Homemade Donuts

These homemade donuts are simple, and delicious!!

This was an activity my daughter did with her friends.  Then I also made a batch with my family.  Here's the recipe, you'll see how easy they really are!

To make the doughnuts you need refrigerated biscuit dough and hot oil for frying. 

First you need to flatten the biscuit dough.

Then cut out the donut holes.  I used the cap to the oil bottle and it worked perfectly.  Make sure to save the middles to make scrumptious donut holes!!

Heat the oil on the stove.

When your oil is hot enough then put your donuts in and let them cook.  You can generally tell when the oil is hot by flicking a few drops of water on the oil.  If the oil is hot, it will instantly start to spit and sizzle when the water touches it.  If the oil doesn't react, then it's not hot enough yet.

Also, be careful that the heat for the oil is not too hot or your donuts will cook too fast on the outside but still be doughy in the middle.

Half way through frying, make sure to flip the donuts to cook both sides evenly.

When done your done frying your donuts, place them on a paper towel or a cooking cooling rack to let the excess oil drip off.

Then you can coat the donuts with glaze frosting (see recipe below) or sugar and cinnamon.

GLAZE
3 cups Powdered Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
1/2 cup Cold Water Or Milk

Mix ingredients together. The glaze will be runny, but will harden a little as it dries.

These donuts make a lovely family treat for breakfast or dinner!!

Cinnamon Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

With my kids I have decided to do a monthly learning theme.  This month has been cooking.  They have practiced measuring, mixing, pouring, etc.  That means that there will be quite a few recipe posts coming up because I'd really love to share the fun recipes that we've tried.  We made both dinner dishes and yummy treat--it's been so fun!!

We recently tried two new pumpkin cookie recipes we have made with that were both divinely delicious!

The first recipe was cinammon pumpkin oatmeal cookies which was in the Idaho Falls newspaper. Since I don't have the link to that article, I'd like to share it with you here.

Cinnamon Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2 cups quick oats
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup raisens
3/4 cup cinnamon chips

Baking Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a cookie sheet with shortening.

Mix the oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl.  Set aside.

In the bowl of mixer cream brown sugar, and butter together.  Add the eggs and beat.  Add the pumpkin and beat.

Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture.  Beat until combined.  Add raisens and cinnamon chips and beat in.  Do not beat more than necessary.

Drop dough in rounded mounds about 1 1/4 inches in diameter onto the greased baking sheet.  Bake 10-12 min.  Or until the cookies brown on the edges.  The centers will be soft.  Remove and cool on a rack.

The second recipe was pumpkin snickerdoodles, which I saw on Pinterest from this from.  These snickerdoodles just a add a subtle pumpkin flavor and a few more spices that coat the cookie on the outside, and they are fabulous!

Both of these cookie recipe are perfect for fall and winter, and I'm sure they would make great neighbor gifts for the season!

Butternut Tomato Soup

Soup is one of my favorite dinners during the fall and winter months. I came across a new soup recipe here at Deals to Meals and wanted to share because it turned out so yummy! It's creamy butternut tomato soup.

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash, cut in half & seeds removed
1 onion, cut into large pieces
Drizzle of olive oil or butter
2 1/2-3 c. chicken broth
1 can evaporated milk
1/2 pint whipping cream or half & half
3 cans diced tomatoes (or fresh)
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
2 t. salt, to taste
2 T. brown sugar
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 t. basil
2 t. Italian seasoning
2 1/2-3 t. chicken bouillon or chicken base
1 t. black pepper

Cut the squash in half and place on a cookie sheet. Cut the onions as well and place them on a cookie sheet. Drizzle the onion and squash with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Cook in the oven at 400 degrees for 25-35 minutes, or until the squash is soft and tender. My squash took approximately 45 minutes to soften. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool for a few minutes until room temperature.

Place the onions in a food processor and pulse until smooth, and then place in a large soup pot. Turn the heat to medium heat and saute onions in a littler more olive oil. While this is coming to heat, spoon out the insides of the squash and place in the soup pan.

Continue to cook for awhile until the onions are even more soft and then add the seasonings, garlic, chicken bouillon and the chicken broth. Continue to simmer for a few minutes and then add the canned tomatoes.

Let the soup simmer until it is warmed through and the squash has broken down nicely. If you like a really smooth soup you can use a hand wand to blend the soup or add ladles full of soup into your food processor and blend the soup until smooth.

Once the soup is simmering you can add the evaporated milk and whipping cream. Season the soup to your desired liking (more kick, add cayenne pepper, more sweetness add more brown sugar, more salt, etc.)

Serve this soup with grilled cheese sandwiches or warm bread out of the oven. Enjoy!

Thankful Chain

Beginning November 1st, my family and I started a thankful chain.

I cut strips of construction paper from several different autumn colors.  Every night before bed time we gather as a family and write something on a slip of paper we are thankful for that day.  Then we loop and staple the paper strips together to form a paper chain. The paper chain is decorating my banister and grows each day as we add to it. By Thanksgiving we hope to have a long chain of the many things we are thankful for.

 

My plan is to read all the paper strips together as a family on Thanksgiving day.  It is nice to be reminded of simple things we take for granted on a regular basis.

To give you an example of what things we are thankful for at our house, here are some of the things we have added to the thankful chain so far:

• Glad to have a car
• I like music class at school
• Thankful for my job
• I have good friends
• Enjoy watching movies as a family
• My monster high doll
• Safety in traveling
• I am thankful for heat in our home
• I LOVE my bed at night!  (I am grateful for this every busy day!!). (Haha!!)

Fairy Garden

My daughter and I have been working on a fun project...we're creating a fairy garden. In case you don't know, a fairy garden is a place where the fairies live and right now we are getting the garden ready for winter so the fairies have a nice warm place to stay.  It's still a work in progress, but this is what we have added to our fairy garden so far.

This has been such a fabulous project because it is exciting to see the joy, imagination, and excitement that my daughter has for the fairy garden.  Plus it has been inexpensive.  I have only purchased a couple items, but everything else I had around the house .

We created our fairy garden under a nice tree in our yard.  The bird house, which is the fairy house, we found on clearance at the store.  It has a small door at the back for a perfect fairy entrance and the hole at the top is a great window.  We put some grass inside the house so it is soft and comfortable for the fairies.

We also put a small pot of food out for the fairies so they will know to come and stay.  We walked around our yard and found fairy-sized tomatoes, crab apples, seeds, and flowers.  The small flower pot is my daughter's that she used to grow her own sunflowers.  We turned it upside down and now it is a table for the fairies.  We also found a large flat rock as another fairy table.

Surrounding the fairy food and house we decorated the fairy garden with lots of pine cones and fake flower bouquets--they provide more shelter for the fairies.We found lots of pine cones for small trees

Lemonade In A Bag

Adding a little variety to your dinnertime meal doesn't need to be difficult.


This idea is very simple and delicious! Here's what you'll need:

Lemonade Supplies
lemons
sugar
water
ziplock bags

Place a lemon and ziplock bag on everyone's plate before dinner.  Also set out some sugar and water on the dinner table.

Cut your lemon in fourths and place 1/4 in the ziplock bag.  Seal the bag and squish the lemon until you get all the juice out.  This is the fun part, you're kids will love it--even those that are more sensitive to textures because they are able to participate and feel the textures without getting messy.

When you have squeezed out all the juice from the lemon slice, add the same amount of water as you have lemon juice and add sugar to taste.  You can either add a straw and sip your lemonade straight from the bag or pour your lemonade into a cup.  Either way the lemonade is fresh and delicious and is perfect for any summer or fall dinner.

What a great refreshing summer treat!