How I Learned to Love Making Waffles

When I mention the possibility of waffles, heads peek around corners, eyes gleam, and I am suddenly surrounded by happy expectation. Why does everyone love waffles so much? Is it the additional surface area? Is it the fancy built in syrup catchers? I don't know for sure, but waffles have an almost supernatural appeal, at least around here.

So why don't I make them all the time? Too. Much. Work!! I can only make them one at a time, The waffle iron is a pain in the rear to clean,...   but they love them.

So yesterday I offered waffles (secretly hoping to be turned down.) The offer was received with great interest. "Waffles?!!" So I was stuck. I pulled out my old recipe, as I started to work I realized a few things.

1. I could have been making these in my mixer instead of the big mixing bowl by hand.

2. Waffles are better fresh, I don't need to make a huge batch to make sure I have some to "save for later".

3. I don't have to watch waffles while they cook. I can do a bunch of little tasks while I cook a breakfast my family loves.

So I set to work and while the waffle iron heated up I put the clean dishes away. While the mixer mixed I loaded the dishwasher and filled the sink with soapy water. While the waffles cooked I cleaned the microwave, heated up the syrup (you can think I'm just that awesome but really it had started to crystallize!),  cleaned the waffle making dishes, and several other little jobs that needed to be done.

When I was done I had a cleaner kitchen, the dishes were done, happy kids, and the wonderful smell of waffles and syrup wafting through the kitchen.  Oh yeah! and the waffles themselves.

I spent a little time reassessing my process and ended up with something much better than I ever would have guessed. So I urge you to do the same. The next time you have a task ahead of you that you are avoiding or just not looking forward to, really examine it. I plan to ask myself these questions more often:
1. Are you using all the tools available to you? I could have been using the mixer the whole time. Other tools you may not have thought about are helpers, and rubber scrapers.

2. Are you taking advantage of what will be happening? Making waffles, leaves about 2 minute wait periods, just enough for a quick task. Other jobs may leave you with the vacuum out or a sink of soapy water or a pot of hot water, etc that you can use for another task.

3. Am I trying to do too much? How many of us are home? How much do we really eat? Where is this army I keep trying to feed? They certainly are not helping with the laundry. I don't need to make a triple batch of anything, necessarily. I think more often I am going to choose to have more energy for other tasks rather than more food for later.

4. Will doing these things make my task easier or my life better in some way? Just because and idea occurs to me doesn't mean that I have to do it or even should do it. I have to remind myself that I get some crazy ideas, some should wait or just stay ideas!

So I am hoping I can find new inspiration in tasks I formerly avoided, more joy hidden in the daily jobs around the house. I will share the major ones in future articles.




Quick Hearty Waffles

3 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup white flour


Preheat waffle iron, oil if necessary. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs mix well, the butter will still be in little lumps. Mix in baking powder and salt. Add milk. Blend until well incorporated. Add flours all at once and blend just until mixed. Scrape the bowl and look for dry pockets and mix a little more.

Pour by measured amount onto your waffle iron. Use the amount recommended for your iron. The number of waffles you get will depend on how much batter you use. I get 7-8 waffles out of this recipe.


I hope your day is lovely.

Thoughtfully,
Kristin

Flow: Starting Under Normal Circumstances

One of the most important aspects of this kind of cooking and living is working to establish flow. All the bits and pieces need to work together and make better things happen.

At Cascade Living I encourage you to find efficiency in your day to day living and even your thinking. If you gently observe how you do things, you will notice where things easily flow one into the other and jobs around the house happen with no stress at all. The way flow works in my experience though is things will flow, flow, flow, stop. Eventually I hit a blockage or obstacle that disrupts my flow. When this happens I react in different ways depending on the circumstances. Sometimes I just keep going and try to catch up with the flow again. Sometimes I stop and give myself a break and try again later. Sometimes, I get pretty upset that my flow was disrupted. Unfortunately, flow takes thought and practice to establish.

So how do you start?

Everything needs a place to go. Everything needs a time to happen. Over time the things that need to happen and the time available will fluctuate. Needs will change and so will priorities so flow is also a journey not a destination. It is a goal that will never be finished and done. The benefit of that is you get to enjoy the moments when it works right while they are happening. You will find flow and lose it again. So when you find it breathe it in, and when you lose it relax, you will find it again.

So start with one thing. If you have some energy and do not feel completely overwhelmed,  I recommend looking around your house and finding the thing that is bugging you the most, while you are working to put it off. If you can just do it, do it right now. If you can't figure out where to start, try to break the job into smaller pieces. Get a piece of paper and write down a list of the parts. Set yourself a time frame to do the list, like: Do one thing on the list each commercial break, or once an hour. If you don't have a lot of time you can do one step each day, but that is not ideal! It feels great to just get it done. Check off each part as you do it. When you are finished be sure to really think about how it feels to accomplish this task. That feeling can be your first reward and help you motivate yourself to not let this thing, whatever it is take so much of your well being from you.

Do something nice for yourself when you are done. Call a friend, post about your victory on your Facebook or the Cascade Living Facebook Page,  have a cup of coffee or tea, whatever will make you smile. Make sure you use this accomplishment to make you feel better, please do not beat yourself up about what else you have yet to do, or how long that job took. Getting one job done around the house that you a have been avoiding will free up your mind to find better ways of tackling that job in the future so it doesn't sneak up and ambush you anymore! (Or at least not anywhere near as often.) Motivate yourself with these good feelings.

For me, I get ambushed by my dishes all the time. I get so excited about the cooking that by the time I am done I am exhausted. It can be hard work just making sure everything that needs to get into the fridge gets there. So I will have to make a real effort to get unstuck and reestablish flow when doing my dishes. Sometimes I can just do them, sometimes I do need to make a list of each part and check it off. Day to day crises can and do get in the way of establishing flow. It can take a lot of tries to make a good habit around a job that you don't like to do. Be kind to yourself. If you know you always feel good when you are done it will be easier to start. Guilt is not a positive motivator and will not make things flow easily. You can be kind to yourself and still make better habits and choices.

Flow once established in one area really helps develop it in others. If you start small and build on your successes you will feel the difference. Things will get done and you won't have to even think about it, it will be just what happens. Start small and big things can happen.

Well, on that note, it may be time for me to tackle my dishes! I will write another post soon on how to get started when things are hard.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Thoughtfully,
Kristin

I LOVE cloth napkins!

I Love my cloth napkins. I really do. When I think of the hundreds of hours of work they probably saved me, and the money!

Look how pretty they are!


I keep them in this basket on top of the microwave, where they are easy to grab as you walk by. I have about two dozen of these napkins in several colors and patterns. Most were gifts, so they didn't cost me a dime. The one set I did buy I got at Goodwill for $2.99. Considering that they are over a decade old and still really nice, I think that was a bargain.

I love how they make any meal seem elegant, even hot dogs! I love that I never have to run to the store to buy napkins and never have to take out a garbage can overflowing with napkins (of course with me it would be a compost bin!)  Washing them is as easy as throwing them in another load I was going to do anyway.

Can you tell I really DO love my cloth napkins. I even love picking them up all over the house, because then I know people were using them! I urge you to try them out if you haven't yet, especially if you already have some you keep for special occasions and never really use. Life is a special occasion! Break out the cloth napkins. Maybe you will look forward to finding them odd places, too.

I hope you have a wonderful day,
Kristin

Cascade Living! (Not Just Cooking)

As I start getting back into the swing of living a cascading life, I am really becoming kind of obsessed! Since I am publishing my thoughts I get to take you with me.

I start looking at what I have available in my kitchen, think about what each thing could do in a new “life”, and work from there. Using thought I make my groceries go further, making my life better. It becomes a habit, and I start applying everywhere.

Next it moves to objects. Everything that was waste, becomes raw materials.  Juice jugs become storage containers. T-shirts become rugs and baskets. I find more and more ways to use the physical materials in my life.  I start finding materials and inspiration all over my house. This can get out of control, but that’s another blog post.  I happily buzz along using up things that most people would throw, or give away. Every object in my life becomes part of a cycle.

Next, I put myself, my physical energy and my time into the cycles. I work on building routines that flow easily from one thing to the next. I combine trips to the store, start keeping better and more detailed lists, and organizing household schedules. I start getting more done with less energy wasted on worrying about what to do.

After a while, years probably, I get comfortable and my vision of cascading widens. I start looking differently at my effort and energy.  The physical objects start to have less value than my time. Do I really need to wash that, convert that or store that? How much energy and time is that going to take me? There is a reason some of this stuff feels overwhelming. It is not enhancing my life more than it is draining my energy. I am working now on simplifying my life. Adding thought rather than physical energy.  This takes time and energy, too. Although with practice, I am finding I am getting more efficient at it.

While I am still processing and working at the simplifying level, I am becoming aware of where it will go from here.  Next, comes my thoughts. I am already starting to ask myself, “Do I even need to waste time thinking about this?” It will be fascinating to see where it goes from here.

Thoughtfully,

Kristin