Valentine Doughnut Day

Every year, the weekend before Valentine's Day, we make doughnuts.

As you can see, compared to two years ago, we had only moderate success. But we'd invited over  Thumbstumbler, her husband Mole, and Mary Jane,* and none of them seemed to mind.

On the upside, we used the heat diffuser we got with our tagine (a Christmas gift), and that helped a lot with keeping the oil at the right temperature. Which was perfect timing, because my mother-in-law gave away her deep fryer.

I also wanted to make these egg cups, which looked crispy and delicious. I made some modifications to the recipe that sort of spoiled the effect. But, luckily, they came out fine.

 First? Crazy cleanup. Ugh. I wonder if paper muffin cups would have helped.

Then, some changes: I scrambled the eggs, and mixed in some shredded zucchini, pepper and salt with the cheese. Then baked. The crunchy hash browns went mushy, and I realized—all I'd done was made little quiches, with a lot of extra cleanup. Duh. I should have saved myself the trouble and just made a regular quiche.

But the shaped ones turned out great, for mini quiches. We had leaves, pumpkins and stars. (My heart pans are for mini muffins, and that seemed like too much work.)

It made for a lovely little brunchette, and the single servings (everyone had at least two) made for an appealing, casual atmosphere. See how great the pumpkins and leaves turned out? Of course, Starboy and MJ wouldn't touch the things. They each had at least three donuts apiece.

The best part, of course, was catching up with Thumbstumbler, and having a relaxing couple of hours just yukking it up. As friends do. We were having such a great time, I forgot to make any pictures. Now that's a perfect Valentine celebration. Even though we all made ourselves sick on doughnuts.

*Nearly everyone gets a code name to help with privacy.