• 1/2 c. pecans, lightly toasted (I didn’t have pecans, but my walnuts worked just fine.)
• 1 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 c. yellow cornmeal
• 1 T. baking powder
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1 1/4 c. milk
• 3/4 c. butter, melted (I used margarine.)
• 3 large eggs, separated (Meaning, you’ll separate your yolks from whites!)
• 2 large ripe bananas, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2″ pieces
• 3 T. sugar
• 1 T. light brown sugar
• Optional: 1 banana to slice and use as a topping
• Syrup….of course

First mix the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl and set aside.  In a smaller bowl, mix the milk, melted butter and egg yolks.

If you’ve never separated yolks from whites, it’s really easy! Just crack the egg enough so that you can pull the shell in two, keeping the yolk in one half of the egg-shell. Hold the egg over the bowl that you want your whites to go in. Pour the yolk from one shell to the other until all the whites have dripped into your bowl.

After the egg yolks are mixed with the milk and butter, slowly stir the mixture into your dry ingredients bowl. Stir sloooowly. You want the batter to be stirred JUST until moistened. It WILL be lumpy. Then fold in the banana pieces gently.

Next comes the part that almost kept me from printing and making this recipe — it seems like a lot of extra work just for waffles, but really it wasn’t. You just need a hand mixer. Take your egg-whites bowl and, with your mixer, beat them at medium speed until frothy.  Increase your speed to high and beat until firm peaks form. (A note on peaks: You can check your peaks by sticking the beaters in and pulling straight up. The stiff peaks should look like the image on the right.)

Next add the brown and white sugars and beat with your mixer until the whites are stiff and glossy. Go for stiff peaks again.

Now carefully fold the whipped egg whites into your batter and fold gently until you no longer see those white streaks. Make sure your waffle iron is nice and hot. Oil it as you usually do, and pour on a big cup of batter.

One thing I did this time was keep the waffles warm in the oven until they were all done. I put my oven temp at 175 and put the waffles directly on the rack so they stayed nice and crispy. It worked well. This recipe made 4 big squares of waffles (16 little squares). You can top them with banana slices, toasted pecans or walnuts and syrup that has been warmed of course.