BANANA WALNUT BUTTERMILK WAFFLES

Steps:

• Preheat your waffle iron. Always do this first so your iron is good and hot by the time your batter is ready, and you'll have perfect waffles from start to finish.
• Measure all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk to blend well.
• In a large liquid measuring cup, measure the water up to the 1 2/3 cup mark, then pour the vegetable oil the rest of the way to the 2 cup mark. Add your eggs and blend well. Add the vanilla extract, mashed banana and walnut bits and stir again.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients, and stir just enough to blend out the lumps. Don't over-stir.
• Brush your waffle iron plates with a little cooking oil. Pour a cup of batter onto the iron and close the lid. (You may need to use less than a cup, depending on the size of your iron of course.).
• I'm using my mother's 40 year old Sears waffle iron, which makes a 9.5 inch square waffle. I set the temperature to just a bit darker than medium and set a timer to count down two and a half minutes just as I'm pouring the batter on the iron. A cup of batter on my iron yields an 8-inch round, four-way-split waffle. That's just a guideline if you have a large waffle iron; so many shapes and sizes are available and the perfect waffle on your waffle iron will require some tinkering with amounts, settings and timing.
• If you can't find buttermilk powder, replace it with the same amount of flour and use milk instead of water as your main wet ingredient. The results won't be as elastic and springy, but it'll still be great. Of course you can always use real buttermilk, just remember to adjust the flour to make up for the lack of buttermilk powder. I've used leftover eggnog as the main liquid in this recipe and the resulting waffles were to DIE for -- and I despise eggnog!