We've come to the end of my Family Meals Month recipes and I decided to let Drew pick the theme of our dinner for WEEK FOUR. We love having a good breakfast for dinner night around our house and I'm sure your family will end up loving this tradition as well. One of our very favorite things to make on Breakfast for Dinner nights are waffles. These waffles are a spin off of a much beloved Lemon Ricotta Pancake recipe. Don't let the ricotta scare you, these waffles will not taste cheesy. The ricotta helps ensure that these waffles are fluffy and creamy in all of the best ways. If you're like me and love lemon flavors, feel free to add more lemon juice and zest in your recipe (I often add more of each myself).
Follow the directions below and the recipe card at the bottom of this post to create your own. Be sure to look for an additional post, Drew helped out this week by filming a short cooking channel that may be fun for your kiddos to follow along on Youtube making scrambled eggs as a perfect side for our waffles! Staying strong with family meals can be accomplished in more ways than just gathering around the table to eat together. Encourage your children to help cook your meals or even set the table to help them feel more involved in dinnertime. Who knows, you might even find yourself enjoying the extra messes in the kitchen as a trade for more one on one time!
•Prepare the lemon sugar by mixing the sugar with lemon zest. Optimally, let sugar mixture sit aside for an hour to let the lemon zest flavor the sugar.
•Mix all dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lemon sugar) together in a mixing bowl. Make sure it is mixed thoroughly and place to the side.
•With an electric mixer or whisk combine eggs, melted butter, vanilla extract, and lemon juice. Whisk the mixture until it becomes light and fluffy.
•Add 1 cup of ricotta cheese to wet mixture and combine well.
•Transfer dry ingredients into the mixing bowl with wet ingredients and mix until fully combined. Your mixture should be thicker than you expect but light and fluffy as well.
•Preheat your waffle iron and set iron to your preferred level of crispness. I prefer my waffles to be darker golden and crunchy so I tend to lean toward the longer time frame setting.
•Once preheated, apply your favorite nonstick spray to the waffle iron and pour batter to fill your iron. (This will vary per iron. Most suggested servings say 1/4 C of batter but my iron uses closer to 1/2 of batter to make a full Belgian waffle.
•Make sure you set to your favorite crisp setting but check your waffle when done to see if you need to add additional cooking time.
•When waffle is done, I like to cut them in quarters and too with powdered sugar, syrup and sometime a little whipped cream and fresh fruit.
•Pair with your favorite breakfast sides like Blue and Gold Sausage patties, bacon, or scrambled eggs!
I hope you have enjoyed Family Meals Month as much as I have and that my recipes have made your weekly meal planning a little easier. We know that having meals together as a family drastically improves the lives of our families and helps our children grow strong and emotionally healthy. Its easy to see that just ONE more meal with your family at night can impact your family in such a positive way. My wish for each of you is that we continue to stay strong with family meals far beyond September and continue to feed the hearts (and tummies) of our families. A meal doesn't have to be extravagant to do the job. Not to mention, who doesn’t love breakfast for dinner? Enjoy!!!!
