Doughnuts, casseroles and breads: oh my!

Whew! What a day.  I basically spent 7 hours in the kitchen, and while I loved every minute of it, I am totally exhausted now!

After a trip to Stop and Shop with Marky in the early afternoon, I decided to christen my brand new, candy-apple red mixer by making doughnuts!  I found a recipe for baked chocolate-glazed doughnuts, and they looked so pretty in the pictures that I felt like I had to try.  The dough is a yeast dough, and so it needed to rise twice, which made it take a while.  It was a little sticky and definitely needed more flour than the recipe calls for, but once I got it right, it was easy to roll it out and cut it into doughnut shapes.  I used a cookie cutter, and then a cannoli filler to cut the holes in the middle.  They baked up perfect, and then I made the chocolate glaze, dunked them in, and Mom and Mark helped with toppings.  The recipe calls for sprinkles, but they got creative with coconut, nuts, and peanut butter chips.  I have to say, this is finally something that looks just as beautiful as the pictures!  They were gorgeous.  And, considering how quickly they were eaten by Kenzie, Mom, Mark, Allie, Rachael, Alex and Nick, I think they were a hit:) I actually didn't try them - not a big sweets person - but they got rave reviews and look beautiful, so I was happy. Be prepared for lots of pictures of my first pretty food!

Then I worked on two casseroles.  Tomorrow is the welcome back breakfast at work for our head janitor, after he had heart problems about a month or so ago.  I found a recipe online for a bacon, potato and egg casserole (I had to search long and hard for something without any gross sausage!) .  I decided to make two, one for tomorrow and one for my family for dinner as a test run.  My only change to the recipe was not adding sun dried tomatoes, because my family hates them.  I'm a pretty slow cutter, so it took me a while to dice up the garlic, onions, bacon, and yellow pepper, not to mention cracking and beating 16 eggs (luckily I bought frozen diced potatoes)!  However, the ending result is pretty damn great.  We all loved it.  Certainly it is not very healthy (and Kevin might want to stay away from it at the breakfast...)with all the bacon and cheese, and the vegetables cooked in the bacon grease... so I think that if I made it again, I would try to do it without bacon.  I'd fry the veggies in a little olive oil instead.  Cooking them in the grease made me a little sick... of course, until I ate it, in which case it was so delicious that I didn't care anymore!  Can't wait to have more again tomorrow at the breakfast... and then run a marathon or something.

Lastly, I had to make something for Kenzie to bring to the breakfast.  This was payback after all the years she made stuff  for me to bring to potlucks before I started up with my resolution.  I decided on a quickbread that I have been wanting to make: honey beer bread.  I almost made it last night, but it doesn't get made in a mixer and I was desperate to try out my new baby.  I figured it is probably not a normal breakfast food, with the beer and all, and it's not very sweet (only 2 tablespoons of honey), but I wanted something easy (and this is ridiculously easy).  I know from experience that at these breakfasts, the hot foods go first, and all breads, muffins, etc. barely get touched, so it won't really matter if people think beer bread isn't a good breakfast.  It made the house smell amazing, and while it still does have a faint beer taste (totally appropriate for a breakfast at an elementary school!), I think it will be a hit.  And if not? Well, they have the casserole to make up for it :) 

Now, I am giving myself tomorrow off from my resolution after a weekend in the kitchen!  I will be seeing my favorite local band, Gamble and Burke, open for Sean Kingston.  No cooking for me tomorrow!

Doughnut Party with Mom, Alex, Kenzie and Mark

Recipes:
baked doughnuts
cheesy potato breakfast casserole
honey beer bread