Who Has Ever Heard of a Lowfat Doughnut???

A couple a Months ago I was really craving doughnuts but I am also trying to stick to my diet so I posted on my Facebook pg that I could really use a LOW-FAT doughnut recipe if such a thing existed. After some recipe Google-ing a friend of mine came to me with a recipe for Lowfat Baked Doughnuts. I figured I would give them a try to see if they were even edible since I already owned a doughnut pan. Let me tell you they are delicious...sure they don't take like a great deep fried maple bar or classic glaze but they are still pretty darn good! I have made multiple batches already and my kiddos LOVE them. I make glazey sprinkle ones and cinnamon sugar ones.

My kids always eat at least 2 whenever I make a batch (not mini sized doughnuts either). One day I even came down stairs to see Josh had snuck into the container of left over doughnuts and he was quietly ravaging them in secrecy.

LOWFAT BAKED DOUGHNUTS

Dry Ingredients: 1 Cup All Purpose Flour 1/2 Cup Sugar 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder 1/4 tsp Salt 1/4 tsp (scant) Nutmeg 1 tiny pinch or shake Cinnamon Wet Ingredients: 1/2 Cup skim milk 1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar 1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract 2 Egg whites 3 Tbs I Can't Believe...Butter Light Toppings: glaze - 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar (lump free!) 1 Tbs milk (adds 20 cal per donut)

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk to mix thoroughly. Combine wet ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium low heat and mix until earth balance is melted. This mixture should NOT get too hot, you should be able to stick your finger in the mixture. It should feel slightly warm. If you burn yourself, 1) it's not my fault! and 2) it's too hot for the dough!

Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. It should form a very soft dough.

Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out dough into your ungreased nonstick mini-donut pan. Smooth out the top of the dough with your fingers, this will make for more even, prettier donuts, but isn’t crucial.

the dough sits just below the rim. If you over fill, your donuts will come out looking like it has a little muffin top. Not the end of the world, but not very donut-like either.

Bake for 12 minutes. They should not be browned on top, but a tester will come out clean. Invert hot pan over a cutting board or cooling rack to release donuts. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

Time for toppings!

For glaze:
Whisk soymilk and powdered sugar together. Dip the “bottom” half of the donut (the side with the nicer shape) into the glaze, let some drip off, then dip glaze-side down into sprinkles. Transfer to a wire rack that has been set on top of some parchment paper. The excess glaze will drip through the rack onto the paper for easy cleaning later.

Fergy Food House 2011

A few years ago, probably about 3 to be exact, I bought a gingerbread house kit from Joanns with the intent to take a class on decorating them, however the class got cancelled and I never rescheduled it. I packed the house away in our Christmas box and every year I took it out with the intent of making it, but then eventually just repacked it away. This year when I took the gingerbread kit out Phoebe knew exactly what it was and immediately began asking when were could put it together, well I managed to stall her for one week before I finally broke it open to assemble it together.

After mixed the frosting up and initial assembly, Cory was in change of siting at the table for a long time and holding the house together until it hardened. He didn't mind too much he zoned out watching his college football games.

My job was to on basic house elements for decorating like the roof, door, & windows. Don't look too closely at my handy work I told you already I never took a class on doing it so it looks a might special.

The kids were thrilled at their part candy eating decorating. The candy was SOOO old in the box that much of it could have been used to instill blunt force trauma, but oh well, it just meant that some it actually did get on the house and not just all in mouths. 

The finished product. We had fun doing this, but next year I think for ease of assymbly and decoating are going to try thte stacking cookie tree kit.

Festival of Lights

This year to try something new I chose to visit the festival of Trees. I was pretty sure that Phoebe would love it and just hoping that the others would at least be tolerant of it (I try and set my standards low so I don't have constant disapointments and frustrations when I find out that my children are in fact children & don't always act like perfect young adults).  

Right before we left for the festival I was trying to round everyone up and became panicked when I looked and looked for Josh and he ignored my yelling for him after frantically checking all closets and the garage I eventually found him curled up in a ball of the FREEZING bathroom floor, poor guy! I know he can open doors so I am not sure why he chose to be shut in the COLDEST room in the whole house.

We chose to go to the festival on a Friday afternoon, hoping it would not be sooo busy, but we were wrong it was PACKED!

We unfortunately did not have some cooperative kiddos in our group so we only got to see some of the big trees. The ones we did see for the most part were amazing. I really liked the up tree so creative! Since we are Duck fans we had to take a picture of Phoebe next to a rubber duck homage. Cami eventually got tired and just put her legs up and drifted to sleep. I have to say except for one 30 fit from Phoebes the kids were pretty great.

After some cousin meltdowns grandma (who was tending) had to leave which meant that our time was up too.  I had to push 2 double strollers to my car & after trying and failing to push then out the door and across the street one lady offered to help me to my car. She had kids of her own, but she still ran with me across the entire South Town Expo parking lot to my car, I am pretty sure she will get extra stars on her crown in heaven for helping me!!!  When we aived home it was too late for kiddos to nap and most of them only had small cat naps so we put on a holiday movie and snuggled together on the couch.

The displays at the festival were pretty amazing and I am hoping that we will get to go again next year and enjoy more of it.

Turkey Day '11

Our weeest turky was just about the same weight as our delicious turkey this Thanksgiving!

As we do every year we enjoyed a delicious thanksgiving meal at Grandma+pa Fergy's house. This year it was just us and Dave that joined so we ate at the table, the twins in highchairs & Sophie in her seat.

After our yummy meal it was actually warm enough to send Daddy outside with the kiddos and play while we cleaned up he kitchen. The kids had a TON of fun running out but I am sure they would have had more fun it their cousins could have been there too.

After playing & cleaning we layed the younger ones down for a good nap while the res of us read through the Black Friday Ads & enjoyed dessert. Then about 6 it was time to head up and rest up for the funnest shopping day of the year!

On Friday I went shopping at 4am and LOVED it! Most all of the stores were empty and I still got everything that I wanted.  After several hours of shopping it was time I donned on my apron and made our small Fergy Family Thanksgiving.  It was way good this year and I even made my own rolls from a new recipe I found, & they were some of the BEST I have EVER tasted.

Even with 2 giant Thanksgiving meals I an proud to say I kept my weight loss in check and continued to lose another 1 1/2 lbs this week for a total of 15 lbs!

When asking Phoebe what she was thankful for this year she said:

Princesses,  my baby (Sophie),  a warm house, Thanksgiving, my princess movies, warm blankets, warm food (how ironic for her since she NEVER eats), family, & my Ring-Around-the-Rosie (her new favorite thing to play).

3 Crazy Kids & A Thumb Sucker

Phoebe likes to on most days dress herself which usually turns out to be some crazy weirdie outfit, a fine example of such is noted above.

The twins are crazy high energy ALL the time and always are looking to make something into a game and this night it happened to be Phoebe's sunglasses which they fought over who got to wear and laugh running around in.  You also may not we had to start dressing Cami in her pjs backwards so she would STOP undressing herself down to her birthday suit every night.

 

About 2 wks ago Sophie decided that she was going to be a thumb sucker. Although she is really cute doing it  I mainly think, "Oh no not another one" so every time I see it I take it out of her mouth. It is a hard habit to break, Phoebe is 4 had we still can't get her to stop, so for Sophie's sake later I have stop it before it gets too habit forming.

Here Comes Trouble

After visiting my parents this summer my dad nicknamed Cami "Trouble." Cami is the sort you need to watch ALL the time; if you don't see her you need to worry about what she is into, climbing on, or breaking. On day last week I came down the stairs to this. Cami had emptied the powered sugar into a toy bucket, found a spoon, pushed a chair up the stove, climbed up on top and began having a snack of spoonfuls of powered sugar.

If she is walking towards you, just know that trouble is coming your way.

Double Datin' Daddy

Last year Cory took Phoebe out on a daddy daughter date to Disney on ice and Phoebe loved it so much that even a year later she still talked about it, so we just HAD to do it again. Cory took a quick cat nap with the twins before braving the crowds with Phoebs.

Cassie and her daddy joined Cory and Phoebe again this year, but also Katie and her daddy were able to join in the daddy daughter date. The gang took trax down town, Phoebe just LOVES the train and since she only rides it once a year she thinks it only runs to take people to the Disney show all year.

During intermission Cory took Phoebe to pick out a treat and once again she went with the mini pretzels. A girl after mommy's own heart.

The first half of the show had several mini Disney stories, but the second half was all dedicated to the princess. Phoebe told me when arriving home that they went and saw some Disney show ate lunch and then went to a second show all about the princesses!

After arriving home it wasn't much time before bed times and then Cory and I had our date. We had a tailgating date while watching the UofO Stanford game, which turned out to be a GREAT game! We donned on all our UofO gear and got out the UofO blanket to enjoy our game day food of wings, nachos, & cream soda. We also had a little date crasher come and join us; lucky for her she is so cute or we would have sent her right back to bed.

Final score:

Oregon 53 Stanford 30

Thankful Turkey Time 2011

I can't believe that our Thankful Turkey time has come and gone already. This year all of the family participated in the making of our Thankful Turkey, yes even Sophie helped out. Her little hands made up our wings.

In preschool Phoebe took 3 days to learn about the Pilgrims and Indians and on 2 different days she came home in the traditional hats they made in class.

Much to Phoebe demise, miss Cami stole the Indian headband wore it every opportunity she got.