wildrose, this buttermilk doughnut recipe is a favorite at our house: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/but ... doughnuts/ The nutmeg is a must, the flavor is flat without it. The original recipe is very yummy. To try and make not so unhealthy, we use whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup Truvia baking blend in place of white sugar, and frost them with ganache. I would love to try the recipe with erythritol or xylitol, but it's not in the budget. We actually had these twice in October, once of a birthday (instead of cake) and the second time for Reformation Day.

Since we are still waiting for our new oven to arrive, I've been tinkering in the kitchen coming up with a couple of cookie dough yogurt recipes. I made one with peanut butter that would be a good meal substitute or breakfast. I used semi sweet chocolate chips because that's all we have, I would like to have used dark chocolate chips. And I would have added vanilla if we weren't running low.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Yogurt
1/2 cup full fat Greek yogurt (homemade with whole milk)
1 1/2 tablespoons coconut flour
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
8 drops vanilla liquid stevia
pinch of mineral salt
1 tablespoon chocolate chips, semi sweet

Mix and eat.
Serves 1
Total calories: 224 calories

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Yogurt
1/2 cup full fat Greek yogurt (homemade with whole milk)
1 1/2 tablespoons coconut flour
2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
8 drops vanilla liquid stevia
pinch of mineral salt
1 tablespoon chocolate chips, semi sweet

Mix and eat.
Serves 1
Total calories 414

SnowAngel

Our new oven was installed yesterday! My sister made cornbread and ginger oatmeal cookies yesterday, and today I made buttermilk biscuits and peanut butter granola. I served the biscuits with gravy for lunch, so good. Only had one problem we ran out of whole wheat flour and I had to use white flour for both the biscuits and the gravy. Grinding more wheat is on the to-do list to get done before baking more. I hadn't realized how much I now prefer whole wheat flour to white flour.

SnowAngel

My parents got my husband and I an InstaPot for a joint birthday gift (yes b-day, not Christmas ). I've tested it out a couple times now and am pretty happy with the results. I can't say that I've found it's saved me much time though, which is what my friends who swear by their pots have constantly bragged about. Maybe I'm using the wrong recipes.

If anyone has any InstaPot recipes you'd like to share, please pass them along!

I got an Amazon gift card as one of my Christmas presents, and I got myself some ravioli stamps. 2 different size circles, one square, and one heart. Also got myself some peat pots, and those will be used to grow things to cook with!

Any more success on the Instapot, fantasia?

Oooh, that sounds fun, Kalta79! I hope you're enjoying the stamps.

I made some chocolate oatmeal waffles for lunch today. They turned out pretty well! I used old-fashioned oats instead of quick-cooking and soaked them in the milk beforehand, the milk was powdered, used oil instead of butter, and used ground flax seed and water instead of egg (I just read about this substitution in a cooking magazine a week or two ago, and wanted to try it - since eggs are in short supply around here right now, but there was still ground flax seed on the shelf, it was a good of time as any ).

Has anyone had to come up with some creative meals or substitutions yet or recently?

We haven't gotten creative yet, but we are having to reduce our daily kefir by a third due to the local dairy purchase restriction. Hopefully we won't have to reduce it anymore than that. I am drinking my coffee black now and we'll probably have to stop making yogurt in favor of kefir.

We're running low on wheat flour, but have plenty of oats for now. I will add your waffle recipe to my to-try list, Valia.

My dad stocked up on peanut butter for us, so I made our favorite healthy peanut butter fudge on Wednesday. It's just 5 ingredients and so tasty; peanut butter, coconut oil, truvia, almond milk, and cocoa (optional). I made it without the cocoa this time.

SnowAngel

This probably isn't the healthiest InstantPot suggestion, fantasia, but I've seen people use them to make cheesecakes. Personally I've always been interested in getting one just for cooking dried beans; it's so much faster and would keep the kitchen a lot cooler in the summertime.

Your ravioli stamps sound super fun, Kalta!

Those chocolate waffles look good, Valia! I'm not sure I've ever tried using a flax egg before, but I think I have some chia seeds around somewhere and I believe they can be used the same way; I'll have to give it a go.

Mmmm @ peanut butter fudge, SA. What kind of cultures were you using for making yogurt? Will they freeze?

I haven't made it recently because I've been avoiding sweets for Lent, but a surprisingly delicious cake recipe when you don't have milk, eggs, butter, or even baking powder on hand is Crazy Cake, also known as Wacky Cake or Depression Cake (because it became popular during the Great Depression). The vinegar makes the cake rise perfectly and you can't taste it at all. I've made the chocolate and vanilla version and also adapted it for both carrot and hummingbird cake and all of them turned out very well.

I've also made the cake with cream of tartar instead of vinegar, too. I had to test it for science. A 2:1 ratio of cream of tartar to baking soda makes homemade baking powder. And cream of tartar adds a little extra potassium to the recipe, which is nice.

Rose, my sister uses some yogurt from the previous batch of yogurt. We can start over greek yogurt from the store which we will probably have to do since my dad went to two store today and came home with a gallon and half of milk. That's about two days worth of kefir for us, and the kefir is far more important to have right now.

Right after I posted here yesterday, Scarlet cultured a bunch of veggies using recipes from Cultured Food For Life. She made three recipes with cabbage plus a double batch of carrots and apples, totaling nearly 6 quarts.

For supper I had cinnamon granola with cultured apples and a glass of kefir sweetened with tropical fruit stevia.

SnowAngel

Scarlet's fermentation adventures sound tasty! And so does your granola-and-kefir dinner, SA.

I don't know how much a gallon of milk costs in your area, but you might want to look into powdered goat milk. When I first made kefir years ago, that was what I used because it was the only kind of milk I had on hand at the time that wasn't ultra-pasteurized. Amazon currently has the Meyenberg brand and that can be used for making yogurt or kefir. Granted, if everyone in your family hates the way it tastes, it probably wouldn't be worth the trouble and definitely not at that price. But if you have people in your household who already like goat cheese, it might be worth alternating with it if you have a hard time keeping a steady supply of cow's milk coming in.

I've also seen people alternate between fermenting coconut milk and cow's milk to keep the kefir grains happy while producing some non-dairy kefir, too. I don't have any personal experience with that, but it might be worth a google.

I just wish the fermented cabbage didn't smell so strong. (Why isn't there a smilie holding its nose?) However cultured jicama doesn't smell, and that was my chose for my cultured food endeavor.

We do have some powdered milk that we might have use for the kefir, it's normally in the pantry for making hot chocolate mix. I don't think we are quite ready for powdered goat milk, there's a lot of good natured complaining over feta cheese at our house.

I'm currently trying to come up with an excellent reason for making cupcakes, Scarlet has shot down every idea I have had thus far. We have enough eggs right now (or I could use flax) and I could mix almond milk and cream in place of whole milk. This idea has merit.

SnowAngel

I don't know why I didn't think of suggesting just regular powdered milk, SA. Maybe because I figured the doomsday preppers had already cornered the market but would leave the less popular goat milk powder alone. Good to hear you've got that on hand to use in a pinch.

I remember I once made sauerkraut with a bit of red onion added to it and it turned out really tasty and this wonderful purple color, but it was very pungent while it was fermenting. I stuck it in a cabinet and tried to pretend it wasn't there.

Honestly, do you really need an excuse to make cupcakes? They're good for morale. Also, apparently the British call them fairy cakes, and if there was ever a time to keep the fairies happy, it's now. They're probably just as bored as we are and we don't need any extra mischief.

Spring has sprung in my neck of the woods and whenever the weather gets warmer, I usually start making "instant" lemon jello with frozen fruit and stevia. You have to use about 50% more gelatin than usual, but it sets up in about five minutes after you add frozen fruit to it, and you can keep stirring it so all the fruit doesn't end up on the bottom. Recently it's also been a way for me to get more vitamin C: I add vitamin C crystals in the place of some of the lemon juice.

Fudge sounds delicious, SA! I'm sorry that you've had to cut back on kefir.
Ditto Rose - I don't think you really need an excuse to make cupcakes.

Rose, let me know how substituting chia seeds for eggs goes! That crazy cake sounds very neat! I was trying to figure out if I had everything to make it - and then remembered that I don't really eat cake much anyhow, so I should probably save ingredients for other stuff first.

Over the fall and winter, my family had a number of meals with a visitor China through my dad's work. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us - he was very enthusiastic about sharing foods from China and then, once he figured out my mom and I were serious about wanting to learn how to make some of them, he gave us a few lessons. I figured I wouldn't be able to make anything on my own for a couple of months due to my schedule, but since outside events have led to the postponement of some things, I decided to take some time yesterday and make dumplings using what I had on hand. I can't say the filling was what I had hoped it would be - carrot and onion cooked with oil, a little ginger and garlic, and too much orange zest (whoops). On the positive side, I did okay with the dough and sealing them as none of the dumplings I boiled leaked their fillings. I had enough extras for a couple of meals and then as many in the freezer to be cooked later. So, it was a decent first try, and I hope to make some more again soon - though with different fillings.

Oh wow, what an amazing opportunity to learn how to cook Chinese dishes, Valia! I've always wanted to learn how to cook some authentic Asian recipes. For a while I've wanted to try making steamed Mandarin rolls, also known as flower buns because of the pretty swirling design, but they look a little challenging (even though the guy in the video says they're easy to make ).

Oh, and I've been meaning to share this with y'all: a while back I discovered that Wikipedia has a cookbook. It's still growing, but I think it's already a great resource and very fun to browse, especially the different national and ethnic cuisines. I don't know whose idea this was, but I commend them.

Also, a few mods were talking about making lamb cakes for Easter, specifically with a special lamb-shaped cake pan, and I remembered a lamb cake I've seen that only uses a round pan: check it out! How cute is that? I was wondering if anyone had tried making cupcakes with a similar marshmallow design so I took a look around on Google, and sure enough, yes they have. Awww. I wish I had some marshmallows on hand.

Rose, one of the dishes we were walked through the steps for was steamed bread - which sounds similar to the Mandarin rolls, just not as pretty.
Oooh, the Wikipedia cookbook is a fun day! There are some delicious-looking recipes in there.
And the lamb cake and cupcakes are cute!

I usually make a lamb cake from a shaped cake pan for Easter. Unfortunately, with the stay-at-home orders, there's no reason to make one this year, and I also can't since the pans aren't at my apartment. I'm trying to think if there's anything else I can do with what I have at my apartment, but I'm also balancing it with a desire to bake everything else with my limited supply of ingredients.

That said, I went ahead and made myself some stovetop macaroni and cheese with a few twists - rotini noodles instead of elbow and mozzarella cheese instead of cheddar. It turned out pretty well.

Dad was able to 4 gallons of milk on Sunday and a couple more yesterday, so we are currently doing well with the kefir. We still have our normal 3 quarts every day. Since we are nearly out of wheat, granola and kefir is the go-to breakfast for most of the family right now. Normally we would have waffles a couple times a week.

Hopefully the wheat ordered last month will be in at the food co-op by the end of this month. I'm really wanting to bake biscuits. But until the wheat arrives, we will continue to experiment with oat recipes. One sister found this oat scone recipe and another sister made it without berries: https://www.loveandlemons.com/vegan-scones/ It was quite tasty.

I made chocolate cupcake topped with peanut butter fudge last weekend. I didn't really need a reason to make them, but Scarlet doesn't want me to use up the coconut flour before she orders more from Vitacost. So I asked mom if she would like for me to make cupcakes.

This is the fudge/frosting recipe.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge (Keto/THM S)

1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup LouAna coconut oil (don't use one with a strong coconut flavor)
1/4 cup almond milk
1 tablespoon Truvia
1 tablespoon dark cocoa (optional)

Melt peanut butter and coconut oil. Add cocoa and sweetener. Remove from heat and stir in almond milk. Pour into parchment lined 9'' square pan and chill until set.

Oh, the lamb cakes are so cute. I use to have a lamb cake every year for my birthday.

I've got THM marshmallow recipe that uses gelatin, water, Truvia, protein powder, salt, and xanthan gum. They can't be heated, but they are very delicious and can be cut into lots of shapes.

SnowAngel