Pie-ful of memories

Apple pie

Today as I was making pies and dinner rolls, it made me remember back to my childhood.  Growing up, Thanksgiving was a HUGE deal!  All the family (aunts, uncles, cousins) traveled to Grandma and Grandpa Wilson's house.  There was always this really big turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed tators, and burned pies.  Last night I taught Only how to make pie crust using a recipe I've used for years , except we did it in the food processor (my hands hurt).  They didn't turn out bad and she did a great job. Ah, so thankful there were no burned pies and we had plenty of dough left over to use the scraps as pie crust strips (as my kids call them). I'm thinking we should have kept one of the applie pies here to eat for breakfast!

Trying to be creative, Pinterest inspired

Just ask

Last night, 

a sweet friend, Melissa and I 

had a girl's night out

just the two of us

Delicious Stuffed Chicken Marsala

We had the best time!!!

Not as two moms,

or as someone's wife

just two good friends

good conversations

delicious food

Want to hear the funny part? 

Both of us 

share the same wedding anniversaries

June 23

19 years apart

our oldest children are dating
and our daughters are best friends
(it's complicated)

Stay with me...

So I had to ask...

yes, I did!  

I asked our server 

if we could have a dessert 

to celebrate our anniversaries!!!

No, our husbands were not present

Guess what???

This is the yummy celebration dessert we received!

Our celebration dessert

"I don't want to judge..." she started

We had a little explaining to do

We are not married to each other 

GASP!

 "Our husbands are unavailable to celebrate

One is at boy scout camp and the other doesn't like Italian

It's Girls night out!"

Oh so delicious and rich!

We gave our sweet server an bit more of a tip

took our dessert to Sweet Bay

got a coffee and chai

two forks

and each had two-three bites

more good conversations

two good friends

Ah, we must do it again soon
for we had to go home way too soon.

Donuts or Doughnuts or olykoeks?

 A doughnut or donut is a type of fried dough food popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet (or occasionally savory) snack.

When I was growing up, I loved walking down the dusty streets  to the grocery store/post office to get a few donuts that had been warming in the window, oh, just the thought gets my taste buds moving.

Have you ever thought about where donuts or doughnuts started?  Probably not, but this week I experimented a bit with making donuts and it made me wonder.  I did some quick research - so here is a VERY brief story on these delicious addicting treats.

According to Mr. Breakfast: Doughnuts have been around for centuries. Archaeologists turned up several petrified fried cakes with holes in the center in prehistoric ruins in the Southwestern United States. Later in the mid-19th century they were known as olykoeks, or oily cakes, and it's primarily the Dutch who are credited with taking sweet dough balls and frying them in pork fat. 

 Why is there a hole?  According to myths floating around, a New England sea captain named Hanson Gregory, around 1847 was eating some olykoek that his mom sent on one of his voyages. He couldn't figure out how to steer the boat AND eat his round cakes so he stuck one on a spoke of his wheel and tadaa!  


 Did you know that National Doughnut Day has been celebrated on the first Friday of June every year since 1938?

Okay, at this point, you're probably saying who cares so here is what I did. Not sure which we would really like or which would turn out the most yummy, I tried three different types of doughnuts.  If you want the recipes, click on the one you want to try and it will lead you to the right recipe.

1. Boxed Bisquick mix donuts
2. Homemade biscuits
3. Yeast Type Raised Doughnuts
4. Mary's Cake Donuts

Which one was our favorite?  The Yeast Type Raised Doughnuts won hands down, but they did like the others.  If you happen to attempt these, please come back and let me know how they turned out and which one you liked the best!