D is for Doughnut

As of bedtime last night, I still had not come up with a Pinterest project for today's "D" post. I tossed around a few ideas, including doughnuts and dandelion paintings, but nothing struck me. 

"Make doughnuts! Make doughnuts!" my husband said, but that seemed like a major undertaking.

I woke up several times in the night, and when my mind wasn't racing to thoughts of preschool projects, appointments I needed to make, grocery lists, song lyrics, blog post ideas (brilliant ideas, all of which I promptly forgot when I woke up), the laundry status, what I should wear the next day (contingent upon the laundry status), and the like, I was wondering what in the hell I was going to do for my "D" post. Then I remembered seeing a pin for deviled eggs where the whites had been dyed lovely pastel shades. As we were going to be attending a family Easter dinner later in the afternoon, I thought that would be a perfect thing to try for my post. When I announced my plan this morning, my husband adamantly vetoed it.

"No one in our family likes deviled eggs," he pointed out, dashing my spirits.

"But they were going to be PRETTY deviled eggs," I said.

"I thought you were going to make doughnuts! I was looking forward to them!" he replied.

So at 8:30 a.m., I went to the kitchen to try to make doughnuts.

Here is the pin:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/02/homemade-glazed-doughnuts

Let me go on record as saying Ree Drummond's instructions for making these doughnuts were FLAWLESS. Her step by step instructions are practically idiot proof. 

Unless you're an idiot and don't read the recipe before beginning.

Guess who was an idiot?

By not doing ANY pre-planning and only giving the recipe a glance the night before, noting that I actually had all (most) of the needed ingredients, I neglected to note the little part that said to make the dough and then refrigerate it for several hours, preferably overnight.

Oops.

I read this part shortly after I finished the dough and was ready to move on to the next step, which I THOUGHT would be rolling it out and cutting out doughnut shapes. Instead, I put the dough in the refrigerator for about an hour, then checked it. Cool, but not cold. So I stuck it in the freezer for another hour, and around 10:30, I was able to roll it out and cut out my doughnuts.

Since I've never made doughnuts before, I never had a need for a doughnut cutter. Ree Drummond doesn't have one, either; she makes due with a biscuit cutter and a little flower shaped cutter for the hole. Okay, I don't have a biscuit cutter, either. I use a glass for that, which is what I used today. The next hurdle was to find something to make the hole. I searched every drawer in my kitchen and found NOTHING to make a 1" doughnut hole, so as a last resort, I used a little 1" baby chicky cookie cutter. 

"Hey, instead of doughnut holes, we could call them chick holes!" I said to my husband, who had wandered into the kitchen to check on the progress of the doughnuts (the first of many disappointing visits to the kitchen by him to get a fresh doughnut).

"Uh, no," he said. "That's just wrong."

The dough handled beautifully when I rolled it out. I put the doughnuts and chick holes (still calling them that) on pans to rise and set them on top of the stove. And they laid there and did relatively nothing for thirty minutes. I turned on the oven to get some warmth to them, and slowly, slowly, slooowly, they began to rise (I had time to take a shower, wash my hair, shave my legs, dry my hair, STRAIGHTEN my hair, put on make up and get dressed first). Finally, it was time to fry them. It was 12:30

Unique doughnut holes. Or chick holes.

FINALLY, the dough rose.

My husband and son had plates out in eager anticipation. I was really hoping they wouldn't be disappointed.

It took A LOT of canola oil to fry them. (Have I mentioned that, not only have I never made doughnuts before, I have never deep fried ANYTHING before?) I lowered the first doughnut into the oil.

And it browned on one side, just like it was supposed to do. And 45 seconds later, I flipped it over, and the other side browned, just like it was supposed to do. I fished it out with a slotted spoon, set it on paper towels to drain, then dipped them in the glaze I had already prepared (I read ahead this time). 

Look! You can see the chick hole!

Draining on paper towels.

My son snagged it immediately. Took the first, hesitant bite. Then downed it in a gulp.

The second doughnut went to my husband. 

And they elbowed each other out of the way for every one of them after that. I barely got a chance to eat one (or three).

The chick holes were THE BEST, although many of them didn't want to flip over in the oil as they cooked. In spite of that, they turned out just fine.

Without a doubt, this was a PINTEREST WIN!

Aren't they GORGEOUS?!

My final thoughts:

Now I know why doughnut makers start making the doughnuts at 3:30 in the morning.

I will never complain about the cost of a store-bought doughnut again. They are labor intensive.

I only got burned by hot oil once, but that was enough. I have high hopes my fingerprints will grow back some day.

C is for Cheesy Cauliflower Bread Sticks

When you scroll through the "Everything" board on Pinterest, you'll notice several prevailing trends among the pins. Lots and lots of uses for pallets, for example. They make furniture out of them. They hang them on the wall. Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose. I am realistic enough to know there ain't no way I'm going to pin, let alone DIY, anything involving a pallet. If you read past the posted picture (and so many of them are projects done by professionals and not DIY friendly AT ALL), you'll find that many of the projects require complete dismantling of the pallet. 

Then there are food trends. Low carb diets are not the fad they used to be, but there are still plenty of pinned low carb recipes on Pinterest. Paleo recipes have been the rage in recent years (interestingly enough, not one of those recipes is for catching and eating grubs, rodents, or insects, which is what Paleo man ATE). Gluten-free recipes are also ultra trendy.

I recently pinned a recipe that is so hip that it actually embraces low carb, Paleo AND gluten-free. Can a recipe BE any trendier than that?! I actually pinned it because I thought that it might be a good way to get a vegetable down everyone in my house that wasn't green beans, potatoes or corn and NOT because I believe in these current eating fads.

Here is the recipe I pinned. There are dozens of nearly identical ones on Pinterest.

http://whatsfordinner-momwhatsfordinner.blogspot.com/2012/06/cheesy-garlic-cauliflower-bread-sticks.html

I ran into a grocery store to pick up a cauliflower and was horrified to find they charged $4.59 for them. I usually buy them at Aldi and never pay more than about $1.79 for one there, and usually, they are much less. As I had nothing else up my sleeve for today's A to Z entry, though, I had to bite the bullet and buy it anyway.

Back home, I got out the first of 19, yes, NINETEEN, pans, bowls and utensils that it took to make this dish. I seriously counted them as I cleaned up afterwards. The first step was to steam the cauliflower. Next was to mash the steamed cauliflower through a ricer.

Have you ever used a ricer? We have one, because my husband once read that mashed potatoes should ALWAYS be made with a ricer. I think he did it once and declared it not worth the trouble. The ricer has languished in the back of a drawer since then. And after ricing one gigantic, expensive cauliflower, I can tell you that I do not love ANYONE enough to rice a cauliflower again. I had bits of cauliflower EVERYWHERE. And the stemmy parts don't rice, so you have to scrape them off and discard them. Plus, a lot of water was squeezed out into the bowl along with the cauliflower, and nowhere in the recipe did it tell me what to do about that. The pictures from the recipe I was following didn't show riced cauliflower floating in water, so I drained the worst of it off and moved on. I had twice as much cauliflower as I needed for the recipe. Instead of saving the extra riced cauliflower, only to be thrown away at some future date after finding it shoved to the back of the refrigerator and kicking myself because I spent $4.59 on a stupid cauliflower and wasted half of it, I doubled the recipe, mixing the cauliflower with eggs, mozzarella and parmesan cheese, oregano and garlic.

I wanted to take a video of myself, but it took both hands
just to squeeze the cauliflower through the ricer.

The ricer (blade?) kept getting gummed up with stemmy
parts of the cauliflower

In theory, all the cauliflower squeezes through
the little holes and lands in the bowl. In reality,
it gets stuck in the holes and little bits of it fly
all over the kitchen when you're trying to scrape
it off the ricer.

The next step called for spreading olive oil in a baking pan, then lining it with parchment paper. Nowhere did it say what size pan, and the one I chose would have been twice as big as I needed, had I not decided to double the recipe. Then I had to spread the cauliflower mixture into the pan WITH MY HANDS. Wet, eggy, mushy cauliflower, then into a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes. Then another five minutes. And another five. And another five. Because after the 15 minutes called for in the recipe, it was still pale and watery. The pan finally came out of the oven and melted butter and garlic were spread over it, plus MORE mozzarella and parmesan cheese were added on top. I'm estimating a minimum of $5.00 worth of cheese went into this, and when added to the $4.59 for the cauliflower, these bread sticks were getting to be more than a little pricey. 

Finally, they were done, and I removed them from the pan and cut them with a pizza cutter and heated up some marinara sauce, as recommended. I forced coerced begged called my family in to the kitchen to try them.

Fresh out of the oven.

Cut into bread sticks. Mock bread sticks. Faux bread sticks.

This is how the jury voted:

My son: When it was just cheesy tasting, I got a little bit of a bread stick vibe. Then I started tasting cauliflower. Is it palatable? Yes. Do I want another one? No.

My husband: Assuming you hadn't had bread in a month and had this with marinara sauce and some pepperoni on top, then it would satisfy your pizza craving. Would I call it a bread stick? No.

My daughter: Too cheesy.

Me: Looks and feels and tastes like a giant cauliflower pancake.

What I learned: If you have to go to this much trouble just to get someone to eat cauliflower, then it isn't worth it. Nothing about this recipe is going to fool anyone into thinking they're eating bread sticks. Only an idiot pays $4.59 for a cauliflower.

I'm going to have to call this one a Pinterest fail.

B is for Bunny Bottoms

I teach preschool. Three mornings a week, I have 15 pre-kindergarteners (4 year olds who will turn five over the course of the year). Two mornings a week, I have 7 primary kiddos (3 year olds, turning four). In a nutshell, in Pre-K, we work on kindergarten readiness skills. In Primary, we work on the skills needed in Pre-K. The hardest one for Primary kids to master? Cutting.

You might be surprised at the variety of ways a 3 year old can hold a pair of scissors, none of them the correct way.

At the beginning of the year, we cut straws into little pieces, just to get the hang of using the scissors.

When we progress to cutting paper and then trying to cut on a line, we pretend the scissors are a crocodile that takes nibbles of paper, ending with a big CHOMP.

Some of the kids cut like a house afire, and you're sure they're going to take off fingers (usually mine, as I help guide their scissored hands). Some of them take little chips out of the paper but never make any real progress. All of them whisper "Squeeze, open, scoot" as they cut.

For our spring bulletin board, located in the hallway outside our door, my assistant found a darling idea on Pinterest for a bunny bulletin board:

http://firstgradeflipflops.blogspot.com/2014/03/its-spring.html

I figured our cutting skills were more than adequate to pull this off. I made a pattern by drawing an oval shape and copying it onto brown construction paper. (I also drew ears, but I'm no fool; I cut those out myself.)  

The kids cut out the oval, then glued on the ears and the cotton ball tail:

"Where's the face?" one of the boys asked.

"This is the back of the bunny," I said. "His face would be on the other side."

He turned the bunny over and frowned, as, obviously there was no face on the other side.

"We made bunny BOTTOMS," I told him.

Seven 3 and 4 year olds collapsed into giggles.

I hung the bunny bottoms on our bulletin board. Look how much personality each one has, just based on the way the ears were glued on:

PINTEREST WIN!

A is for Anti-Slip Throw Rugs

Hello, April! Hello, A to Z Challenge!

I entertained the idea of doing a Pinterest-based theme for the A to Z Challenge fairly early on and took some notes to that effect, writing the letters of the alphabet down the left side of a page in a spiral notebook and jotting down ideas from my own Pinterest boards next to each one. For someone who doesn't do a lot of planning, I was off to a pretty spectacular start!

(Something to be noted about doing 26 Pinterest challenges in a month is that writing down some ideas is not sufficient. Pinterest projects require things like ingredients and craft supplies and what are probably a number of very difficult-to-find items.)

'Twas the night before the first post is due, and I pick up my handy dandy notebook (shout out to Steve) to see what I had noted for "A" aaaaaand...

Nothing. I filled in ideas for about 16 letters, but "A" wasn't one of them.

I frantically started going through my Pinterest boards, looking for something that I have all the supplies for AND starts with the letter "A" AND isn't too hard, because, well, I'm lazy. Fortunately, I found something. It's even a DIY project that I have been thinking about doing for ages. 

Here's the Pinterest pin:

http://inthiscrazylife-bethany.blogspot.com/2012/02/tips-and-tricks-part-2.html

My house is big. And old. And has no carpeting in it. No. Carpeting. The floors are hardwood, except for the kitchen, entry hall and bathrooms. We have large area rugs on the floors, as well as runners in the entry hall and upstairs hall (which runs nearly the length of the house and is used by the cats for bowling, or at least, that's what it sounds like from downstairs). Area rugs on hardwood floors skid unless you put down a non-skid pad underneath the rug. The problem with THAT is the pads creep out from under the rugs, especially ones that are well-traveled by humans and cats, such as the one in the entry hall.

See? The padding is trying to make a getaway.

Look! I found a dime!

I didn't have the kind of caulk that uses a caulk gun;
I only had the squeezy kind. 

This kind of hurt my hands.

All done! Time to dry!

I let it dry overnight. As an aside, my husband plowed right across it in the dark early this morning, even though I left a path between the doors to the family room and the downstairs bathroom. 

The results:

Pinterest fail.

Now I get to spend the rest of the day picking silicone latex caulk off the back of my rug.....

Theme Reveal: 2015 A to Z Challenge

Last year was my first year to participate in the A to Z Challenge. As I do with most things in life, I put a lot of thought into the decision to participate in the Challenge; namely, I remembered how cool my friend Christine's posts were when she did it in 2013, and I thought to myself, "Huh! That seems like fun! I think I'll sign up for that!" The word "Challenge" did not sound any alarm bells in my little brain, as well it should have, because writing a post every day AND linking it to a letter of the alphabet is not easy. Fun. Interesting. CHALLENGING. But not easy.

My theme was also characteristic of the way I roll, as in I fly by the seat of my pants a lot, and my posts in the 2014 A to Z Challenge reflect that pretty accurately, running the gamut from applesauce to Jesse James to Superfund sites.

But this year, THIS year, I actually have a theme. Have I pre-written any posts? Done any real planning? Ummm, no, but I HAVE A THEME!

Ready?

Pinterest!

I will be writing about shizz I find on Pinterest. Some will be wins. Some will prove to be failures. Feel free to look at my Pinterest boards and make suggestions of pins you'd like me to feature. And then stay tuned. Starting April 1, my Pinterest-inspired posts will begin.

Challenge accepted.

Squeeeeeeking In Under The Wire

I knew this was going to be a busy weekend. Knew it, knew it, knew it, and STILL, I didn't go ahead and write my Ten Things of Thankful list early. Now it is late in the afternoon Sunday. So late, in fact, that it's really not "afternoon" anymore; more like evening. I don't feel very well; haven't, really, in a week and a half. I just woke up from a nap and feel foggy, but by golly, I'm going to get this post written before the deadline.

Gratuitous picture of Ruby, because I saw that Yvonne
posted one of HER calico and I sensed a trend....

1. I haven't thrown up since December 23, 1971. I have wondered a few times over the past week and a half if that record was going to be shattered, but so far, it's held on.

2. With spring comes the risk of severe storms in this part of the world known as Tornado Alley, and we had our first round this week. No tornado warnings this time, and the worst of the weather mostly passed to the south of us. 

3. The American Red Cross tornado app. It is a must-have if you live in an area that is prone to severe weather. The Red Cross also has a wildfire app, a hurricane app and a first aid app, among others. Something for everyone! 

4. Diet Coke, especially first thing in the morning. Cold. In a glass. With ice.

5. I got an awesome deal through Priceline for a hotel room in Arkansas this weekend when we had to travel for a volleyball tournament ($60 instead of $120).

Look at that little girl jump!

6. My own bed.

7. Wallflowers from Bath and Body Works. I got a supply of spring and summer scents last week when they were on sale, and my house smells sunny and fresh. It's a very old house, so that's not always an easy thing to accomplish.

8. Daffodils. 

Zoysia grass, the last to turn green in the spring, first to turn
brown in the fall. REAL grass would have made a better backdrop.

9. My bilateral mastectomy with tram flap reconstruction was three years ago yesterday. So far, so good.

15 hours after my surgery, I finally got to have something besides an ice chip.

10. And this just in: I just found two new cousins by using familysearch.org. I discovered I am 10th cousins, twice removed, with Kristi of Thankful Me and 13th cousins with Christine of In The Coop. I hope I'm in their Wills now!

It's still not too late to link up your thankfuls. It may SEEM like it, but it isn't.

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It COULD Have Been A Bad Thing

Last week was Spring Break. Glorious, rejuvenating Spring Break. Even though the weather was cool and a little rainy, delightful Spring Break. Because, you know, Spring Break.

It started with a spider lowering itself from the vicinity of the passenger side visor while my daughter and I were driving home from a volleyball tournament, and while we screamed a lot (A LOT), the spider ended up dead and we didn't, and that was a good thing. 

Tuesday morning, Emma and I (mostly I) loaded the car for our trip to Nashville to stay with my Person, Terri, and her daughter (another good thing). We stopped to fill up with gas and get drinks for the road (not a good thing, as Emma threw back a Mountain Dew Code Red and TALKEDNONSTOP the entire trip). 

Because my car has a teeny little habit of burning oil when it is first started (think exits and entrances by the Wicked Witch of the West), I thought it best to check the oil before we hit the road, since we had just taken a 250 mile round trip for the volleyball tournament. When I opened the hood, however, I immediately noticed the absence of the cap that goes on the thingy the oil goes in. Hmmm. I knew my husband had put oil in the car before our trip to the tournament, so he apparently didn't put the cap back on afterwards ("It was dark when I did it" was his later excuse). The oil level was fine, though, so I shut the hood and we took off, with me figuring I'd pick up a cap when we got to Nashville.

Our trip was uneventful. We sang to the radio. We talked (one of us talking way more than the other one). We arrived in Nashville and Terri and I went out to hear an old friend sing, and that's the last thought I gave to the cap that goes on the oil thingy.  After a couple of days of driving around to my favorite restaurants and shopping and shizz like that (many good things), I finally remembered the cap on Thursday and stopped at O'Reilly Auto Parts Store. Here's how it went down:

Me: You know that thingy where you put the oil?
Counter Guy: Yes.
Me: You know that cap that goes on it?
Counter Guy: Yes
Me: I need one of those. Mine's gone.

The very nice counter guy said he didn't have one in the store, but he could have one there in a couple of hours. 

Me: No problem. I've been driving without it since Friday.
Counter Guy: 
Me: What?
Counter Guy: You've been driving a week like that?!
Me: I drove from Joplin to here. Is that bad?
Counter Guy: 

There was an exchange of wild-eyed looks between my counter guy and the OTHER counter guy.

Other Counter Guy: Uhhh, your engine could be ruined.
Counter Guy: The oil will spray out without the cap.
Me:
Counter Guy: I think I'd better check your oil.

He followed me outside and raised the hood. 

Counter Guy (incredulously): There's no oil sprayed in here.

He checked the oil.

Counter Guy (even more incredulously): Your oil is fine.
Me (smugly smiling): Whadya know?

Shaking his head, he closed the hood and went back inside.

I returned to the store a few hours later. My cap had been delivered; in fact, I didn't even have to walk up to the counter and ask for it. The counter guy remembered me (imagine that), rang it up ($3.80 plus tax) and said he'd put it on for me (which I resented slightly, because it implied that I was too stupid to put it on correctly, although I never told him that I wasn't the one who lost the cap in the first place. Maybe I should drive back and set the record straight?). 

So, what could have been a bad thing ended up a good thing. Or, if not really a GOOD thing, then a not as bad as it could have been thing. 

And you KNOW those two counter guys will be telling everyone about the dingbat who drove over 500 miles without the cap on her oil thingy and the car didn't self destruct.

I'll be a legend.

That's a good thing.

This post was an entry for Mama Kat's Writing Workshop with the prompt:

Talk about a time you got lucky.