Warm Cherry Sauce

Bored with the freezer burnt whole wheat waffles doused in diet busting butter and syrup?  Me too.  Usually I steer clear of cherry anything whether fresh, frozen, or in candy form; it just doesn’t satisfy my taste buds the way other fruit does.  However, a couple of weeks ago while flipping through my August issue of Women’s Health, I briefly skimmed through this warm cherry sauce recipe and absentmindedly continued to turn the page.  About 30 pages later I realized the kids’ had an entire Tupperware bowl full of cherries at their prime, loved waffles, and were in a breakfast rut.  Fifteen minutes later we couldn’t get enough of our homemade buttermilk waffles drizzled in warm good-for-you cherry sauce.

The recipe below makes 6 servings, but since there was only 3 of us and 5 waffles I cut the recipe in half (omitting the lemon zest, seemed like too much work) and still had enough left over!

Ingredients:

2 cups sweet cherries, pitted and chopped
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp lemon zest (I omitted this)
3/4 c water
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in 2 tbsp water

Directions:

In a small saucepan, bring chopped cherries, honey, cinnamon, lemon zest, and 3/4 cup water to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer until cherries break down (about 5 minutes).  Puree about half the mixture in a blender, return to the pan, and stir in almond extract and cornstarch; simmer 1 minute.  Serve with pancakes, waffles, or french toast!

**Recipe Source:  Women’s Health August 2012**

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