Accidental Doughnuts

Bob Ross always says, "We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents."
Today I had the happiest accident probably ever. I was attempting to make GF funnel cake, because we're bored, it's summer, and Scott and Simone said I probably couldn't do it.
And they were right. But it's ok!

I DID find a very easy recipe right away, with a quick google search, however, I didn't have all the right ingredients or ratios, so I kinda had to wing it. And the result? Light, sweet, puffy doughnuts. Crispy on the outside, cakey and melt-in-your-mouth on the inside, and crazy easy to make!

Here's how I modified the recipe above:

Dry Ingredients

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups gluten-free flour (Bob's Red Mills All Purpose Gluten Free Flour)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder
• 1 teaspoon gluten-free xanthan gum (Bob's Red Mills)

(If you are NOT gluten sensitive, use 2 cups of all purpose flour and omit the xanthan gum.)

Wet Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3/4 cup cream of coconut
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

You will also need a few cups of cooking oil. Peanut Oil is best, but if you have an allergy, I recommend corn or coconut oil. 

Place 2-3 inches of oil in a deep frying pan or wide, shallow pot.  Slowly heat up to medium heat.

While your oil is warming, combine all the dry ingredients and set aside.

Next, combine all the wet ingredients and whisk or beat until the eggs get slightly frothy.

Now sift the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, beating or whisking constantly.  Batter will be thick and sticky.

When your batter is thoroughly combined, test your oil with a small drop of batter. The drop should solidify and float to the top of the oil.

When the oil is hot enough, drop rounded tablespoons of batter into the oil. Cook for a few minutes until edged turn golden, then turn doughnuts and cook until golden all around. 

Remove from the oil and place on a wire rack. While the doughnuts are still hot, dust the tops with cinnamon and sugar.

This is the base recipe for a very versatile doughnut. I just dusted mine with the cinnamon-sugar, and we ate them like that. Scott thinks they would be even better with some cream-cheese icing to dip them in. I think they would also be scrumptious with an orange or lemon glaze, or you could sexy them up and dip the top half in chocolate, or fancy them up with some spun caramel.

You could also play around with piping them into some different shapes.  I played around with shapes a bit, but Scott and Intolerable Steve determined that they like them best in a rough-ball shape, like hush-puppies. They also preferred them slightly under-done and still a wee bit gooey in the center. But that's a personal thing.

But they were super easy and fun to make, and only took about 20 minutes, so if you want an easy and impressive breakfast... Yeah buddy.

Papoose Calzone

Today, my husband invited a friend over to hang out and watch football. Football, as it often does, corresponded with dinner time, and I thought I'd be a good hostess and actually cook. I haven't been doing much of that since our daughter was born. Scott and I were mostly living on leftovers of things people made for us, take-out sushi, and cereal. And I couldn't, in good conscience, feed a guest cereal. Maybe if the guest was Intolerable Steve. But it wasn't.
So I was looking around, trying to think what to make, and I was looking at my daughter all wrapped up in her blanket, and I thought she looked really cute, like a papoose.
And that made me think about things wrapped up like papooses. And that made me think about foods wrapped up like papooses. And a calzone looks a lot like a papoose, sort of. And I had some mozzarella and pepperoni in the fridge. So I was like, "Right on, Papoose," to Ivy, and then I made this:

Calzone Dough

In a large mixing bowl, combine:

3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup potato flour
1 cup garbanzo bean flour 
3/4 cup cornstarch  
3/4 cup potato starch  
1/2 cup tapioca flour  
1/2 cup sorghum flour  
2 1/2 tablespoons xanthan gum  
2 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar  
1/2 teaspoon salt  

It's a lot of different flours, which is what makes this recipe such a bitch. But it turns out SOOOO good. Trust me.


Ok, now in a bread machine, put 2 cups of warm water and 1 tbsp of olive oil.
On top of that, add the flour mixture. On top of that, add 1 package active dry yeast. 

Set the bread machine to "dough" setting, and press go. 
You might need to watch it and push the dough down a few times as it mixes.

(If you do not have a bread machine, I'm pretty sure you can combine everything in a mixing bowl and just mix it by hand, or if you have one of those fancy mixers with hooks. Which I don't, so I don't know for sure. Because I do have a bread machine. If you don't, try it some other way and let me know how that goes.)

After the first kneading cycle, take the dough out and combine it into a ball. (I suggest flouring your hands and a bowl for this step. The dough is very sticky initially.) 

Next, roll out the dough on a floured surface until it is about as thick as your pinky.

Spread the rolled-out dough with a very thin, even layer of softened unsalted butter.  Roll the dough up jelly-roll style, fold into thirds, and then pat back into a ball shape, but do not knead it! You want to maintain the thin layers of butter throughout the pastry.  

Put the ball back into the bread machine with the lid closed to rise.  
Bread machines are different, so be familiar with your machine's settings. 
Mine raises dough for an hour and then has a final knead cycle, so I left my dough-ball in the machine to rise for about 45 minutes and pulled it out before the last knead cycle. 

Divide the raised dough in half and shape into 2 balls. Set one aside. 

Roll out first ball on a floured surface to a large circle about as thick as your pinky. 
This is your calzone shell. Fill it with yummy stuff!

I happened to have, in my fridge, courtesy of Bean, some pepperoni, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella cheese. So I just chopped that stuff up and tossed it with a teeny bit of olive oil and black pepper. It was very delicious.

Lay the filling on one half of the calzone dough, leaving a half-inch edge. Then, fold over the top and roll up the edge, pinch-pressing to seal it. 

Bake in an oven pre-heated to 500 degrees on an olive-oiled baking sheet (or baking stone) for 25 minutes, or until the top is golden. 

Let rest for a few minutes before serving, so you don't burn everybody with molten cheese. 

I served mine with a quick marinara sauce I made from 8 oz of crushed tomato, half a teaspoon of garlic powder, a teaspoon of onion powder, a teaspoon of butter, a pinch of parsley, a pinch of red pepper and salt, black pepper, and Parmesan cheese to taste. 


It went over hugely well, both with Husband and Guest, and I felt it was well worth the pain-in-the-assery it took to make it.


I think this will be the dough we use from now on for pizza as well. I'd like to try a deep-dish style with it, maybe throw some goat cheese and sun-dried tomato on there... mmm.... goat cheese....

This is what Ivy looks like in her blanket, all papoosed-up.

it is best to be dubious of rock stars, and other mysterious happenings‏

I'm having an off week. I managed to delete myself from this very blog, for instance, and I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW. What's the opposite of a technological genius? That's me. Situations like this are exactly why I have not yet completed my *teleportation device. (*This is not related to my time travel device, as I have put those plans on indefinite hold based on some really terrible time traveling nightmares/possible future real life circumstances.)

And just now, I microwaved my dinner FOUR TIMES and kept forgetting to eat it. (Actually, it's sitting beside me right now. I never ate it. Now I am doubting the nutritional value of 4x microwaved food. Should I even bother?)

Other than this questionable microwaved heap of chili relleno, I have not been cooking much. So this post isn't going to have a recipe. I'm telling you now, in case you have other things to do.

Moving on with the general mystery!

This week, I applied to this job at an organic grocery store, and I got a reply from Jim Morrison. I looked up his number through reverse phone lookup and it said he was located in Santa Monica even though this job was in Raleigh. Now, I know what you are thinking. A "Jim Morrison" and a long distance phone number?! That is a red flag for spam! But what I thought was - JIM MORRISON'S GHOST IS CONTACTING ME FOR A LEGIT JOB! I left a message on his voicemail, which, by the by, featured a speaking voice which could definitely translate to Jim Morrison's singing voice.

Then today, I received received several text messages from a mysterious cell number that I did not recognize. Because I forget stuff, and people, and details, ALL THE TIME. I reverse-phone-number looked it up in the white pages, but all the white pages told me was that it was local, which doesn't help, because probably I've forgotten a lot of things/people locally as well as internationally.

Mysterious Text: Are you OK? haven't heard from you in a while, hope you are doing well :)
(My Internal Dialogue: "Crap, what have I done to make people think I'm not okay? and... oh man, this person is SO NICE, they hope I am doing well. with a smiley face! what kind of person am I to not remember whose number this is?!")

My Actual Reply: All is well... Who is this? I don't have this number saved, which is prolly why you haven't heard from me.

Mysterious Texter: It is your favorite friend in North Carolina you poo poo head!
(My Internal Dialogue: "Clearly this IS my friend because only my most Favorite friends would call me a poo poo head!" Then I felt worse about forgetting.)

My Actual Reply: That is probably true based on the fact that you just called me a poohead.

Mysterious Texter: Its Vicki Lynne you douche that says alot you weinie

(This is where I got really confused. Because I know a VickY who is very particular about the spelling of her name, but this "Vickie" didn't even mention bourbon once, and VickY always does cause she's a classy classy lady. And I know a Lynn who changed her name to Lynae. But I don't know a Vickie Lynn. I don't think. Even though she appears to be my favorite. So instead I decided to change the subject.)

Me: I love refreshing insults in the morning! Mm.

Vicki Lynne: WTF I am offended you didn't know it was me!

Me: It IS a shame how I don't have a photographic memory. I am disappointed in that ALL the time.
............................................................
I didn't hear from Vicki Lynne again, which is sad since she is my favorite person in North Carolina.

And Jim Morrison never called me back.

..............
**update: Jim Morrison emailed me back.
**And Vickie Lynne texted again. But I ignored her. She seems difficult.

Bread Update! At Last!

So... Long time no post. Welllll, we're busy, and also lazy. But mostly busy. Because before you can post a recipe, you have to invent it, and then test it out, and then tweak it a bunch until it is right. So we've been doing a lot of testing. Remember my bread quest? I've made some head-way on that.

We decided to start out with some pre-packaged mixes, and see how far we got with those. The first one we tried was Pamela's Bread Mix, on the recommendation of a friend.

And It came out pretty good. It had a nice, fluffy texture like a hearty wheat or wholegrain bread. My husband, who is not GF, really liked this bread a bunch, but I found the flavor a little bit too yeasty. It was good, especially for deli sandwiches, but for more delicately flavored things like PB&J or French Toast, or even buttered breakfast toast, it had a pleasant, but not always desirable aftertaste of beer, and the older the bread got the stronger the yeast taste.
I'll still use this mix though, any time I want a heartier bread, especially in the winter to have with soups and stuff.
But I'm not on a quest for good bread. I'm on a quest for THE BEST BREAD! So we moved on to Gluten Free Pantry's French Bread and Pizza Mix.

Gluten Free Pantry is a product made by Glutino, a company I have mixed feelings about. In my area, they've pretty much cornered the market on GF products. And a lot of them are decent, and some of them are very good. But there are also a lot of products that are sub-par substitutions for traditional glutinous foods, where the finished product doesn't taste like what it is supposed to be substituting, nor does it necessarily taste very good, but a lot of time and resources went into making it and somewhere along the the line, someone decided, "Well, it's as good as we're going to get it," and left it at that, and then slapped a $7.00 price tag on a yucky substitution food that normally costs $2.50 and is much more delicious. All that to say, I was skeptical of Gluten Free Pantry. But for the sake of science, we got the Sandwich Bread Mix, and the French Bread and Pizza Mix, cause I was jonesing hard for a half-way decent pizza. The Sandwich Bread Mix was about what I expected. Not much of a flavor, the texture was ok, but didn't hold up after the first day. But the French Bread mix turned out to be something we could work with.
To be successful with this bread though, you need to do a few things. 1) do NOT expect French Bread, or anything remotely like it. But if you want a light, fluffy sandwich bread, or a really good pizza dough,  you can achieve it.
2) The box comes with instructions, and we followed those at first, and then we started playing around to see if we could make it better, and guess what!? We did. So after about 10 different trials and combinations, I'm going to tell you how to get the best bread.

Combine:
1cup of luke-warm water
3/4 cup warm milk
1/3 cup melted butter

Combine:
2 tsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs plus one egg white
(all beaten together)

Pour both liquid mixtures into bread machine. Empty entire bag of French bread mix on top of the liquids. Empty enclosed package of yeast on top of mix.
Set bread machine to French Bread, Light settings, then press start and let it do it's thing.

This bread is truly yummy. Nice, buttery flavor, fluffy texture, slices well, toasts nicely, keeps for a couple of days. My biggest problem with this bread is it is a pain in the ass to make. Even with the bread machine. With all the warming and melting and egg separation, the prep time is around 30 minutes, and then it is another 4.5 hours to bake.

Still, That's a fine lookin' sandwich, no? 

You want to know what is on that sandwich, don't you. You see bacon, and you're like, "Ohh damn, what deliciousness is that!?" Alright, I tell you. It's my breakfast special.

You will need:
3 strips of thick cut maple cured bacon
1 large egg
2 thick slices of NY extra sharp cheddar cheese
2 normal (grocery store bread) sized slices of the delicious bread you just made
a little bit of butter
a little bit of salt and pepper
some hot sauce.

Heat a griddle to 375 degrees. Use one side to fry up your bacon.
Put the bacon on some paper towels
Crack your egg right into the bacon-greased griddle, salt n peppa it up.
Flip your egg. If you think yoke is gross, cook it all the way, but if you want the best sandwich ever, cook your egg over-easy so it is still a little yokey. Be careful not to break the yoke.
While your egg is cooking, melt a little butter on the clean side of your griddle, and put both slices of bread face-down in the butter.
On one piece of bread, melt your slices of cheese. (Said 2 slices because I need 2 side by side to cover my bread, but I guess it depends on how big your cheese comes. You basically just want on side of the bread totally covered by cheese.
When your egg is cooked to your liking and your cheese is melty, put the egg on top of the cheese bread, with the yoke side up.
Now put your bacon on top of your egg, and hot-sauce it to your satisfaction, and then put the top piece of bread on and serve.
Right before you eat it, smush your sandwich down to break the egg. This bread will totally hold up to smushing AND yoking, as you can see by the three bites already taken in the above picture. Sandwich intact? Oh yes!

Add a cup of coffee (I take mine with honey and cream) and you have yourself a pretty perfect breakfast.

So, my next goal is to make bread that is just as good as this bread, but does not require a box, OR 5 hours. It is a steep challenge, but I think I am up to it.

In the meantime, now that I DO have a good sandwich bread, I'll try and get Noelle to post some of her more bangin' sandwich creations. It will help if you bribe her with empty promises.

No really, it will.

Shameless Plug For My Own Profit

Soooooo..., if you enjoy this blog, and you have a Kindle or a Nook you should click the link and buy my book!

See how I did that, and made a little rhyme for you? That's poetry for Love.

You can also buy in in trade paperback here, if you're oldschool.

Disaster! Goes well with Comfort Food.

Now, I know by this time I've mentioned my propensity for plagues and being in the middle of disasters.

Best friends?

Optimism: It doesn't always end well.

The thing is, because I ALSO have a plethora of unbelievable good luck that is directly proportional to my bad luck, I remain fairly optimistic about Things In General.

Me, Observing Things In General.

But enough of optimism, let's talk humiliation! I know that's why you're really here.

It all starts when I was 17 - bright eyed and living at home, commuting to big college nearby. This college of gifted musical students decided to form a drum corps. Drum corps, as you might assume, are primarily composed of several drum players. Not to be put off by the fact that I do not, in fact, play a drum, I auditioned and was assigned to the marimba. (The marimba, if you do not know, is like a ginormous xylophone. It weighs several hundred pounds - that part is important - and you hit it with mallets to produce melodious, deep bell-like tones.)

There were about 30 of us, and because this was the first semester, it was being haphazardly and optimistically run by a student. So no, we were not organized. We ran through some short practice songs and exercises throughout the first few months, but mostly we all just punched our respective rhythms/tones with our banging implements of choice. The drum corps leader - his name was Opie, for real, I have to tell you that because FOR REAL, and also, he was very nice. Wait, what was I saying? Oh yes. Opie decided that we should be in a competition, even though technically, we had not really learned a whole song together yet. (I told you he was optimistic, bless his heart.)

I am dubious about competition. Also, see "team spirit". But the point of college and new experiences is to learn and grow, right? Sure. So we practiced. We practiced and practiced. But students being led by students leads to half-assery. Time went by, the competition grew closer, and yet - we had not run through the song ONCE without having to stop. I became nervous. I started dropping hints like "Wow, are we really ready for this? Maybe we should wait til next semester..." and other such sensible things. Opie would have none of it, because he believed in us and our untapped potential. Sweet, foolish man.

Opie = as represented by Hopeful Puppy

Finally, it was a week 'til the competition. Still, the drum corps had not gotten through the song once. Not ONCE. As the marimba, I played the bass line with an Eeyore resignation. I explained to Opie that I could not compete, my reasoning along the lines of "because this is the worst idea ever." And then I pulled off my Nervous Cloak of Emotions and relaxed at the whole business being over. Or so I thought!

The next week, I was sleeping in on an idyllic Saturday morning when my mother shook me awake around 8 to tell me that "some kids had left several voice messages for me", because this was in the olden days, when we still used answering machines and not those newfangled cell phones. I had explained the whole situation to my parents, but Momma made a speech along the lines of "being responsible" and "team spirit" and "prior commitments", but I out-stubborned her (which is nearly impossible) because the thing is, I sense humiliation like those European pigs sense truffles. Then I rolled over and went back to sleep, thinking that was the end.

That was about the time that a caravan of college students pulled up in our driveway. I am pretty stubborn, but it turns out I can't outstubborn 30 drum corps members and an extremely insistent-on-responsibility mother. So like a kidnapee, I got in the van, which drove 3 hours to the competition. The whole time, the van crew looked at sheet music and repeated catchy slogans about how we were going to band together (musical pun, yay!) and how we had 2 hours to practice in a separate room before we even competed. I felt moderately better. Artistic people DO have moments of last minute genius, even without liquor.

= This could be me!!!

We pulled into the competition area, and I realized it was a high school. It was the BIGGEST HIGH SCHOOL IN THE WORLD!!! But seriously, it was pretty big. Parking was insane. I expected rock stars. Now is a good time to mention that I then found out we were the only college competing in this high school competition. (Embarrassed? Relieved? It was a lot of emotions to experience at once so I am not sure how to tell you what was happening.) We got to our private practice room, and we were four measures (that is about 15 seconds) into our song when someone popped in and said "You're up next!"

We walked down the hallway (was there a death march happening? It sounds like a death march in my memory.) The doors were closed to the competition area, so I could only hear what was clearly an awesome rendition to a cartoon medley (death march!!!). Then it was our turn.

Doors swung open to the unseen competition area. With effort, I pushed my arduous several-hundred-pound marimba (on wheels!) into the semi-darkness. ...it was a professional sized super fancy gym. Filled with bleachers. Filled with hundreds of people in auditorium seating. Hundreds of people. Also, there were video cameras everywhere. And a panel of judges. A PANEL. TO JUDGE ME.

Like this, but times 10!

But I have performed before. So okay. I can totally keep it together for 2 and a half minutes. Our pit is small, perhaps 5 people. Being the bass line, the marimba player starts and ends the song. So I started. Ding dong. And everything came together! For about 30 seconds. But then the 25 drummers clearly missed a hook, and kinda faded out. Not to worry. Using my most-angry-and-in-charge Teacher Face, I hissed to the drum corps leader and pit, "Measure 24. MEASURE 24!!!!!" The pit repeated the part, and maybe 3 drummers tried to start again. But faded out again. Okay. So then the pit repeated it a third time (I was hissing measure numbers this whole time) and we kept going. Five more seconds, and we got to the part of the song where the xylophone player had stopped memorizing. This is when I realized that it was just me and the vibraphone player. And at the moment of that realization, he stopped playing.

And we were 29 silent drum corps members, and me - playing the bass line, which has no real melody. Just me, the panel of judges, and the video cameras. After another false try to get the drum corps to start, I switched to the melody (which - haha! - I'd never played before), and ended with a fancy little trill that was absolutely not part of our song.

And dead silence.

Like, nothing.

*Visual depiction of what happened.

*Based on a true story, some artistic licensure used

I pulled my marimba behind me and ran - literally ran - remember how I said how heavy that marimba was? Yay adrenaline! - out of the auditorium to a few confused and scattered claps.

The horror!

I would not go back into the competition area where someone might recognize me as "That Marimba Player". So I sat by the van by hours. It wasn't all bad though. One of our fellow competitors was in character as part of the Blue Man Group, and he silently approached me like a fancy mime, bent down on his knee in elaborate proposal, and offered me some marshmallows.

Marshmallows don't fix everything, but they help a little. And now I comfort myself with the fact that this was before youtube. So there is always that.

........................................................................................................................................................

RECIPE:

When I think of comfort food, marshmallows, and humiliation, I think of Rice Krispy Treats. But to combat the humiliation, you can't just have plain-jane Rice Krispy Treats, you need to fancy those suckers up. Like this:

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
4 cups miniature marshmallows
5 cups crisp rice cereal
2 cups of mini bittersweet chocolate chips

Optional: (For a REALLY Bad day. Like, Solo Marimba Bad)
Many toothpicks and assorted candies.

Melt butter in large sauce pan over low heat.
Add marshmallows and stir until melted and well-blended.
Cook 2 minutes longer, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat.
Add peanut butter and stir until thoroughly incorporated.
Add cereal and mini chips.
Stir until well coated.
Using buttered spatula or waxed paper, press mixture evenly and firmly in buttered pan.
Cut into fun shapes when cool, and decorate with assorted candy. Yay!

WHY IS THIS EVEN A THING!?

 

In case you thought I was dead, I'm not. Just pregnant. And crabby. In that "Everyone is STUPID. I hate EVERYTHING!" way. And I didn't want to subject you to that abuse, gentle reader. 

But I feel compelled to subject you to this!:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/05/05/computer.kiss.device/index.html?hpt=T2

Because it is so weird, and SO gross, and so mystifying as to just, well, why??!

In the words of my esteemed colleague, Noelle:

 "That...I don't even... what?  Why.  Why?  Oo baby.  I'm gonna waggle your tongue with a straw. AGH.  I CAN'T BELIEVE I SAID THAT!  I grossed myself out!  This is why robots don't make out.  Good grief, Japan.  Too far.  You have to blog about this.  Even though it hurts my erotic sensibilities."

And now I have, and you feel weird and gross too. And I feel better, because I'm mean like that.
You'll be OK though, I'll give you a recovery tip: eat something minty or stawberryish, and go find somebody you can kiss for for reals, and then kiss them. They will be surprised and happy, and you can both be grateful that nobody is waggling any body's tongue with a straw.