I have recently made three new cooking discoveries about which I am feeling kind of excited. It's very likely that no one else will be as excited as me about these things, but nevertheless, here they are:
1. Steve sometimes eats breakfast, but sometimes not, usually because he is in a hurry to get to work and doesn't have much time. I saw a really great way to make breakfast sandwiches on Pinterest a couple weeks ago, and thought they would be perfect for Steve (and anyone else who wants them) to have for breakfasts.
I used English muffins and bagel thins, but the bagel thins aren't quite as good as the English muffins. I only got them because initially I, for some unknown reason, only got one package of English muffins. When I went back to the store they were out of the whole wheat ones and I couldn't bring myself to by the white ones, so bagels it was. Ah well, live and learn. I also included sauteed spinach, eggs, soy "sausage", and white cheddar cheese. I wrapped and froze them all, and they are easy to thaw in the microwave for a quick breakfast or snack. They ended up being pretty delicious, and I will be making more of these for sure.
2. I have been seeing baked donuts on cooking blogs for awhile, and the idea seems pretty clever. However, I figured that most of the deliciousness of donuts comes from their being fried, so I did not rush out and purchase a donut pan. Eventually I couldn't resist anymore, and I decided that our first batch of donuts should be chocolate with chocolate icing. More "treat" than the donuts I will probably make most of the time, but I wanted the kids to warm up to these non-fried donuts, and also, I had half a carton of buttermilk in the fridge that I needed to use up.
Noah was so excited about making these donuts with me, and we both impatiently waited for Allie to wake up from her nap so we could all eat them together. Unfortunately, even though they were cute, these donuts were NOT good. I guess the buttermilk should have already been thrown out! We had to throw those donuts away, and I was starting to regret my donut pan purchase.
Luckily, I came across another delicious-sounding recipe for cider donuts and this one happened to also be much healthier than the first. These, thank goodness, were a hit! This afternoon we made our second batch of them in three days. Even though we just had them, the kiddos were pretty excited to have them again today - too excited, apparently, to let me take a picture!
If you ever try making donuts, it's a good idea to put the batter in a gallon Ziplock bag with a corner cut out and pipe it into the pans instead of trying to pour it in. I learned that the hard way. We also found out that, when sprinkling powdered sugar on the donuts, you should do it right before you eat them because if you do it on all of them at once, the sugar on the ones you don't eat right away will disappear. Then, of course, your children will insist that you add more powdered sugar before they eat those.3. There is a restaurant that opened up here a few months ago called Unforked. It's like a fast food place but with actual good food. They have this kale salad that is amazingly yummy, and sometimes we will go there mostly to get the kale salad. The other day I looked online to see if I could find that recipe anywhere, and voila! I tried it out at dinner last night, and it wasn't quite as delicious as the one at Unforked, but pretty darn close. I'm going to try to tweak it a little to see if I can get it to be exactly the same, but in any case, I see a lot of kale salad in my family's future!