Viorety is the Spice of Life Word of the Day: Viorety ... as in, "We have a viorety of different meats on our menu..." Heard at a barbecue restaurant in St. Louis this evening. Link to this article Posted at 09:40:35 PM EST by copus
Doughnuts of Destiny Tony:I demand an eventual blog post about mini-doughnut maker shenanigans Well, here it is... Amy and I finally discovered Akron's J.C. Penney Outlet Store this weekend. And then we found a reminder of one of her favorite childhood county fair delicacies: mini-doughnuts. So we bought a mini-doughnut maker for thirteen dollars (regularly one hundred dollars). 
We went to the grocery store to buy what we needed to make the doughnuts... eggs, milk, etc. Usually my grocery receipt comes with a coupon that is reasonably targeted to my buying habits. For example, when spring rolls around I usually get a coupon for some various anti-allergy medications that I have taken before. Well, the receipt for our doughnut supplies came with a coupon for Alli diet pills. That's the medication targeted for the morbidly obese that prevents people from absorbing all the fat that they consume. And apparently I am a likely consumer of said medication. Very depressing. So, on to photographs of the mini-doughnuts. 
The device dispenses little batter rings into the hot canola oil at a rate of about one a minute. The ring flows down the river of oil, then gets flipped. 
The first problem is that the dispenser doesn't always dispense perfect doughnuts. Not a big problem, except when the dispenser also drips little bits of batter into the oil. That can make things a little messy. 
Also, the oil can decrease in temperature after a few minutes. I believe red light comes on to warn us this, but we didn't notice at the time. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter soaks up a lot of oil... and gets really greasy and overcooks quite a bit, too. 
One recipe batch makes about 18 - 20 DOZEN doughnuts. We froze most of the batter for another time, because we didn't want to die of a coronary that morning. I can see why the machine was available at such a steep discount. But with some careful oversight, it can be some pretty good stuff. Just be careful with the obesity pills... I hear they mess with your gastrointestinal workinations. Link to this article Posted at 09:21:29 PM EST by copus
Engineering and Cats Anna sent me this great video of engineers explaining cats. At least I'm not in the category of "creepy cat-owning engineer." Maybe I'm more of an "engineer owning a creepy cat." Link to this article Posted at 09:10:08 PM EST by copus
Nice Wxr Today is that beautiful and brief time of the year when I'm not quite used to the warmer weather. Tonight I went to the grocery store wearing a t-shirt. I felt very out of place... almost naked... because I didn't have on layers of clothing or a heavy coat. I also may not have been wearing any pants. Link to this article Posted at 09:35:28 PM EST by copus
Link to this article Posted at 09:31:00 PM EST by copus |
