Time for tea

It’s once again time for tea on the other side of the world (New Zealand) with our hostess Su. Let me start with my favorite tea quote, favorite because it covers two of my great loves and is by someone I greatly admire and respect, C.S. Lewis. It also happens to be the tagline to my emails.

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

But wait! We can’t just have tea, we must have goodies! Today I’ve made baked whole wheat doughnuts from Sarah Phillips’ Healthy Oven Baking Book. I’d like to include the recipe, but as I don’t see it online and I haven’t asked for permission, I won’t. You can find other baked doughnut recipes online, though, and if they use whole wheat pastry flower, you’ll get more fiber than if you use all-purpose flour and the taste will be good as well. These also use applesauce, are low-fat, and my whole family will vouch for the flavor. I bake them in mini-bundt pans so that they look mostly like actual doughnuts.

“A cup of tea would restore my normality.” [Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Screenplay]”
― Douglas Adams

Sweet treats

Some Saturday mornings during college, I would walk downtown (I went to college in a small town) and get a fresh glazed doughnut (not donut!) at the bakery.  It was so delicious and with my metabolism, I never had to worry about the calories.

However, during high school, my first job was waiting tables at a cafe and doughnut shop.  I would come home from work exhausted and reeking of the smell of the grease in which the doughnuts were fried.  Later, after college, I worked for a time in a health food store in Steamboat Springs, Colorado (yes, they made and sold doughnuts there, ironically,)  I’d arrive in the morning to see the doughnuts draining and although the smell wasn’t as intense as at the cafe, it was enough to put me off eating doughnuts for quite some time, just as in high school.

Cee’s Oddball Photo Challenge: Week 38…Midwest oddballs

Oddball:

1.  a person or thing that is atypical, bizarre, eccentric, or nonconforming, especially one having beliefs that are unusual but harmless.

2.  whimsically free-spirited; eccentric; atypical:

an oddball scheme.

Every Sunday until the following Sunday, you have a chance to participate in the Oddball Photo Challenge.  Look through your photos and what catches your eye?  What photos did you take just because they were weird or fun or unusual?  Those are oddball candidates.

Recently I was visiting our older daughter in Shenandoah, Iowa.  On Saturday morning, we walked to The Donut Shop, where we picked up some quintessentially light, delicious  glazed doughnuts.  While we waited, a tray of fresh ones were brought to the front and the woman behind the counter gave us our half dozen from these.  By the time we got home, the bottom two were compressed from the pressure, but they still tasted great.  Nothing like a fresh, warm glazed doughnut every so often!

Later we drove to the big city, Omaha, just across the river, where I grew up many years ago.  The old market area has been renovated since we lived there and the entire city is vibrant.  We drove by the church and grade school I attended as well as  the small house where I spent those grade school years.  The first house we lived in is now part of the interstate system.  🙂  It was an enjoyable day and yielded a number of photos, some of which are oddballs.

You’ve got the cutest little Babycakes

Do you like doughnuts (or donuts?) If so, you’re in luck and it doesn’t even matter if the Krispy Kreme near you went out of business, because the people from Babycakes gave me permission to share their recipe for chocolate cake donuts with you.  Here’s the good news…besides tasting great, these doughnuts are baked, not deep-fried, gluten-free, vegan, and low in pretty much anything bad except they use some sugar.  They’re easy to make and the cost won’t give you sticker shock the way many commercial baked goods do these days, even with the different flours.  An aside on the flours, I’ve found these some places in bulk or Bob’s Red Mill carries all of them and many more products besides.  You can keep the rest in the freezer and you’ll have plenty for lots more doughnuts.

Come Saturday morning

Saturday morning’s always been a special time for me; a time of leisure, of relaxation and renewal, a time for something special to eat, like a doughnut or pastry. Even when Saturday morning wasn’t like that, it felt as if it should be. Saturday morning’s the gateway to the weekend, the time when families are together, yard work gets done, people are outside saying hello to neighbors, the barbie is fired up, maybe a time to sleep in or read for a bit, when the choices of the weekend stretch out before you and the weekend feels twice as long as the two days it really is.

When I was in high school and college, in a small town in eastern Nebraska, I used to walk downtown some Saturday mornings and get a fresh glazed doughnut from the bakery. I’ve always loved glazed doughnuts, although I rarely eat them, and was sad when the nearby Krispy Kreme closed. It was so exciting to drive past, see the neon doughnut lighted and hurry in for a free, warm doughnut. Bliss! It takes a lot to tarnish that sort of joy but working in a health food store and doughnut shop (yes, I’m well aware of the paradox of that) in Steamboat Springs, Colorado years ago did the trick. Coming in early in the morning, the smell of the oil the doughnuts cooked in dominated the back area of the store and clung to my clothes, skin and hair long after I left. I didn’t eat doughnuts again for a long time.

When I was in grade school in Omaha, Nebraska, I would have a half hour piano lesson on Saturday morning and then, in winter, my brother and I would go ice skating at the indoor rink at Ak-sar-ben Nebraska spelled backwards. (You can read a short history of Ak-sar-ben race track and coliseum here, http://www.historicomaha.com/aksarben.htm.) Not only did we get to ice skate but we sometimes saw some of the hockey players for the Omaha Knights professional hockey team and actually got to know one of them personally, Gary Sabourin, who later went to the NHL, http://stlouisblueslegends.blogspot.com/2008/05/gary-sabourin.html. When you’re a kid, it doesn’t get any better than that!

This Saturday morning, I’m enjoying the sunshine, (indoors, because it’s cold), sipping tea and writing, remembering the song from my past that brings to mind the feel of Saturday morning’s time of freshness and possibilities.

Come Saturday Morning
The Sandpipers
Words by Dory Previn and Music by Fred Carlin

Peak chart position # 17 in 1970
Featured on the soundtrack of the film “The Sterile Cuckoo” starring Liza Minnelli

Come Saturday morning
I’m goin’ away with my friend
We’ll Saturday-spend till the end of the day-ay
Just I and my friend
We’ll travel for miles in our Saturday smiles
And then we’ll move on
But we will remember long after Saturday’s gone
(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday mo-o-rning)

Come Saturday morning
I’m goin’ away with my friend
We’ll Saturday-laugh more than half of the day (ay-ay-ay)
Just I and my friend (my friend)
Dressed up in our rings and our Saturday things
And then we’ll move on
But we will remember long after Saturday’s gone
(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday morning)

Come Saturday mo (Saturday) rning

Just I and my friend (my friend)
We’ll travel for miles in our Saturday smiles
And then we’ll move on
But we will remember long after Saturday’s gone

(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday mo-o-rning)
(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday mo-o-rning)
FADE

Enjoy your Saturday morning!