bring Utah to him. I couldn't think of a better representation of that, then a panoramic view of the Wasatch mountains.

The usually are even but the one on the left got bumped by the kids this week, and I was being lazy not wanting to fix it right before I took it down.

I pulled over in Brigham City and snapped 50 images across the horizon. When I got home I used Photoshop to stitch all of the images together (my computer was hating me but after a while it spit out a 40 inch long image). I cropped it to a 5 inches tall by 35 inches wide. I then cut the images into (5) 5 by 7 images and sent it to Walmart for printing when I picked them up I purchased 5 inexpensive gallery frames. After a couple of minutes and a few push pins I had a part of home for Slim Jim.
When he got home he smiled, and thanked me for bringing him home. This then served as a gentle reminder to him where he wanted to be and that he could do it. A few months later he was able to go home to visit for the first time in years.
A month and a half ago, I could tell Slim Jim was unhappy. We had lived in a temporary place for a permanent amount of time, I knew he wanted to move on. I told him though it was scary we needed to move. He agreed and began to work on transferring.
We have had a few little bumps that might of had us doubt and we have had to remind each other and our selves , "I Can Do Hard Things".
Today as I finish packing our apartment I will both mentally and vocally remind myself that, "I Can Do Hard Things."
I am sure you have times where you might need to do hard things and for you I have made this printable. I know you can do it!

8 by 10 {Free Printable}

8 by 10 {Free Printable}

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We have a couple of things to tell you about today!
Moving/Spring Cleaning Sensory Activity (in Ryder language: Fun Messy Job)
As many of you know Jo and I are both in the process of moving. What you might not know is that we are both husbandless while doing this. Our husbands have moved proceeding us for employment reasons. Though we are without our husbands for the time being, we are not without our children (I have my 2 and she has 3 out of her 5). Packing and moving takes more time and attention than our children would prefer. 
Today, I was trying to sort the toiletries into stuff that was worth packing up and what we should just throw away. The thrifty part of me didn't want to throw away any of the 10 containers of various scents of hand and body lotion. But I have been trying to minimize the amount of "stuff" we take to the next place, so I knew I couldn't keep it.
Then BAM! It hit me.... Sensory Activity for one 3 year old boy. I put different colors of food coloring in the lotion, which upped the coolness level by 10 points!
Win, Win, Win!
1st Win: He had an activity that kept him entertained for over an hour, which allowed me to get some work done.
2nd Win: I didn't have to fill guilty for tossing because I just did a mind shift from lotion to educational supplies. He drew circles, told me the colors and textures as I added the different lotions.
3rd Win:  Smiles and giggles from Ryder. He asked for extensions to the timer deadline several times (I initially set it for 45 minutes, for this activity). And let me tell you he had sooooooooo much fun! He told me that he wants to do the Fun Messy Job again.
I couldn't leave Boston out of the fun but didn't want to give her something inedible so I plopped some chocolate pudding in front of her and she had her own age appropriate sensory exercise. Following both activities the kids visited the tub.

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Right now I should be...packing, cleaning or sleeping but instead I am doing something way cooler. Sharing with you one of the sweetest list of DIY children clothing creations known to man (or at least the last couple of months). Project Run and Play sew along group is such a talented group of designers, who find time for sewing along with all of the important things in life. Most of the women (there might be men but I don't think I have came across any) in this group don't blog about sewing for a living they just do it because they love it and love being able to share the possibilities with the world. Along with sharing their skill they come and encourage their fellow peers by leaving the sweetest comments. It is like having a cheering section, peer coaches and the coolest group of friends ever!
Here are some of the things we made this season:
 
We wanted to take this opportunity to share some of our favorite designs with you. If you were featured feel free to grab the button.

41 Super Sweet Girl  Designs



28 Rocking Boy Designs

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