Some Cookin'

I hadn't tried any new recipes for a while, so I tried a couple I saw on yahoo recently. John's granny croce made authentic Italian meals for Johnny, and one of his favorites was sausage and peppers. This recipe by Fabio Viviani, seemed simple enough, but I am just not a natural cook, so it was hard to time everything right. First I started his simple marinade sauce with canned tomatoes, fresh oregano sprigs, and crushed garlic cloves.Then I browned some italian sausage after poking it to release some of the juices. Then I carmelized some sweet onions, with green bell pepper in light olive oil mixed with the sausage juice. Then I put it all together to simmer. Unfortunately, since I didn't start it earlier, I didn't have time to let the sauce simmer for hours to thicken, and I couldn't find canned tomatoes in puree, only in juice so the sauce was too thin. But the flavor was good. John appreciated it, although I know it could never measure up!

 Then the next day I had Lucas help me make some homemade donuts. Since I am not a natural cook, I should pay extra special attention to every detail in a recipe....ingredients, amounts, and the timing etc. But I sometimes think "it'll all work out, just put it together" and some little thing throws off the result....this time I didn't add the warm milk in the beginning, so the yeast didn't activate in time. Plus I think I didn't mash the potatoes up enough. I really wanted to get that dough-y texture with the mashed potatoes, but I have been so frazzled lately, and since I was actually more trying to get Lucas involved than make spectacular food, they didn't turn out like I wanted.  They weren't horrible, and of course the kids loved them, but they didn't rise to be fluffy like the recipe's, and I ended up throwing most of them out. I am going to try again, but I am thinking I will try to make a bavarian cream filling (my favorite). Maybe I should find some local cooking classes? That would be fun!
  Anyway, at least it served for some bonding time and pictures :)

I had instant potatoes, but wanted to do it from scratch, so I cooked 4 russett potatoes (lucas liked that part). We didn't use all of it though, so Olivia ate some of the plain mashed potatoes. :)

 The dough was coming along great--but the yeast never activated, so they were not fluffy...I waited the half hour and nothing happened...we were all impatient so we fried them in light olive oil anyway.

 Lucas counting...I actually spend almost an hour trying to get Lucas to count the hot wheels daddy bought him...I told him I wasn't going to open the package til he counted them correctly...there were only 5. I was so frustrated because sometimes he counts to ten no problem...other times he just wants to skip from 3 to 7 8 9 10. He eventually got it after I made him count with these youtube videos lol. Oh, and yes I used a mini-baseball bat covered with saran wrap to roll the dough!

 They came out like patties not donuts..

Also since they didn't rise enough, I found that they soaked up too much of the olive oil and were too greasy. We only ate like 3 of em and threw the rest out.

I will try the recipe again and pay more attention because I want to make good donuts! Someday we want to open a donut shop....for reals. :)