Waffles with Fruit

      

Every once in a while my stomach craves a hearty, delicious waffle. Unfortunately, I have high standards for waffles...standards that my cooking skills cannot meet. You see, once upon a time I traveled to Brussels, Belgium with a friend of mine. Without knowing much about the city, we traveled to the city center (like every good tourist in Europe does) and decided to pop into a cozy little restaurant for a waffle. I know, I know, it sounds cliché--a Belgian waffle in Belgium. I'm okay with being cliché though because it was the *BEST* waffle I have ever had. Every waffle I will ever eat will be compared to this waffle. Luckily, I was able to dig up a photo to share. I also found another picture that I think you might all like, but I've placed it at a more discreet location at the bottom of this post.

Chai-Spiced Pear and Walnut Muffins

I came home to celebrate Christmas with two thoughts on my mind: pears and chai. I wanted to bake something that would taste sweet while still being somewhat wholesome (since I knew that I would be eating too many holiday treats this week anyway) for Christmas Eve morning. With so many tantalizing baked goods being passed around during the holiday season, I was overwhelmed by what I wanted to make: cookies? cake? bread? cupcakes? scones? Instead of carefully planning my recipe ahead of time, I just started dumping dry ingredients into one bowl and wet ingredients into another (under normal circumstances, this would turn into one big baking fiasco). By the time everything was mixed together, I realized that I had made the perfect dough for muffins...mini muffins to be exact.

Although I had made and taste-tested these little bites of goodness the night before, they were perfect on the morning of Christmas Eve. I knew I didn't want a heavy breakfast, so I had two (okay, maybe three) of these mini muffins so that I wouldn't be famished before my family's Christmas dinner that afternoon.

I started the muffin-making process by adding three peeled and diced pears to a sauce pan, adding about 2 tablespoons of agave nectar and cooking the mixture on medium heat for about 25-30 minutes. My goal was to make a pear sauce (think applesauce) to act as moisture in the muffins, while also adding that subtle pear flavor. After cooking the pears until they were very soft, I transferred them to a bowl and mashed the chunks with a fork. If the mixture appears too dry while cooking, feel free to add a half of a cup of water to the pan. The pears will become a slightly golden color, but should not brown.