Breakfast...by Mary Hazlett

Does anyone else think breakfast is the most wonderful meal of the day?  I love breakfast!  It has the best foods too...pancakes, french toast, hash browns, eggs, bacon, orange juice, and hot chocolate.  Growing up, breakfast was our planning time...especially on saturdays.  I remember telling my friends that I would have for a sleepover that saturdays were our hard working days, kind of like an indentured servant, but it was awesome because at the end of the day we got to have a Peanut Buster Parfait from Dairy Queen.  

On saturdays when I awoke to the smell of pancake, bacon and egg breakfasts, I knew it was going to be a getting-it-done day!  Mom would start by saying on the intercom,  "Everyone come and eat breakfast...it is ready".  And then when we were all gathered round the table, "make sure you do your chores extra good and get down on your hands and knees and scrub those floors".   Mom pretty much said this very thing every saturday morning.  All the children knew in the house that this speech was coming.  Like feeding us a really good breakfast was Mom and Dad's way of bribing us to work extra hard for them.  It is true though, it always paid off... we always got our chores done well and we all were pooped by the end of the day!  

Breakfasts are a great memory for me.  Which I have to say, that I have coerced my children into loving that morning meal too.  I have evolved some from my mother's own cooking and have added receipes like pumpkin and chocolate waffles, pumpkin pancakes, german pancakes, and breakfast smoothies.  My son always wants breakfast for his special birthday dinner... and his favorite pumpkin waffles!  So here's the recipe.  Try it and hopefully it will make your day wonderful and productive!! (even if it is Monday)

Pumpkin Waffles:

2.5 cups flour
2.5 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp baking soda
.5 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
2 cups pumpkin puree
2 cups milk
2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 olive oil

*Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.  In separate bowl mix wet ingredients.  Add together ingredients and mix until smooth. 
**I always end up adding a little more milk to make the batter smoother for pouring into the waffle iron.

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