It's all about balance

These days it's difficult for me to say no to any sweet or treat. The best thing is to keep it out of the house, yet I keep bringing it in - no will-power so I started jogging again. Hope it will work, but if not, there are many healthy, good tasting foods I can turn to.

So the questionable - I'm on the doughnut bandwagon. I had been craving doughnuts ever since I caved during a late evening stop at Market Basket - on the reduced price bakery rack were several boxes of four doughnuts for $1.99. I could not, nor did I, say no. Instead I took several minutes to carefully examine each box to make sure I'd want every one and wouldn't get any that I didn't really want. If it's in my house, even if it's not my favorite, I will eat it. So to make it worth it, they better be good! And these were; two filled with jelly & coated in powdered sugar, coconut covered, and cream filled.

So a few weeks later, the cravings are getting worse. I'm in A.C. Moore and the location is closing. Everything is 40% off and I found a doughnut pan! Just one so I can only make 6 at a time, which is perfect. And they're baked, not deep-fried. So last weekend I found a recipe that sounded like it would give me the texture of a raised doughnut, the prefered doughnut in our home, and the ease of a muffin. I read if you bake a true yeasted doughnut it will come out like a dinner roll. Not a bad thing, but certainly not a doughnut. So this recipe uses yeast and baking powder, apparently very similar to baking powder biscuits made down south - Baked Doughnuts with Vanilla and Chocolate Glaze from the Kitchn.

I tried a couple of different things. I used white wheat flour, plain non-fat Greek yogurt, and instead of evaporated milk used unsweetened, vanilla flavored almond milk. Another substitution was unsweetened chocolate for the semisweet. No one in the family wanted them to be sweeter. One thing I've noticed, and it happens with these wonderful chocolate yogurt brownies, is the Greek yogurt is so much thicker than regular, more liquid needs to be added, so in this case, more almond milk. I also think there was too much nutmeg.

Anyone who knows me also knows I don't like to take extra steps if not necessary. I noticed the vanilla glaze and chocolate glaze were so similar, when I was done with the vanilla glaze, I put in the chocolate and turned it into the chocolate glaze. The part that failed was thinking the vanilla glaze was too thick and when I thinned it, it got too thin. So lesson learned. The flavor was still great and the glaze not setting certainly kept them moist!

The recipe, halved, made 9. I may have to fill them higher next time. Yes, there will be a next time.

Not sure these could be filled higher, but will try.

nicely browned

Yes, sprinkles too!

So where's the balance? Dinner tonight! We've been very off-schedule for meals these days and I had bought chicken, broccoli and cilantro to make a Thai meal. We ended up having take-out Chinese the other night, that lasted a couple of days, and one of the dishes was chicken and broccoli. I didn't let that deter me. I grilled for the first time of the season, because I didn't want to do extra dishes. I was also able to take advantage of my PB2 Powdered Peanut Butter that arrived from Amazon today. So a simple, healthy meal of Udon, grilled chicken, steamed broccoli, cucumbers, and cilantro in a nice peanut sauce. I used my prized China Moon Cookbook as a guide for the sauce -
1/2 cup PB2 peanut butter
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup lime juice
2 tsp. grated ginger and juice - my ginger was mostly fiber, so I grated and squeezed the juice out
1 tbsp. chopped garlic
2 tbsp. Moo La hot chili oil & a couple spoons of "goop"
Mixed all together and heated in the microwave for about 30 seconds to warm.