Move Over Betty Crocker!

Sooo... I've become a bit obsessed with trying recipes on Pinterest. I always see all these yummy pictures of food and wonder if they taste as good as the picture makes them look. I have tried many, many recipes posted on Pinterest and I know personally, I'd love to know if someone had actually tried it and how it came out so i decided to do just that! I know....brilliant right!? You're welcome :) I'm new-ish to the world of cooking so I like to try new stuff out. The kids and hubby seem to enjoy my culinary skills and I haven't killed anyone or made them sick....yet!

For my first recipe: homemade sugar donuts.

This recipe has the simplest ingredients ever!
-1 can of Pillsbury Grands homestyle buttermilk
-Sugar
-vegetable oil or whatever you prefer
-medicine cup (trust me)
-tongs
-brown paper bag (or something to drain them on)

Start by flattening out the biscuits. Using the medicine cup, cut out the middle of each biscuit and save that tiny piece. Put sugar in a bowl big enough to fit your donuts. Warm up the oil and once it's ready, you can begin placing the donuts in the frying pan. Mine fit 4 at once. Don't crowd them. You can also sneak in the little middle parts around the donuts. Once they are golden brown on the bottom, use tongs to flip them to the other side.

When they are finished cooking on both sides, take them out and set them on the brown paper bag for just a few seconds to cool. They only need to be cool enough to touch. Place the donuts or donut middles in the bowl of sugar one at a time and flip to coat completely. You can also shake them in a lunch bag of sugar too, but we didn't have any so I improvised with the bowl idea. Enjoy immediately!

If you happen to have any leftover, you can store them in an airtight container and they will stay soft. I hid/saved some just to see how they would be overnight, but if the kids had their way, it would still be a mystery... They were super duper delicious fresh out of the sugar!! I was concerned they would taste just like a regular biscuit, but we couldn't taste the difference. In my opinion, they tasted more like sugary biscuits THE NEXT DAY.

Chalk Is Cheap

   Im tired of buying chalk and it breaks within the first use. Even the thick pieces. Of course none of the kids want to use the broken ones. So there they sit, lonely, with no one to play with. No pavement or chalkboard wants them. Gone are the days where kids were just thankful to have something colorful to play with. 

   I've decided to try out a recipe that I found on Pinterest for home made chalk. It was really easy and didn't take very long to whip up. The waiting part took overnight but I can deal with that. You need: plaster of paris, water, food coloring, rubber scraper, a glass mixing bowl and mold of your choice. We used soap making molds.    

   Mix the plaster of paris 2:1. I started with a cup of plaster and 1/2 cup of cold water. That gave us enough to fill two big squares on our mold tray. After your plaster is mixed, you can add 8 drops of food coloring if you want. We tried adding 8 more to see if the color would be darker but it didn't seem to change very much at all. 

    

   Mix well and pour into your mold tray. Gently tap the bottom of the mold against the table to release air bubbles.

   Rinse your bowl immediately after your done with hot water and make more using different colors. Let them sit overnight to dry out. Carefully pop them out of the mold and VOILA!! We found all of our supplies at our favorite craft store AC Moore. If you sign up for their emails, you get a 40% off coupon each week. Thats when we bought our plaster. I think the coupon brought it down to around $5. That 4.4 lb carton will last us through several batches. So chalk IS cheap.

Happy Chalking!!