Breakfast (including tacos) is my favorite meal of the day. So I decided to make my own protein waffles for breakfast so I bought a waffle maker to get the party started.
I googled a few different protein waffle recipes and started with a simple combination:
- 1/2 cup oatmeal
- 1/2 cup egg whites
- 2 T of almond milk
- 1 scoop of protein
- 5 minutes in waffle maker
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Then I altered the recipe, added cooking spray and a touch of baking powder, and cooked it longer — this time for 6:30 minutes
Dang, just writing about this makes me want to go to sleep so I can have breakfast!
Next, I experimented with green protein powder and chia seeds.
I changed the recipe again and made the waffle with:
- 1/2 cup oatmeal
- 1/2 cup egg whites
- 2 T of almond milk
- 1 scoop of protein
- Pinch of cinnamon
- Cap full of vanilla
- 1 packet of stevia
- Topped with pb2 with water + sugar free syrup
- 5:59 minutes in waffle maker
…So besides making you hungry, how does this apply to business? Two ways.
1- Iteration
Too often we get bogged down with daily fires to try to improve what we have.
When you start a business, it almost never ends up where you plan or expect it to be.
You have to continually tinker with what you’ve built.
One recent example is an AppSumo course we made. Here’s the timeline:
December 2012: Validating idea, coding and developing a site based on workshops and my experiences.
January 2013: More coding and development.
February 2013: Again, even more coding and development.
March 2013: Release site to beta members.
(That’s 4 months spent to get what felt like nowhere…)
May 2013: Updating the enrie course based on feedback and dropout points.
August 2013: Upgrading the course based on pages members spent too much time on.
December 2013: More upgrading to filter member who want to join.
February 2014: Even a year later we are still updating the course, the features, etc…..Get the point?
WE KEPT ITERATING THIS ENTIRE TIME!
So it pisses me off when someone says, “I have-assedly tried something ONCE and it didn’t work! whine, whine…
What you expect your customers to like may not be exactly on point, so always keep improving.
2- Documentation
If I tried to recreate the recipe from memory every time, I’d be bound to forget things.
Writing it down and slowly changing the recipe helped me know which things were impacting the flavor.
Another example at AppSumo, for the past 2 years we’ve used Google Sites to document every single step necessary to be in our customer service position. Now, it is easy to onboard new staff and help them to consistently give the best service to Sumo-lings.
Are you tracking and documenting what’s going on with your business?
It’s when you stop iterating that you should start to take notice and question how you can make things better.
P.S. What’s your favorite breakfast food?
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124 responses to “Weird Business Lessons: What Waffles Can Teach Us About Business”
For non breakfast eaters like me, just a tablespoon of almond butter and a banana washed down with a glass if pure water when I wake up.
Then when i get to work i eat up my brunch (pre-made) consisting of 2 eggs, sweet potato, ground beef, cheese, and fried onions and avacado
If you like waffles, you’d likely give a try to the ones from Meert (north of France). You can order them through Internet. Those are different from the one you have cooked. They are thin and stuffed with vanilla cream.
Carne guisada with cheese tacos!!!
a HUGE bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch!
Damn I miss the days of that and Lucky Charms!
Protein pancakes + bacon + green smoothie. Dang.
Beat the egg whites stiff and fold them into whatever else you put into your waffles.Your waffles will be crisp and light.
Neat idea. Will try out on a future batch
My favorite breakfast food is a bowl of fruit. So good, and goes with anything.
Amen to that. Also, I love to add some Greek yogurt or granola!
Sounds crazy, but I like leftover microwaved spaghetti!
Cold pizza is always great too.
Loved your thoughts on waffles and iteration/documentation. Thanks!
My favorite breakfast food at the moment is overnight, no-cook refrigerator oatmeal.
delish!
Found the recipe here: https://www.theyummylife.com/recipes/224
Ingredients
1/4 cup uncooked old fashioned rolled oats
1/3 cup skim milk
1/4 cup low-fat Greek yogurt
1-1/2 teaspoons dried chia seeds
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon raspberry jam, preserves, or spread
1/4 to 1/3 cup raspberries (cut each berry in half), or enough to fill jar
Directions
In a half pint (1 cup) jar, add oats, milk, yogurt, chia seeds, vanilla, and raspberry jam. Put lid on jar and shake until well combined. Remove lid, add raspberries and stir until mixed throughout. Return lid to jar and refrigerate overnight or as long as 2-3 days. Eat chilled.
Nutritional Info: 230 calories, 4g fat, 51g carbs, 8g fiber, 11g protein
What a great recipe Stacy. Thanks for sharing!!
It’s surprising that I didn’t see more fruit in the posts… I have 2 fuji apples and pb2 every single morning. During opal or honeycrisp season, I can be convinced to switch from fuji for a while.
French toast on thick bread with hashbrowns, bacon and fruit on the side!
Rolled oats with pumpkin seeds, almonds, soya protein powder, cinammon, coconut oil and dates. First pour boiling water onto the dates (doesn’t have to be fresh dates) and chop them up, gets the flavour into the water. Then put the rest in. I make a premix…awesome, packed with loads nutrients and low gi.
Breakfast Tacos! Chorizo sausage, corn tortillas, eggs, milk, monterrey jack cheese, salsa, hot sauce, dash of salt and pepper = one epic morning. Who says you can’t have tacos at 7am?
All of these comments are now my plans to have a different breakfast every day for quite some time XD
I love breakfast! There’s been a ton of great breakfasts listed in the comments but my all time favourite is steel cut oats, topped with all kinds of different items depending on the day. Yum
Feux Oatmeal!!! …is my new favorite breakfast! I got it off a Paleo site and I LOVE it. Squash a banana with a fork until it is super mushed. Add a couple dashes of baking soda, vanilla, cinnamon and one egg. Scramble these ingredients up and then add to a pan with a bit of coconut oil. Cook till egg is cooked and a bit toasty brown. Have in a bowl with fresh berries, chopped Pecans or nut of choice and toasted coconut flakes. Amazing!!!
I suck at making time to eat breakfast. if I get your waffle maker however- i’ll send you a picture of me making waffles for the entire office!
Greek yogurt is my fav for breakfast!
#2 is Trader Joe’s chicken sausages
Breakfast smoothies. Iterations of Fruit, Yogurt, Milk (Almond and Coconut), Chocolate Chips, Sometimes Green Veggies, and Almond butter/protein powder. Great way to start the day.
Sounds yummy! Have you used pb2?
One of my favorite breakfast recipe: 100g oatmeal(pour with 200g hot water and wait for 10min) then add 30g raisins, cinnamon, mix all ingredients. Then add 200-300g sliced apple cubics and mix all ingredients again. Delicious and healthy! 😛
I normally have eggs and bacon or sausage. My favorite, however, is Oven Baked French toast. So tasty and horrible enough for you that I can only eat it about once a month. But it is so worth it!
Another great post, Noah.
My favorite breakfast: Corned beef hash and two eggs over medium, dry rye toast, a side of fresh fruit, with a cup of hot tea (preferably from Wilma’s Patio in Newport Beach, CA).
Good to see your name, been awhile.
That sounds amazing. Haven’t had a good hash in awhile!
I really love breakfasts in Sundays, because I have enough time to make it fabulous. So, I should tell u about the tastiest sandwich that exists.
1 piece of bread
some cheese. Do u like cheese?
2 eggs
some butter
2 frying pans
On the one frying pan you should fry make fried eggs. While they are being fried, you should scrape butter on the bread and put it on the fruing pan on the butter side. On the other side you should put the cheese. Then fry for 3-4 minutes. I promise you, it will so crispy and tasty.
When eggs are prepared, put them on the cheese. I’s prepared! Enjoy the best sandwich in the world!
P.S. I hope, you will really try it, because it’s my first receipt written in English. It difficult
P.P.S. Sorry for my mistakes 🙂
Good analogy. Excited about breakfast myself. My favorite breakfast is oatmeal on top of a layer of banana, cinnamon, stevia, almond milk and raisins. If I feel especially wicked, I will stir in a tablespoon of natural peanut butter. It takes some tweaking to get the right mixture and the ripeness of the banana matters. All in all, it does the trick in the morning. I want the waffle iron, man. No doubt about that.
Ham and cheese omelets.
Great post. This one speaks to me loudly as I am a food and bev guy who is creating software for my sector. And yep, building a software product is very much like creating a menu and its dishes. The ingredients are the code. The presentation is the UX. How one actually eats it is the UI. Many more similarities.
Fried Chicken Benedict from Highland Bakery here in Atlanta. Poached eggs, Fried Chicken, Jalapeno Cheddar Cheese Sauce, Toasted Biscuit, Grits. Yummmmm. And lots of strong, hot coffee with cream, please. (And a waffle!?) Have you ever had chicken and waffles!?
I love my very own invention, the triple C omlette, with cheese, cilantro n chillies, add to that some bacon n toast n it’s heaven!
Cold pizza is one of the best! Of course it has to be really good pizza to start with. It’s also amazing reheated in a foreman grill (pannini maker). Gets all crispy!
sesame breakfast bagel (egg, cheddar cheese, mayo ,salt and pepper) with french press coffee
Huevos de ranchero!! With salsa verde and sour cream. Shredded chicken if I’m feeling bold!
Maccas susage and egg meal. can’t go wrong with that.
Fluffy pancakes, topped with strawberries and bananas and drizzled with syrup. Party in my mouth.
Oh, my favorite breakfast…
1 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 scoop vegan vanilla protein powder
1 cup frozen spinach
1 tbsp almond butter
1 tbsp raw cacao powder
1 frozen banana
1 Tbsp hemp hearts
1 tsp cinnamon
1 scoop glutamine
Blend in a high powdered blender and enjoy!! 🙂
I completely related to this post, not only on the business side, but also the protein waffle failures 😉 I wish I could upload a photo to this comment because I have some pretty hilarious “fail” photos as well! I too kept perfecting until I got it right. And the sweet success is worth it! (Especially when there’s agave involved) I really enjoyed this metaphor and it made me think about ways I need to keep pushing forward, learning and growing from my “failures” in business. Looking forward to meeting you at EXECUTE this week!
Organic Quinoa, Maple syrup porridge with scrambled eggs on the side
Ingredients:
WHAT THOU WILL NEED:
1 cup of filtered water, 1 cup of Organic Soymilk, 2 tablespoons of Organic Maple syrup, big tablespoon of Organic Butter, 1 cup of organic Quinoa, 4 delicious Organic Eggs, and a dash of Himalayan crystal salt.
NomnomNom Why Organic? Tastes better, Feels better and basically is better.
NOMnomNOM
Great message Noah. Thank you.
French toast and chorizo and eggs!!
thanks for the recipe, gonna try it for sure. My favourite breakfast is oatmeal, with lactose free milk, fine/dried coconut (for flavour), dried cranberries (sweetened with pineapple juice, not sugar), and some seeds such as pumpkin and sunflower. Pop in microwave and it’s a great breakfast with protein and enough iron to get you fueled. Sometimes, i want something else than dairy/milk. I use applejuice instead. Don’t microwave it then 😉
Breakfast bowls! I take eggs, sausage (sometimes bacon), then mix in salsa, pepper jack cheese, and top it with guacamole. … Sometimes I’ll sneak an Apple Fritter (shhhhh)
Oh and favorite breakfast would be Menudo 🙂
This email made my day – for real.
I’m totally a person that’ll get too stuck on idea/recipe #1, instead of making improvement and moving forward.
Totally helped man,
Later – Anthony
P.s. I’m down for the waffle maker. Aha
Tim ferriss’ slow carb breaky, egg whites, lentils etc
Could go for some waffles though 😉
Great post, timely advice for my business!
Thanks!
You did say favorite right? Not healthy – ok baked French toast only use cream instead of milk I’m the recipe. Heaven! Pure decadence!
I work on a nickel mine in the middle of the Western Australian desert. Once a week (on cheat day) I treat myself to a ham, mushroom and cheese omelette. I spend three days looking forward to it, and three days reveling it’s wake. Today is the worst, because I haven’t had one in three days, and won’t get another for three days. I need to go distract myself!
Right now, Gingerbread French toast with gingered maple syrup. Really, really good. Not so good for me, but a great reward at the end of the week.
Crepes. Only because I JUST learned how to make them this week and I’m basically eating it all day everyday until I get tired of them. I used to pay $7.99 for just one and being on a budget that meant I could only have them once or twice a month. Not any more! Crepes for everyone! It’s no longer a breakfast food either. I’m probably going to have to work out at the end of this week because I’m totally going to be in shape and that shape will be round.
Before this, my fave breakfast was cafe con leche y pan con mantequilla, been eating that since I was in diapers. It’ll probably revert to it once my fling with the french pancakes wanes.
I’m more of a choco-pancake kind of guy.
2 fried eggs, 2 to 3 slices fresh Polish Ham from the local Polish Store or bacon, 1 slice of cheese (whatever I have in the fridge) on a whole wheat bagel with some Green Tea. Awesome breakfast bagel! If I feel extra frisky I put in a couple drops of Sriracha in the sandwich.
My favorite breakfast food is my FAMOUS (in my mind) banana bread. According to a recent poll of my teenage boys, it is the BEST around.
RECIPE:
Ingredients
* 4 ripe bananas, smashed
*1/3 cup melted butter
*1 cup sugar (I use 3/4 and it’s still good)
*1 egg, beaten
*1 teaspoon vanilla
*1teaspoon baking soda
*pinch of salt
*1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
* walnuts (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the massed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add walnuts and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pout mixture into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack.
Enjoy!
On Diet? Scrambed eggs and spinach or chicken breast or nothing.
off diet? I would murder some waffles. Or nothing
I can’t resist Huevos Rancheros with a side of bacon!
Melt-in-your-mouth-waffles with real maple syrup and scrambled eggs.
Mmmmmm…waffles. But really though, I enjoyed the analogy between food recipe iterations and software development.
A full english is my favourite, but the sound of Jared Ardine’s sound awesome and like Sophie said the spicy fried rice and eggs is great too. Unfortunately though, i usually just half a bowl of cereal and a litre of coffee. Think ill give these waffles ago, as thet are wheat free and i cant eat wheat so dont usually eat waffles but ill swap out the stevia for good old sugar.
Banana Pancakes
1 Banana
1 Egg
Directions:
Mix banana and egg together in bowl until combined. (batter-like consistency) Pour 3” pancakes and cook on med-low heat for 5-6 min. Flip.
Yes there are only two ingredients, they are also gluten free! Toasted walnuts, chia seeds, blueberries, pretty much anything you put in regular pancakes are awesome in these!
a local place here in Coeur d Alene, Idaho makes a “cheesesteak scrambler” that’s amazing. Thin-cut tri-tip, 3 eggs, onions and bell peppers, smothered in sour cream and salsa. Nothing beats it!
Man I love me some breakfast. Favorite ever: huevos rancheros. Crispy tortillas, refried beans, enchilada sauce, over easy eggs, a bit of cheese, and a generous splash of Hatch green chile.
Eggs bene and all variations are high on the list. Almost anything with a poached egg and potatoes. Here on island a loco moco is great: hamburger patty on rice, over easy egg, some sort of brown gravy.
But since I try to take care of myself I usually make my daughter waffles and I tuck into a nice bowl of stone ground oats cooked in almond milk and a kale/pineapple smoothie. It doesn’t suck but it sure as hell isn’t corned beef hash with a sunny side up egg and redeye gravy!
1) 2 glasses of water.
2) Omelette with fresh spinach, Mozzarella cheese and tomatoes.
3) Sliced banana and almond milk.
In that order. 😉
Left over cold pizza from the night before and a little bit of the hair of the dog that bit me.
Oh man I love waffles, but hadn’t thought about cranking up the power and goodness. My favorite breakfast food is an omelet – but I’ve been been keeping the ingredients deep inside my heart, plus I want to “improvise” to impress the family. I learned all I know from watching a friend make them for a Friday morning staff breakfast – way more memorable than bagels. Anyway, I love them meatless, meatful, even without real eggs, omelet are magical. They’d probably better if I took time to write the magic down, which would help when I needed to improvise for picky eaters.
I am definitely trying the waffle recipe, yummy. Tomorrow morning … If our waffle maker still works (I think the black stuff is flaking, bad?)
Cheers!
My favorite breakfast food is lemon plantain pancakes with figs and bacon.
3 hard boiled eggs, steamed broccoli and kale topped with hemp seeds, avocado and cider vinegar.
egg omlet with onions peppers sausage and an obnoxious amount of sriracha hot sauce 🙂
My favorite breakfast food is coffee, seeing high conversion numbers, with a side of bacon.
Waffles as a metaphor for iteration, love it; same with pancakes – the first one or two never turn out quite right. My favorite breakfast food as of late is a bean and cheese crisp.
Bean and Cheese Crisp Recipe
– Take one tsp bacon grease (I save mine in the fridge) or grass fed butter and melt over high heat in a nonstick frying pan.
– Add half a can of well-drained pinto beans and fry till moisture from beans dissipates
– Add 6 slices Kerrygold Irish Cheddar (or other grass-fed cheese) – cook till melted and cheese starts to brown, fold / mix together with spatula.
– Place inside tortillas and fold in half
– Pan fry the folded tortillas till crispy
– Serve with hot sauce, Enjoy!
Chilaquiles
(eggs, chorizo, chilies, corn tortillas, pico de gallo, queso fresco, black bean puree, lime sour cream)
Okdork, I love waffles, but have been missing out because I’ve been keeping the carbs low. Now I have to try these!
The best waffle recipe I have every tasted is: Finally, A Crisp Waffle
Simply fantastic, carb heavy waffles that were perfected over many iterations.
Chorizo with Migas and Eggs with a stack of flour tortillas…..and a Mexican Coke
All breakfast sweets rock. I like waffles and pancakes and crepes and blini– anything I can douse in syrup is good, and once I had this Monte cristo sandwich that was French toast with eggs ham and bacon and strawberry jam. I made gluten free pancakes for dinner last night. I guess I’ll go make something now.
Waffles are the best! Especially paired with fried chicken.. what a hearty breakfast 🙂
As an Austinite, my favorite breakfast food is of course the breakfast taco. Specifically, Tacodeli’s Jess Special taco with their Doña salsa.
Roti Canai
My usual is Bulletproof Coffee to get me rockin’ until lunch – Strong coffee, grass-fed butter and MCT oil blended together. Oh ya!
My wife and I are doing a whole 30 month through Jan. These waffles look awesome for that! But I will have to say that it’s hard for me to say no to a big bowl of fruity pebbles to get me going. Oh and bacon too 🙂
Fave breakfast is 3 over easy eggs on top of sweet potato hash browns (cubed sweet potatoes, bell peppers, onions all fried up together). Throw in cornbread for good measure.
2nd favorite is huevos rancheros at the Viceroy Riviera Maya Hotel after finishing Ironman Cozumel.
3rd favorite and go to is a breakfast burrito (cousins with the taco family).
Favorite breakfast food of all year: leftover pie from Thanksgiving.
More importantly, favorite breakfast drink: 75% rich hot chocolate 25% fruit punch. It sounds weird, but it’s SO DANG GOOD!
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To date the favorite my fiancee found was a beer pancake recipe that works with nearly anything. We've substituted orange juice and made what tasted like orange dreamcle pancakes. Mountain dew was good too.
Original recipe makes 4 pancakes
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup beer
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Directions
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Pour in the egg, beer and melted butter; stir with a whisk just until blended – a few lumps are okay.
Heat a skillet or griddle over medium heat. Coat with vegetable oil or cooking spray. Spoon about 1/4 cup of batter onto the hot surface for each pancake. When bubbles appear on top of the pancakes, flip, and cook until browned on the other side.
Also Beef Tongue Taco meat is AMAZING! It sounds gnarly, and I was really skeptical, but it was SOOOOOOOO GOOD.
1 beef tongue
1/2 white onion, sliced
5 cloves garlic, crushed (or 1 clove = 1/2 tsp minced garlic, so 2.5 tsp)
1 bay leaf
salt to taste
'Place the beef tongue in a slow cooker and cover with water. Add the onion slices, garlic, and bay leaf. Season with salt. Cover and cook on Low overnight or 8 hours. Remove the tongue and shred the meat into strands.' Is what the recipe I have says, but I skinned the tongue first so it wouldn't have the silverskin/tough cover on the outside. That was the best taco meat I have EVER had.
Thank You Noah! for that wonderful post. Iteration is something that I constantly do because as human beings we need to move forward in life and keep doing the things that we need to do to improve ourselves our situation and come up with solutions.
Because breakfast is the most important meal of the day for me, I choose to have scrambled eggs mixed with spinach with little bit of organic no-salt seasoning & a dash of freshly ground pepper and topped with melted provolone cheese and 1 (one) cup of cooked brown rice mixed with red and white quinoa. I also like to make smoothie with 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, 1 (one) large banana, 1/2 cup of oatmeal, 1 (one) tablespoon of ground flaxseed, 1 (one) tablespoon of chia seeds.
Then top it off with this…https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/377557_2950628527341_373590729_n.jpg
=)
Eggs. I could (and have) had eggs for every meal in the day. I am constantly looking for new egg recipes. Though my favorite experiment so far was the 1 hour egg. It was awful, but definitely something new so very enjoyable.