Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Growing up, I remember really enjoying weekend breakfasts.  This was back before I really cared about what I was eating (no calorie counting or anything like that!), so I eagerly looked forward to those special mornings. 
There was a period of time where we had fresh donuts every Saturday morning.  I'd wake up and head out to the store with my mom or dad, and we would pick out whatever struck our fancy that day.  Dad usually got an apple fritter; Mom usually got a honey bun or glazed twist;  I oscillated between glazed with white icing and sprinkles, glazed with chocolate, honey buns, and sour cream cake donuts (variety is the spice of life!).  Man, were they good!  This trend continued into my teenage years until we slowly began to phase the donuts out and replace them with eggs and biscuits.  Yeah, those were great, too.  And the best part was probably the fact that I never read the nutritional information on the back, because if I had, I would have realized that my breakfast was the equivalent of about half of my caloric allowance for the day, and probably 100% of my recommended daily fat intake!
But, it gets better.  Sundays were pancakes and waffles days.  No, not both on the same day.  Actually, it was usually Swedish pancakes.  And, occasionally we'd have waffles instead.  Both were equally delicious, especially with butter melted over top or inside the stacks and hot syrup drizzled (oh, who am I kidding... POURED) all over.  Sometimes we were even so lucky as to have bacon or sausage (my favorite), too.  I loved to dip that fatty meat in my syrup, or roll it up in a pancake to eat.  YUM!
So where is all of this reminiscence leading?  Well, for a few years, Tony and I have continued the tradition of special breakfasts on the weekends.  We've "lightened" them up a bit... no more donuts, rarely any biscuits, never any sausage or bacon... but we still have enjoyed many Saturday or Sunday breakfasts of pancakes and waffles.  Due to my lack of patience, we've rarely had anything resembling the deliciousness of my mom's superthin Swedish pancake stacks, but we have definitely made many batches of my dad's waffles (they are the "regular" thin kind). 
In the past few months, however, Tony and I began to "care" about what we are eating, meaning no more special breakfasts, except sometimes small omelets.  This change mostly has to do with my desire to shed the pregnancy weight and our participation in a Weight-Loss Challenge with family and friends.  And, in the shadows is our general interest in being a bit more health conscious overall, so as to establish healthy eating habits that will stick with us for the rest of our lives... *sigh*
Well, I guess our recent stay at a hotel with buffet breakfast has made a little kink in these new habits.  You see, this hotel had "make-your-own-waffles"... Belgian style, like many hotel buffets have.  And they were good... very good!  It started Tony thinking about how he has always enjoyed hotel buffet Belgian waffles... and those Belgian waffles that we used to have at D-Hall when we were in college.  So now we are on a QUEST -- a quest to find the best Belgian waffle recipe!  No, we are not eating copious amounts of waffles.  But, I have started a collection of recipes, and we will continue to try them on the weekends in moderation until we discover just the right one to satisfy our tastebuds.  (I, myself, am quite satisfied with my dad's recipe.  But, I'd like to be supportive of Tony's tastes, too, by incorporating Belgian style waffles into our recipe favorites.)

Here's what we've tried so far:

• Regular old Bisquick pancake recipe, baked in the waffle iron.  It's actually pretty decent, but perhaps a bit too heavy.  It helps if you whip the egg whites separately and fold them in, but the batter is still pretty thick.  Makes a great sponge for syrup, though! ;-)
• Dominic's recipe, which I think is from Martha Stewart's collection.  This one is really good.  But, I'm not going to lie... it's a pain in the butt to make!  Way too much effort!  I'll leave this to Dom and hope he invites us over for breakfast again someday!
• A recipe that called for a lot of sugar, butter, and flour.  It ended up just tasting like flour.  Gross!
• A recipe that called for honey and yeast.  I actually think yeast is the "special ingredient" that I'm looking for, but this particular one was not quite right.  First of all, it called for A LOT of yeast, then only had you let the batter sit for 5 minutes, which was clearly not enough time for the yeast to work.  In fact, the first waffle I made was MUCH different then the second one that I made about 15 minutes later.  I'd say it was fairly tasty, but as all of that yeast started to work, it got rather chewy and gave me a tummy-ache.  

I still have a few more recipes sitting in my cabinet to try, but would also be happy to hear from anyone who has a favorite of their own.  Perhaps by Christmas time, we will have our winner!  And in the meantime, I will keep trying new recipes and keep throwing out half of the batter (apparently folks like to publish recipes meant to feed an army!) until we find the right one.  And, we won't gain any weight... I promise!