Chocolate Waffles and Conference

What a great morning!

I woke at 5:30.  Not on purpose.  I don't have a clock on my bedside table, the Warden does, but I don't even look at it.  I'd practically have to climb over him to get a look at it, so I rarely know what time I wake.  My phone alarm usually wakes me, but I thought I had it set to only go off on weekdays.  I thought it was later than it was.  When I got out of the shower, I could hear it ringing somewhere in the house.  That's how I knew I had awakened before 5:45.

When I walked into the bedroom, #6 was awake and climbing into bed with his dad.  I knew eventually, because of him, the entire family would be awake, so I asked him to go to the grocery store with me.  We were there before 7am.

We bought all the fixin's for General Conference.

For those not of the LDS faith, twice a year, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gather together to hear the leaders of the church speak.  The meetings (there are a number of them) are broadcast via satellite to various locations.  Our family watches in our front room as the computer is hooked up to a projector and projects it onto the wall.  It is something we look forward to.

On Saturday, there are three meetings--one at 9am and one at 1pm (Pacific time) and one at 5pm shown only at the church buildings for the men.  The women have their own meeting too, but it was held a week ago.  The Young Women (girls 12-18) have a meeting each year too, but I believe it was about a month ago.  Anyway, each of these meetings is very uplifting and encouraging.  If you're curious, here's a link.

Okay, so back to the morning.  Earlier I said our family looks forward to Conference.  One of the reasons, to be honest, is the food.  It's not like it's LDS tradition; it's family tradition.  We eat the yummiest things we can think of and gather as a family to be uplifted.  What could be better?

Yesterday I posted about bread bowls that are great for Conference time.  We are making those tomorrow.  Yesterday, an LDS friend in another state mentioned something about chocolate waffles.  This sparked something in me, so I looked up a recipe.  They were wonderful!

Here you go:

Ingredients:

• 3 C. flour
• 2 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 C. sugar
• 1/4 C. + 2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 C. milk
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 C. butter, melted
• 1/2 pkg. milk chocolate chips

Instructions:

Mix the dry ingredients together.  Beat in the wet ingredients.  Bake in a preheated waffle iron.

We served them with powdered sugar, but we were thinking chocolate syrup and whipped cream'd be heavenly.  #2 put regular syrup on top, and he said it wasn't bad.  I also sometimes make a peanut butter syrup where you put regular maple syrup and some peanut butter together and microwave it until the peanut butter is melty.  Just wondering how that'd be with chocolate syrup and peanut butter, or better yet, hot fudge and peanut butter.  Yikes!  I think I'm getting a bit out of control here.  I think I'd better stop.


We had two soccer games to attend this morning, so we missed the morning session of Conference.  The older kids stayed home and watched it, but the Warden and I'll pick it up online.  Isn't modern technology wonderful?!

I went to #4's game.  While there, I met a mom of one of the boys on the team.  We had such a GREAT conversation.  You know sometimes, every once in a rare while, you run into someone with whom you just have so much in common that you could just sit and talk for hours?  Well, that's how this was.  It was such a fun morning.

We got home just to make lunch and sit down for the afternoon session.

For lunch, we had Japanese rice balls.  Do I dare tell you how easy these are?  Go to an Asian food store and buy a package like this:

If you need to ask someone at the store for help, onigiri is pronounced more like "O-ni-gi-di" (with a short "i" sound).

Once the rice is cooked, you simply open the package and stir it in.  It flavors the rice beautifully.  Then, with wet hands (careful the rice'll be hot), you scoop a handful of rice out and form it into a ball or a triangle (as you see on the package above).  You can also hide a little something inside--there's a recipe for this in the cookbook, or you can put some seaweed (can also be purchased at an Asian market, but we bought ours at the regular grocery store) around it (as pictured below).

One of the things I love about Conference is that every food tradition we've made for the weekend is simple and relatively fast.

Tomorrow morning, we're having the donut holes.  For lunch, we're having the bread bowls with soup in them (not sure which yet, but I'm thinking my mom's corn chowder).  Tomorrow night, after Conference is over, we're having a family get-together--my brother and his wife are in town--and I'm providing the main dish.  Not sure what I'm doing for that yet, but I'd be open to any ideas you'd be willing to share.  We have a few picky eaters in my extended family.  Please, please, please, any suggestion is welcome.