W is for (Pizza) Waffles

When I was a kid, we had a big, square waffle iron that made four waffles at a time (this predates Belgian waffle irons, so each square was fairly large but the waffles were thin by comparison). I suspect it was a wedding gift. Sometimes, we would have waffles for supper, and my mom would set up a tv tray next to the dining room table for the waffle iron, and I feel like my dad was the one who actually cooked the waffles table-side (and that would be because his place at the table was closer to the electric outlet than my mom's; my place was closest, but no one in their right mind would have put ME in charge of cooking the waffles). 

I didn't like waffles, but what I DID like that my mom made in the waffle iron was grilled cheese sandwiches. She could cook four at a time (because it could make four waffles, get it?), and they were the best grilled cheese sandwiches in the universe! They were covered with crispy little squares from the pattern of the waffle iron, and I always ate my sandwich by nibbling along the lines until I got it down to four tiny squares.

I have a Belgian waffle iron, it makes two waffles, and it does NOT hold two grilled cheese sandwiches. In fact, I've never even made ONE sandwich in it, because the bread is bigger than the cooking surface for one waffle, and it wouldn't be right if it hung over into the waffle space next to it and then wasn't symmetrical.

I guess it's this unfulfilled need for a grilled cheese sandwich cooked in our old waffle iron that has led me to try to cook OTHER foods in the waffle iron, most of them courtesy of Pinterest, all of which have been abysmal failures (with the exception of chocolate cake batter cooked in the waffle iron, then after the chocolate waffles cool, turn them into ah-maz-ing ice cream sandwiches). There was the macaroni and cheese in the waffle iron, where oil from the cheese ran out of the waffle iron and puddled on the counter. There was the hash browns in the waffle iron, which stuck horribly in spite of copious amounts of cooking spray and didn't get all brown and crispy like the picture. There was the canned cinnamon rolls cooked in the waffle iron that turned out like cinnamon flavored hockey pucks.

Today, there was pizza waffles.

https://www.babble.com/
best-recipes/food-hack-pizza-waffles

The Pinterest recipe used a round waffle iron and canned biscuits for the crust. I have a rectangle waffle iron, and using square peg-round hole logic, I opted for crescent roll dough instead of biscuit dough. In theory, this was a great idea, because not only was it better shaped, it was more like pizza dough than a biscuit would be. In practice, it would have worked better had the can of crescent roll dough in the back of the refrigerator not been (slightly) expired, resulting in dough that did NOT unroll nicely, instead, crumbling and breaking apart and sticking to my cutting board that I probably should have floured first but didn't.

Trying to shape the shards of crescent roll
 dough into squares. but who cares, because
it stuck to the board and had to be pried loose
in pieces anyway.

The dough was to be flattened and laid on the waffle iron, then a spoonful of pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and any toppings went on next with a caution not to overfill it. A second piece of flattened dough would go on top, the edges pressed together, and then the waffle iron closed.

See? Pieced together. I wasn't kidding.

There was much sizzling coming from the inside of the waffle iron, and I was getting a very bad feeling about pizza sauce and oily cheese leaking out onto the counter and crescent roll dough hopelessly stuck to the inside and wishing I had sprayed it with cooking spray first. Then the little light went out and I opened it cautiously....

Feeling a little uneasy about this.

Hey! I have pizza waffles!

And they were GOOD! Not enough filling inside, but still good! And it didn't make enough to feed more than one hungry person of pioneer stock or two gentrified people with very small appetites, but it was good AND IT DIDN'T STICK AND IT DIDN'T SPILL ITS GUTS OUT OF THE CONFINES OF THE WAFFLE IRON AND ALL OVER THE COUNTER.

See? Not enough filling.

It also still wasn't a grilled cheese sandwich....