Making pumpkin-spice doughnuts at home

pudgy mini donuts 

Does any flavor define autumn better than pumpkin? Okay, perhaps apple. A mug of hot apple cider, with a freshly made pumpkin donut just makes me smile!

if using home-cooked pumpkin, strain for 30 minutes,
to reduce and thicken
the strained liquid can be added to soups or stews

Here's my own personal recipe for pumpkin donuts.
You can make them as puffs (balls), o-shaped, or twists. My favorite, with these donuts, are the pudgy little o-shaped ones.

Makes 32 mini-donuts, or puffs, or 16 twists.

You'll need:

1 & 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup warm milk
1 tablespoon butter (or margarine)
6 tablespoons (3/8 cup) canned pumpkin (if using home-cooked pumpkin, strain off liquid in a mesh strainer for 30 minutes)
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 & 1/4 cups flour, white or a blend of white and whole wheat (adding more as needed)

To get started:

Soften yeast, in a medium bowl with warm water.
Stir in sugar and salt.

In another bowl or microwaveable container, heat milk until warm, and add butter (or margarine).
When butter is melted, stir in pumpkin puree. Allow to cool to room temp.

Combine milk, butter and pumpkin mixture with softened yeast, sugar and salt.

Stir in spices. Begin mixing in flour, 1 cup at a time. Add extra flour as needed for a dough that doesn't stick to your hands. Knead for 7 to 8 minutes. Place in a bowl, cover with a cloth, and allow to rise at room temp for 45 minutes to 1 hour (until doubled).

To shape and fry the donuts:

Punch dough down. Divide dough into 2 portions.

For each portion, if making puffs (or balls), or mini-donuts, roll on the counter to make a rope about 1 & 1/2 inches thick. Cut into 16 pieces. If making twists, with each portion, divide into 8 pieces.

For puffs *or* mini-donuts, form each piece into a ball, by pinching the edges to the back of the ball, and set to rise on a floured surface, seam side down, about an inch or two apart, and cover with a cloth for 30-40 minutes. Repeat with other half of dough.

In the last 10 minutes of rising, begin heating your oil, to 375-385 degrees. (A cube of bread should brown in 1 minute in the right temp oil.) When oil is hot --

Puffs
for puffs, drop the balls of dough, a couple at a time, into oil. Only fry a couple at a time. Too many will cool your oil too quickly, and donuts will be heavy and dense. Turn as needed, cooking until browned.

Mini-donuts
For mini-donuts, use your two thumbs to pull a hole into the center of each ball, stretching and pulling as needed. Only form a few at a time. Drop these mini-donuts into the hot oil, again just a couple at a time. Turn over when underside is browned, and fry until both sides are well-browned.

Twists
For twists, on a large floured surface (the extra space will allow you to roll and twist more easily) roll each piece into a snake about 12 inches long.

Place the snake in the center of your floured surface. Now, place your right hand on the right end of the snake and left hand on the left end of the snake.

Roll your right hand away from you, about 8-9 inches, simultaneously rolling your left hand towards you, about 8-9 inches.

Your snake should look like it has diagonal twists all up and down the length. I cheated and added extra rolls by lifting my hands from time to time. But who cares about that.

Now lift the snake up by the ends and hold them together. Your dough should begin to twist itself. Give it a little help with the twisting.

Pinch the ends together, and set on a floured surface to rise. If your first one doesn't look fab, keep at it. It gets easier with practice. Repeat with other half of dough. Once all are formed, cover and allow to rise for 30-40 minutes.
(Thanks to frugal spinster, a professional baker and cake decorator, for the twisting instructions!)

Begin heating oil in last 10 minutes of rise time. When oil is hot, drop a couple of twists at a time into oil. Turn over when underside has browned. Remove from oil when twists are well-browned.

For all shapes of donuts:

Drain on paper, or paper toweling, placed on a cooling rack. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, or glaze with a thin icing. These are lightly sweet, and delicious without anything extra. When I make these to go with soup or chili, I serve them plain.


This dough also bakes very nicely, for occasions when I don't want all the artery-clogging, deep-frying.

Increase the butter in the recipe to 3 tablespoons, for a more tender dough. For baking, after the first rise in the bowl, punch dough down, and shape for dinner rolls (crescents, Parker House, pan rolls), place on a buttered baking sheet, cover, and allow to rise for 1 hour, or until doubled in bulk. Bake at 350 degrees, for about 18-25 minutes (until browned).

Pumpkin donuts -- one of our autumn traditions that can't be skipped!

When you roast a turkey, do you have a hard time using all the leftovers?

I roasted my last turkey from autumn 2012, just a few weeks ago. We ate the traditional turkey dinner on night one, then moved to more creative recipes that use turkey, but mask the flavor with seasonings.

Turkey is by far the least expensive meat in our area, if bought on sale in the fall. The problem is, we're not terribly keen on turkey flavor, at least not dozens of meals worth of turkey per year.

Up until a few years ago, my problem was using all the leftover meat.  I would enthusiastically buy up several turkeys. I would, then, happily roast them, one every couple of months. But, the leftovers would linger in the freezer, until I managed, rather reluctantly, to prepare those turkey leftovers for family suppers. Being a reluctant cook is no fun, in my book.

I needed to come up with a better method for dealing with turkey leftovers. This is what works for me, and may work for you, as well.

I season and flavor the leftover meat before freezing, for ready-to-go meals from my freezer, using these turkey leftovers.

Preparing the cooked turkey for the freezer: getting a variety of flavors from one bird

I've discovered that I am more inclined to use the turkey leftovers, if I season the meat before freezing. The meat takes on the flavors of the spices and seasonings, while it freezes, often completely camouflaging the turkey-ness completely.

To give you an idea of how well this works for my family, with teriyaki turkey, my husband never fails to ask if it's beef. And with the Mexi-turkey, used in burritos last week, my son asked if it was chicken or beef, used in dinner. He has a good sense of smell and taste, so to "fool" him, I took as a victory.

Turkey in gravy

The day after roasting, I slice and freeze much of the breast meat, in the leftover gravy. I can usually get 2 turkey-in-gravy freezer meals for 5 people, with the remaining gravy. This is the obvious way to have  heat and eat turkey meals in the freezer.


A day or two later, I pull the remaining meat off the bones, chop, and divide into family meal portions. I season each meal portion right in the freezer container, as I work.

Teriyaki turkey

Some of the meat, I cover with homemade teriyaki sauce and freeze. The turkey will marinate in the teriyaki sauce during freezing and thawing. My usual teriyaki sauce is simply vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, ginger, garlic and water to taste. This last batch, I used chive blossom vinegar, for a mild onion flavor.

Cooking this up, I saute some onions and vegetables in a little oil, then add the turkey using a slotted spoon, reserving the teriyaki sauce. I stir a spoonful of corn starch into the reserved teriyaki sauce, and cook until thick, in the skillet with the veggies and meat.

Ready-to-use turkey in onion, sage and celery gravy, for pot pie *or* turkey and dumplings

I use stock that I make from the carcass to cook a thin gravy, season with a lot of chopped onions, celery and crumbled sage. To this gravy, I add some of the chopped turkey meat, in portions large enough to use in turkey pot pie or turkey and dumplings, for the 5 of us.

To make a pot pie or turkey and dumplings, I add chopped carrots, green veggies and diced potatoes, to the container of turkey in gravy. I either heat in the stockpot (for turkey and dumplings), or cook briefly in a saucepan, before pouring into a pie plate (for turkey pot pie). Then, I top with biscuit dough or pie pastry, and finish up the cooking.

Mexi-turkey

To flavor cooked turkey for Mexican-inspired meals, I toss the chopped meat with salsa, chili powder, cumin, a bit of vinegar, tomato paste and some stock, before freezing in 2 to 3 cup containers.

To prepare for burritos or tacos, I heat, adding some chopped green or red pepper, and salt to taste.

BBQ turkey

This is simply chopped turkey in a container with some thin, homemade BBQ sauce. To reheat, I add chopped peppers, and serve on buns or over noodles.


The end result -- by seasoning the turkey before freezing, I actually have to pace myself with using the leftovers, so that they will last a month or more. Now that's a switch!


Why would I buy so many turkeys? You must be wondering.

Each November, I purchase an extra couple of whole turkeys, using the Thanksgiving sales to get a rock-bottom price per pound. Last year, I spent about 30 cents per pound for whole, frozen turkeys. That's a phenomenal price per pound for meat, in our area.

I keep the extra turkeys in one of the freezers, to roast in months to come. It should be noted that frozen foods of any kind keep longest and best in stand-alone freezers. Freezers that are attached to refrigerators have more frequent temperature fluctuations. This affects the flavor and texture of the food, but not necessarily the safety.

In a stand-alone freezer, expect a whole turkey to retain its desirable texture and flavor for up to one year (according to Jennie-O). For frozen storage of a whole turkey in your kitchen freezer (combination fridge/freezer, set to 0 degrees F), quality will begin to degrade around 8 or 9 months. However, it may still be totally safe to consume. Cooked turkey, kept frozen, has a freezer life of 4 to 6 months.

With that knowledge, I make sure that we roast our last turkey of the year in late September or early October. After roasting these extra turkeys, we'll have one or two Thanksgiving-like meals, and I'll package up the leftovers for the freezer. According to foodsafety.gov, cooked turkey will keep refrigerated for 3 to 4 days. So, I try to get my cooked turkey packaged up for the freezer in that time-frame.

I'm always looking for new ways to use leftover turkey. Do you have any favorite recipes?