Krispy Kreme Donuts

Happy Thanksgiving! Or Kanksgizzin, as my silly kids like to call it. What are your plans for this wonderful holiday? Going to snuggle in at home, travel to see family, or maybe going out for Thanksgiving? Whatever you do, I hope it's wonderful!

I feel a bit hypocritical posting a recipe for fried donuts, after plastering my Livefit launch all over my blog. However, in my defense, these were made long before we started, and c'mon, its time to indulge a bit right? As I've mentioned a few times, my husband and I have very different tastes. While I'm usually in the mood for something savory and salty (cheeseburgers, pizza, chips, etc), my husband has a MAJOR sweet-tooth. He could eat cookies and cheesecake for every meal, if allowed, and would wake up the next morning feeling great. Needless to say, this program that we've been doing has posed some pretty serious cravings for my "sweets loving" husband, but he's been staying strong, bless him.

These donuts were something he made a few months ago. He loves Krispy Kreme, and since we don't have one readily available to us, he found the recipe and whipped them up himself. Not even being a fan of donuts, I do have to say, these were pretty fantastic. If you're only interested in having one or two, I suggest halving the recipe, because it's really hard to stop!



Krispy Kreme Donuts
Food.com

Ingredients

Donuts
2 cups scalded milk
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar, divided
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons yeast
4 eggs ( beaten)
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
7 cups sifted flour

Glaze
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup cold water

Directions

1. Mix together ingredients for glaze.
2. Melt butter in hot milk, add 1 tsp sugar and salt. Allow to cool.
3. Beat in yeast, nutmeg, eggs, remaining sugar, and 3 cups flour.
4. Add rest of flour (dough will be sticky).
5. Knead for 5 minutes then allow to rise for 1-1 1/2 hours.
6. Roll out dough, cut into shapes.
7. Do not re-roll dough, then allow to rise for 30-45 minutes.
8. Heat oil to 365� and fry 1 - 2 minutes on each side or until brown. Toss in the doughnut holes first, let those cook, and then proceed to cooking the donuts.

Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I happen to be very grateful to all of you for your friendship and support. Have a safe and delicious weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Happy Day of Love my friends! Throughout my life, Valentine's day and I have gone through a wave of good times and bad.

It's great when you're six and collecting sugar filled Valentine's from your friends.

Bad when you're sixteen, single and watching all of your friends take home flowers from their boyfriends.

Amazing when you're nineteen and have found the love of your life that you plan to spend forever and ever with.

Horrible when you're twenty one and realize that plans have changed.

And it's elating when you're twenty-eerhf and you wake up to the man and children that really have become your forever and ever. I still don't know how I got so lucky to have such a sweet family, I just love them!

But being the broke students that we are, Valentine's day is one holiday that we don't celebrate much. Usually a nice dinner suffices. And after visiting some amazing food blogs for ideas, here is what I plan to make.

Kim, one of my favorite blog friends from Stirring the Pot, completely knocked my socks off with this Triple Pork Split Pea Soup. Thick flavorful bright soup filled with three different kinds of pork. And as you'll remember, I do love pig!



I just barely met Megan from Food and Whine, but I already love her blog. She has these fun Jello Hearts that I know my kids will go nuts for.


And for dessert I turned to Deborah from Taste and Tell, who devoted some time experimenting with red velvet. It was so hard to choose what to choose from her lineup, but I finally decided on these Red Velvet and Strawberry Trifles because my daughter loves strawberries. How pretty do they look!


And that is how I will be spending my evening with the people that I love. I hope you all have a wonderful day with your loved ones too!

Creamy Hot Chocolate

I honestly don't know if anything is more rewarding then a cup of hot cocoa after a cold day outside. I remember deliberately playing in the snow as a kid, my cheeks and nose getting cold and rosy, knowing that it was all going to be topped off with a steamy, rich cup of hot chocolate.


I still love hot chocolate, but what I don't like is that powdery stuff trying to front as hot chocolate. Let's face it, you could shovel heaps of that sweetened dirt into your cup, it just doesn't cut it. I need the real thing.

My husband is actually the one that found this recipe. This is the real stuff folks, thick, creamy, chocolatey goodness that will make you feel like a kid again. You'll jump in a big pile of snow just to get a cup!


Creamy Hot Chocolate
Found on Allrecipes

Ingredients

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup white sugar
1 pinch salt
1/3 cup boiling water
3 1/2 cups milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup half-and-half cream

Directions

Combine the cocoa, sugar and pinch of salt in a saucepan. Blend in the boiling water. Bring this mixture to an easy boil while you stir. Simmer and stir for about 2 minutes. Watch that it doesn't scorch. Stir in 3 1/2 cups of milk and heat until very hot, but do not boil! Remove from heat and add vanilla. Divide between 4 mugs. Add the cream to the mugs of cocoa to cool it to drinking temperature.

Our Christmas

The few days after Christmas is always a little bitter-sweet isn't it. You start boxing up your decorations, cleaning out your fridge and reminisce over Christmases past. We just barely cleaned up from Christmas, including vacuuming about ten pounds of dead pine needles. It feels good to have our house back to normal, but there's also a small emptiness it leaves behind.

We had such a lovely Christmas this year. Normally we go back to Idaho to spend it with family, but this year we stayed in Philly and kept things fairly quiet. I was a little homesick, but ultimately it was really nice not to have to travel and we got to establish traditions for our own little family.

Once of those traditions has always been to eat nothing but appetizers on Christmas Eve and watch Christmas movies until we go to bed. It's a lot of fun and adds to the excitement of the upcoming morning.

Since I was too excited to dig in, my pictures are less then blogworthy, but here's what we enjoyed Christmas Eve with the help of some friends...

Mini Caprese Skewers sitting in a layer of pesto, one of my favorite combos of all time!

I tried my hand at another cheese platter this year. Brie, Gouda and a very pungent Stilton made for a very delicious cheese platter, along with fruit and crackers. The Gouda was by far the crowd pleaser. This was actually my first time trying it and it just might be my new favorite cheese.

We also had a veggie tray, green olives, cured meats, a shrimp platter and a french onion dip with potato chips.
Gotta have chocolate chip cookies for Santa, they're his favorite ;)

Homemade baklava brought by our friends. It was so delicious that my husband ate some despite his pecan allergy. He said it was worth it.


Cream puffs, so easy to pop in my mouth, which is exactly what I did.

These were easily the star of the show. Baguette with Brie and caramelized onions. My friend brought these and I ate about four of them. The onions are sweet and the cheese is creamy, making these an almost dessert-like treat. With the extra Brie left in my fridge, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing for New Years!

There were also bacon wrapped scallops and water chestnuts, but I'm pretty sure they were eaten too quickly for pictures. And while I think I'm still full a week later from this feast, what are the holidays without good food right? I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season too, enjoy your last two days of 2010!

A Very Bloggy Christmas

Initially I didn't plan to do this, I was just going to start fresh for the new year. But I just don't feel right about letting these wonderful treats go without giving credit and thanks to the bloggers who posted them.

I basically found all of my baking and treat ideas from the blogosphere this year, and while I didn't get to make near as many things as I would have liked, what I did make turned out ah-mazing! Here are some of the reasons my pants no longer fit :)




I absolutely could not go an entire Christmas season without making my all time favorite Christmas cookie, the Peanut Butter Blossom! So quick and easy, and when I say easy, I mean easy to stuff about ten down my throat at once! I know this recipe isn't much of a secret, but I always visit my aunts cookie blog, Sugarbliss for the recipe every year. Thanks Rebecca!




I found this sweet Holiday Chex Mix on Cooking with Cristine. Look at those adorable homemade Santa hats! So simply made by dipping bugles into red or cherry chocolate, and then into white for the trim. This was a pretty and delicious treat to pass out to friends. Thanks Cristine!




When I found these Creme-de-Menthe bars on Joanne's blog, Eats Well with Others, my oven was still broken and I could barely stand to wait to make this. Rich chocolatey brownies, with a creamy, minty, butter cream center, and a shell-like chocolate finish to this brownies from heaven, made for a very happy Teresa. No one else in my family is big into the mint-chocolate combo (crazies!) so I ate half the pan, and the other half is in the freezer just biding their time until I decide to cheat on my New Year's diet. Oh Joanne, how I love these bars!





And last, but certainly not least, Peppermint Thumbprint Cookie Cups from Barbara Bakes. Okay, so I did cheat a bit by just adding kisses instead of "thumbprinting" them, but I guarantee that either way you make them, you'll love them! Thanks so much Barbara!

And thanks to Blogland for providing us with SO many Christmas goodies, stories and heartfelt wishes. Even if I didn't make your treats, rest assured I imagined their smells and tastes and enjoyed a bit of the season with you! Enjoy the rest of your break and Happy New Year!