Jelly Doughnuts!

 

The Pres is off today, persevering on our front porch project. 

It was the perfect day to get up and make jelly doughnuts.

I have no idea where I got this recipe 20 years ago. Now that I remember how delicious they are I'll make them more often. But it takes almost 3 hours and makes about 20 doughnuts at a time, so it's not something for every day unless you've got a bigger family than ours. You want to share these with some special people.

After their second rising, they get deep fried for about 2 minutes.

After draining them on paper towels they get rolled in sugar.

 It is tempting to eat them just like this. 

But don't skip the jelly step.

 Even if, like me, you make a botch of the jelly part. It would be nice to have a pastry bag or an injector to get the jelly in without making a mess, but who minds a little bit of jelly on the sides?

Even Fidget, the notorious jelly-hater, liked the one I gave her with raspberry preserves in it. But her favorite one had honey inside instead. 

 Jelly Doughnuts

with apologies to whoever developed this delicious recipe. If I knew your name I'd put it here.

makes 14-18 

1 pkg yeast

1 tsp sugar

1/4 cup warm water

1/3 cup room temperature butter

3 TB sugar

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk, scalded

2 eggs, beaten

2 1/2 cups flour (it took me 3 1/2 cups so don't be alarmed if it takes you that much too)

jelly- I used Polaner All Fruit Raspberry seedless, Market Pantry Blackberry Seedless jam and Smucker's Orchard's Finest Northewest Triple Berry Preserves

sugar

frying oil

In a large bowl combine yeast, 1 tsp sugar and water. Let stand  until foamy, 5-10 minutes. In a small bowl combine butter, 3 TB sugar, salt and milk; cool to room temperature. Stir milk mix into yeast mix. Add eggs and 1 3/4 cup flour; beat vigorously. Stir in enough remaining flour to make a stiff dough. Turn dough out and knead 8-10 minutes. Clean and grease bowl, place dough in bowl, and turn to grease all sides. Cover and let rise til double, about an hour. Place parchment paper on cookie sheets. Punch dough down, roll out to 1/2" thick. Cut dough with a floured 2 1/2" biscuit cutter. Place dough circles on the baking sheets. Cover and let rise til double, less than an hour this time. Fry risen circles of dough at 350 in a deep fryer approximately 2 minutes or until brown. Fry 5 at a time. Once drained onto paper towels, roll doughnuts in sugar. Then cut a deep slice in the doughnuts and fill with 2 tsp jelly. Enjoy!

For more inspiration visit the fabulous showcase of yeast breads and sweet goodies at Yeast Spotting's blog,  www.wildyeastblog.com

Freedom to...

Sometimes there is not a whole lot going on here. Well, there is baking of course, and home schooling, and getting to karate on time. But what I am dwelling on at the moment isn't those things, it's Scripture, and my life's goal is to dwell on scripture all the time, what pastor Tim Keller calls the game of minutes; trying to think about the things of God as much of the day as possible.

God's word is so deep and richly fulfilling, I encourage you to read it today. Not all at once, :) but even a small portion can feed you for the entire day. My favorite verse from yesterday is Psalm 119:32 which says, "I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free." What a beautiful picture. Freedom! What could you do if your heart was set free?

Friendship Cookies

What's better than cookies from a friend? The latest craze around here is making these delectable treats from the  King Arthur Flour website. My dear friend from grade school, Fidget's Auntie Moke, sent the recipe. If only she was here to make them with us. Here's the recipe for Cape Cod Soft Molasses Cookies from King Arthur. Fidget took some to Olympics camp this morning. Try them-you won't be sorry!

Cookies for Everyone!

Happy Sabbath Day! A day to worship, to relax, to work on a few porch ceiling boards, and often a day to fool around with a new recipe. My friend Delicioso just sent me these adorable chocolate dipped shortbread 'tea bag' cookies. Need I say more? Sure, they're for tea lovers, but really these cookies would cheer anyone. This has got to be on my next tea party menu! Thanks, dear friend! xoxo






And thanks to Emmaline Bride. The recipe is there. Go for it!

Sweet Daddy-O

For Father's Day I made the Pres these divine cookies. Homemade Nutter Butters! What better way to tell him we're nuts about him?

 
When we were first married and had almost no money, it was a big deal when he would get Nutter Butters from the grocery. We just didn't have a lot of money for extras like chips or cookies. God has blessed us so much in the following years. Not just monetarily, but with a relationship growing closer to Him and each other. 

Now that we have a bit more, we could buy cookies but don't, as I like to bake and generally keep sweet things coming out of the oven. I think it was worth it to try these, even though they are softer, the filling sweeter, than the packaged kind. They're better than the package, but as the Pres pointed out, they're sweet enough you can't just sit down and eat 30 in one sitting like you could with the package...Not that we would. :) Here's the recipe for Homemade Nutter Butters, thanks to Cookies and Cups blog. 

Notice I forgot to take photos once they were baked and made into sandwiches with the sweet confectioners sugar and peanut butter icing. We were too busy eating!

Appetizers in Abundance

We're already one week past our family's 3rd Annual Appetizer Weekend. What fun we had! That week I'd spent a lot of time in the kitchen making brownies ( here's the recipe from the Hershey's website), blondies and breads. Several friends earned their black belts in karate so I made them goodies to celebrate.

One of the moms gave me a bouquet of beautiful flowers. Even after a week these were still so pretty and cheerful in the dining room. I wish I'd gotten a picture with all the roses in it when they first arrived. 

On to appetizer weekend!It was our annual family party and I had such a good time planning for it. Here's what I made:  Friday night we had Spicy Asian Lettuce Wraps, Rotel cheese dip and chips, mini crab cakes and broccoli and cauliflower in dip. 
Saturday breakfast was French toast dipping sticks and syrup and strawberries.
At lunch I made Asiago cheese dip and glazed chicken wings, and Fidget's friend Sky came to sample the goodies.

Sunday at lunch we had a few spring rolls and steamed dumplings. Sunday night we had potato skins, more spring rolls and everything else that was left over. Somewhere in there I also made bacon crescents for the first time, which were a bit hit. They were tiny fiddly things made out of refrigerated crescent rolls smeared with a creamy spread made with fresh-cooked bacon. Somehow I never found time for the avacado-stuffed cherry tomatoes, spinach-parmesan dip, or the sweet fruity dip I was going to make. But the list gets more ambitious every year.

It is such a joy to plan this special weekend celebrating my family every year. God is good to us to give us loving family relationships. No matter what our struggles or differences we can celebrate the family God gave us.

'Tis the season

Easter! Tis the season to think on the blessedness of life lived in abundance because Jesus paid the penalty for our sins and rose again to give us eternal life. Tis the season for seeing birds building nests; time to dig in the flower beds; time to run to the river and enjoy the beauty of creation; and as usual, tis the season to bake!

A Day to Relax

It was a lazy day for me and Fidget, really welcome after the school week hit its zenith in the karate belt test yesterday. Today we took it easy, had some friends over, and just played. For the kids, it was being inside and out, eating popcorn and playing ninjas among other things. For the moms, it was having tea, talking about art and baking yeast breads. Breads are one of my all-time favorite things to make. There's an entrancing mystery about the life of yeast that pulls me in several times a week, just to work with it, knead dough, and get a whiff of that heady yeasty aroma. Today my friend Kim and I made two batches of regular white bread with wheat germ, and some adorable peanut butter turtle rolls. They are all gone but one, and Fidget has dibs on it for breakfast.

Optimism

Lots of great things are going on at the Train Central workshop. Yes, we're into the grey days of winter. But the thing about being a believer is that the Lord gives our spirits great buoyancy, no matter what is going on in the world, in our hearts, or in our schedules. So, we carry on. As the Bible says, we are not consumed. Instead, we knit :).

Here are two gifts completed this week.

Some luscious, just-arrived bulky soft 

Italian wools for winter projects.

 

 

Some wool that's been on the back burner that I am using for new socks to wear with jeans through the long grey winter months. 

I love the variations on blue.

But we have to keep our strength up. Here's Fidget about to gobble
 one of Sunday's hand made  pizzas.We made 3: pepperoni and mushroom; pineapple and Canadian bacon; and just cheese.
 

 School work continues. And somehow, even next to the train tracks, with grey weather outside, it is encouraging. Math work is being understood, Fig's love of Greek mythology continues, and we get to be together all day long. Here's what we're reading these days. 

 God is good!

Halloween Pizza

Halloween greetings! It is our family's tradition to have pizza and watch a movie on Halloween as we wait for trick-or-treaters. Fidget's not interested in trick or treating which is just as well for us, and because it isn't a very big holiday for me I often forget about the pizza. I end up buying a frozen cardboard one or calling a delivery place. This time Fidget and I thought ahead. 

My birthday is the week before Halloween so I grew up having Halloween parties and loving Halloween. I never thought it was scary and enjoyed all the candy I could get. But once I became a Christian, the excitement of Halloween was drained. By then I was 22 anyway, long done with dressing up to scour the neighborhood for goodies. So it's kind of sweet to see Fig cling to a tradition like this one. Several years ago we had a neighbor hang some gruesome decorations at his house and I thought any pleasant associations Fig had with the holiday were gone. But, the pizza one she hangs onto.

I fibbed a little when I said we planned ahead. We got some ingredients for it, pepperoni and mushrooms and mozzarella, but I didn't have a recipe here til about 4pm when I hit the King Arthur Flour blog. It takes about 3 hours but the deliciousness makes it well worth it. Maybe next year I'll have the recipe at hand and start thinking about it before 4pm.

Here's King Arthur's fabulous pizza recipe.

Enjoy! Happy Halloween!

School Days and Treasured Friends

It's the last day of the second week of school. We are having such a good time. It beats last year by miles. This year we went back to My Father's World and chose their Exploring Countries and Cultures curriculum. God has been working an excitement in Fidget and me about people all over the world and how the Gospel is for them as well as us. I love that the curriculum is all about this.

Here is an Inuit- inspired carving, a dove out of Ivory... soap, that is. Fidget made it last week. The first two weeks of the curriculum were introductory, and didn't direct us to study any particular countries, so she and I did a little research and study on our own. We looked at Botswana (setting of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith- these are grown up books but so charming, I have been reading them to Fidget the past few months), India, and North American Indians, particularly Seminoles, who came from Creeks, who we are ancestors of; and including the Inuits of the far North and their amazing carvings.

I love how there is time to follow our interests and study other things in this curriculum. It is Charlotte Mason-inspired, that is, scheduled studying in the morning, leaving the afternoons free. We don't always finish by lunch, but we're not in a hurry either, and we have been running first thing in the morning. Fidget earns a dollar a mile. It's gotten expensive lately, but that's a good thing.

After all our diligence these 2 weeks, it was lovely to get a call that a friend wanted to bring her kids to visit us in our tiny train-rattled apartment. She said she didn't mind any of the inconveniences, including what turned out to be an hour drive just to get to us.

I made these peanut butter cookies for their arrival. Fidget, who hates jelly no matter what, did not like these with the blackberry jam. But I left the jam off some and she didn't want to stop eating those. 

Ahh, tea and cookies with a friend. A perfect way to end the week.
It is such a blessing to have a friend dear enough, who loves you enough to go way out of their way for you. A good friend is a treasure to keep.

A few things we're up to at Harbor View

 Baking as usual. Baking lots of breads and trying new things like a scrumptious Banana Bread from Bon Appetit. I have also made chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal cranberry/cherry cookies this week.

Visiting the Newport Mansions. I am pretty sure this one was Marble House. Though after awhile they all run together. It is really annoying that you're not allowed to take pictures inside. That did not stop one woman on our tour of Chepstow this morning. That annoyed me even more.

This one is called Chateau sur Mer because when they built it they had terrific views of the ocean and bay. Sadly no more since the area has been built up over the past hundred and fifty years. Because of its roof Fidget and I said it would be a prime candidate for filming a haunted house movie. We imagined bats flying out as we walked up to the door. But we enjoyed the tour.

Staying inspired with heavenly yarns (color 3820 Raspberry Print). This one actually has aloe vera in it! I am making spa socks for a friend. Not to take to a spa, but to feel like you're giving your tootsies a spa just by wearing the socks. 

This yarn (color 9807 Blue Multi), which is a sleek 50% acrylic and 50% nylon, is turning into Father's Day socks for the Pres. They are shorties for cycling. They're not getting done quick enough, is all I know.  I am not sure they'll be finished in time. I'm still on sock 1! But I will be keeping busy right through our house hunting.

Harbor View Bakery Days

A new friend came to bake a couple weeks ago. She came for tea this weekend and we decided to have another baking day this week, with knitting lessons. Here are the first bake day photos which she took and emailed me later. We had such fun and it was sweet to both our souls to have this fellowship. God is good!

First, our wholesome bagels. The key to them is King Arthur Flour's Non-diastatic Malt Powder. The bagels lost their center holes as they rose but they were delicious.

Basic white bread with a little wheat.

Cinnamon Swirl Loaf from my Fleishmann's Yeast Cookbook. I got it years ago with a couple proofs of purchase and a dollar or two shipping. It is one of my best cookbooks. I love the streusel crust on this bread, and it makes wonderful cinnamon sugar toast or french bread.

Glazed Orange Rolls. These are like cinnamon rolls only with orange glaze. Such a fresh change from cinnamon. 

Next time, photos from today's baking- knitting lunch!

Spring Showers

Hello again from Harbor View. Yesterday and the day before were rainy but the sun is back and with it the wind. We've taken a break of sorts here, as family came in town and then I threw a spring tea this weekend. Now it's back to school for me and Fidget, and though we like the routine I also want to be spontaneous. Yesterday we took a mid-morning walk to a nearby bridge to feed fish some of our vanilla madeleines that were tea party leftovers. 

I was trying a new recipe. It made so many, we had plenty to share with ladies at tea, then fish, seagulls, and finally we squashed a bunch of the little sponge cakes in our birds' suet feeder in the yard. I wasn't sure how they'd go over, but they're gone today. Since I still hadn't shopped for suet (and my attempts at home made suet were disastrous) I put the last quarter of a loaf of white whole wheat loaf in- and so far no complaints.The recipe is for white bread but I like to add a cup of whole wheat and some wheat germ or flax seed meal.

I've also been knitting in between other activities. Here is the scarf for our WWII Navy submariner vet friend Joe. Not that he'll want it in spring...but I need to send it before we move because who knows if it will get lost. I'd rather it get lost at his house. Yarn page here.

And my second pair of Hedgerow socks with a wool/nylon blend. 

Meanwhile I'm once again behind on baby presents. A friend's baby has come before I expected (probably not before she expected) so I will post a picture of their little gift soon. For now, it's time for a blustery day bike ride.