Sweet Corn and Blueberry Waffles

Sometimes it takes my subconscious a bit of time to catch up with the rest of my brain.

The other day I was looking at a recipe round up email digest when these cornmeal waffles with a blueberry compote caught my fancy.  I thought I'd throw some of my freezer stash of blueberries into the cornmeal waffles instead of a compote on top.  Then I thought I'd toss in some frozen sweet corn that I'd also put up, because for some reason sweet corn and blueberries sounded good.

What I didn't realize, until the day after I'd made these, was that I'd taken the flavor combo from this amazing corn, cucumber, and blueberry salad and stuck it in a waffle iron.  Without the cucumber--cucumber waffles do not sound appealing.

Corn and blueberries are amazing together.  The salad was delicious, as are these waffles.  I love fresh corn, and fresh blueberries, in the summer.  When you have them both fresh in your kitchen, I recommend making the salad.  I'm not much of a chunky waffle fan (and my son cannot stand oozing blueberries in his waffles) so I knew I wanted to chop up the frozen corn and blueberries from my freezer stash into smaller bits.  When you have both corn and blueberries frozen, I recommend making these waffles.  Besides, I tend to prefer summer salads and winter waffles.  And alliteration.  You do what you like.

Note:  these waffles are a bit softer straight out of the iron than other waffles that I've made.  Flip 'em over--they'll be sturdy enough for the buttery spread and real local maple syrup.  These freeze well and can be toasted for weekday breakfasts.  I tripled the recipe and made waffles for 7 hungry folks with 2 breakfasts worth of leftovers, but I'm sharing the recipe that serves 2-3 folks.

Sweet Corn and Blueberry Waffles (serves 2-3)

1/2 cup frozen sweet corn (or fresh, but make sure you've eaten your fill of the fresh stuff on the cob)
1/2 cup frozen blueberries (ditto--except for the cob part)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups (360 ml) buttermilk
3 Tablespoons oil
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal (I had white on hand)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon Penzey's Baking Spice

Pulse the frozen corn and blueberries in a food processor until finely chopped.  Set aside.  In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, buttermilk, oil, brown sugar and vanilla together until thoroughly combined.  Dump the dry ingredients on top, and whisk until nearly combined.  Stir in the chopped corn and blueberries.  Walk away.
When you're ready to cook, preheat a waffle iron (I have this one and like it) and follow manufacturer's directions for the amount of batter and length of time to cook.  I baked mine on the middle setting, and it took about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of batter to fill the entire pan.

Do cucumber waffles sound appealing to you?

These waffles are shared with the Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up at Gastronomical Sovereignty, What's In The Box at In Her Chucks, the From the Farm Blog Hop,  Laura's Strange But Good at Sprint2TheTable, the Clever Chicks Blog Hop, and Tasty Tuesdays.