A spur of the moment buy: a waffle machine.
This means ... homemade "fried" (actually baked) chicken and waffles!
And a whole host of other fun waffle flavors. Most recently: rosemary cornmeal waffles, because I happen to have an abundance of fresh rosemary that I'm struggling to use up.
They're about equally as effortful as making pancakes and take about the same amount of time unless you have a griddle upon which to make gazillions of pancakes at the same time. They also come from pretty much the same recipe so pancakes and waffles are essentially different incarnations of the same thing. Just a matter of whether you feel like having something fluffy or something crisp.