Snow Day at Our House

I love snow.

I love being able to watch it fall softly all day long and be glad I don't have to go out in it. I mean drive out it it.

I like to bundle up and go out and scoop fluffy snow as long as there is no wind. At least I used to. I didn't feel like it yesterday.

But, I was busy.

When I was a kid and we had snow days, Mom always made homemade doughnuts. She made a huge batch of dough and we helped roll and cut and fry and dip. At least I did. I don't remember what everyone else was doing.

It was a fun day because no school meant our Dad was home too. And that didn't happen very often. I love doughnuts, warm fresh ones and I ate until I was nearly sick.

Actually that 's what happens now, I could eat as much as I wanted when I was young.



How to Make Potato Doughnuts






Peel and chop potatoes.

Boil potatoes in a small saucepan.

Mash with a little salt.

Gather ingredients.

Put everything in the bread machine.

With the yeast. Sometimes I forget.

I made my dough in two batches since it is easier for the bread machine to knead than for me to do it.

Ready to rise in a warm place.

Ready to roll. Turn out the dough on a well floured surface before you roll. Sticking doughnuts does not improve doughnuts or the attitude.

When Jim rolls to a half inch thickness, it's a half inch thickness.

Mom always made bigger doughnuts using a can instead of a 2 1/4" or whatever doughnut cutter. I use a pineapple can and a film cannister for the holes.

Good luck finding a film cannister to use nowadays.

I think Mom used the hole cutter. I think I really do have one, someplace.

Doughnuts are a very long process. The first rising is 1 to 1/2 hours and after they are cut, another hour.

While the doughnuts are rising I get ready to fry them.

I don't like to clean so I cover my not so easily cleaned things on my counter.

And make the glaze.

Mom fried doughnuts in her big electric skillet and used solid shortening.

The holes are such a pain to fry, but they are the first to go. The kids love them.

See?

I don't do ALL the holes first, we called them knobs at home, wonder why?

It takes a long time to fry a couple at a time when you have 4 dozen doughnuts plus the holes than were in them. But they turn out better when the oil stays pretty close to the same temperature and the more you put in, the temperature goes down and they take on more oil.

Perfectly brown.

I let the doughnuts cool just a little before I dip them into the glaze so they are thinly coated, but not too much.

Perfect doughnuts. One of the best batches I've ever made.

I didn't take any pictures of the ugly ones.

Actually we ate those first.

There weren't very many either.

Of course, other things were happening while I was making doughnuts. Scooping snow, and scooping snow, AND scooping snow was one of them.

Poor Zane wants to go outside SO badly.

We did get a lot of snow. By midafternoon it was this thick on the deck. It really WAS a snow day. We weren't kidding.


We did eat something besides doughnuts, too. This is supper, teriyaki kabobs. They were as good as they look.

We had doughnuts for lunch.