31 days... of dinner chez les Wrightlings... DOUGHNUT Saturday! {day 13}

Okay... so we didn't ACTUALLY do DOUGHNUTS for DINNER.

It was breakfast.

But since breakfast would certainly be the more interesting meal for that day (we'd be on the road again that night) and since it is our blog and since we do have some author/creator liberty here, this "meal" ain't "dinner."

And it does count for today's 31 day post.

Additionally? That's not to say we've never done doughnuts for dinner. In fact, my kids would lobby heavily to do so. We've also been known to dunk oreos into cold milk and call that good for an evening meal.

But I digress.

In honor of Brendan's presence with this weekend and to fulfill a promise made long ago (like years), we had homemade doughnuts for breakfast and invited friends.

After our last home assignment and we headed back to Niamey, I learned how to make doughnuts... which developed into a last Saturday morning of the month tradition for our family... and  we then expanded to including different friends and visitors whenever we could. This tradition usually involves me getting up in during the wee hours of a Saturday morning (not a sacrifice... it is alone time that I LOVE!) to have several dozen doughnuts ready near 9 or 9:30ish. Sometimes it is just one basic type of doughnut. Other times I pick out several recipes to follow. Sometimes I get super creative and start inventing totally new to us doughnuts. Sadly, those are rarely repeatable... since I forget or don't have time to write them down in the moment.

For what it is worth - after my third "time to make the doughnuts" morning Stateside, I'm discovering that I make better yeast doughnuts when in West Africa. Cake doughnuts, on the other hand, are turning out better on the west side of the Atlantic..

We did have a couple of other visitors stop by - but they were on their way, diving into their busy Saturdays, before I got my camera out and started snapping photos... or assigning a child to take a few... but I was super happy to see Cousins Mike and Laura pull in the driveway.

As our friends started arriving, Brendan was busy helping me in the kitchen. I believe he was sweeping. Either he almost panicked, saying "I haven't brushed my teeth... I gotta run and take care of that!" or he saw a way outta work. 

It didn't matter, however, when his sis immediately retorted, "Why are you worried about that before you eat doughnuts? Planning to kiss someone?" His ears turned red (our friends, both families, have only and all girls...) and he kept right on sweeping. 

Probably the smart choice considering how outnumbered he was at the moment!

Chocolate Cream Filled Vanilla Sugar Doughnuts 

Pumpkin Spice Doughnuts with Buttermilk Glaze
~my faves... this time around... although the chocolate cream filled were a close second~

Krispy Kreme (baking sheet in back)
Grapefruit Donuts (front left - pink icing)
Old Fashioned Sour Cream Donuts (front right)

I ran out of glaze... so used up the rest of the vanilla sugar for several doughnuts, too.
And don't forget the doughnut holes!

Our conversation over the course of the morning touched on many different topics - a sacred music concert led to Irish step dancing which morphed into to hula hooping and belly dancing... and it just got stranger - and the laughter louder - from that point on. Squirrel soup and guys who love to hunt, the pointlessness of shoes, germ-a-phobia and how the hot tub at Great Wolf Lodge was just nasty... or was it?, side by side texting conversations, curly hair and perms... or not, drama and exaggeration, third world toilets - or lack thereof - and how both Rebekah and Nadia have grown up thinking the painted warnings in Niger reminding men not to aim at the walls when they used the bathroom were because urine would somehow cause the walls to crumble. That might have been the moment Tim decided we needed to discuss baseball instead. 

We laughed at little kids playing hide and seek - where we spent a lot more time "seeing" the hiders and very little time seeing or hearing the "seeker." And I'm pretty sure parents stopped counting how many doughnuts some of the munchkin crew consumed. I was definitely thankful for cider, orange juice, chocolate milk and additional cinnamon rolls that our friends contributed.

We also talked Olympic wrestling - but actually ended up observing real life wrestling as several of those kids started playing king of the couch.

It was a great morning and we're looking forward to inviting more of our Michigan 

(and other) friends to join us.

Or... if you happen to hear it is happening on a particular Saturday, 

feel free to pop in for a doughnut and a Saturday morning visit. 

We'd love to see you and the door is always open.

Well... unless it isn't!

PREVIOUS POSTS

Squirrel Soup {day 1}

Chimichangas {day 2}

in which I start conniving... {day 3}

in which I have absolutely NO IDEA... {day 4}

when the Taco Bell cooks decide... {day 5}

 Cheese Quesadillas... {day 6}

Eggs, Bacon, Buttery Toast and Watermelon... {day 7}

Rice and Sauce... {day 8}

Grilled Cheese, Creamy Chicken Soup, Salad... a Church Program and an Ice Cream Social {day 9}

We got Brendan! {day 10}

(modified) Italian Chicken Pita {day 11} 

Borscht {day 12} 

Monkeying Around

Refugee Invasion

When the the dikes broke back in August and properties adjacent to the Niger River were inundated... many, many were displaced...

including this family of feral cats that had decided to call Sahel home.

The only problem is they were trapped on a small "island" of land with very little opportunity to find food, and my kids got wind of their predicament.

They moved chez nous.

Sasha (our black cat) isn't impressed. He and the mother detest each other. Usually he's a gentlemen and she's a vixen. The kids have named her Hera.

We did locate a home for the little calico.

The little white guy (with gorgeous, pale blue eyes) has been tagged Napolean.

He and Achilles (our other, indoor, kitty) play - and even though he's the bigger of the two, Achilles beats him up pretty badly. I think Achilles thinks he's the prince to Czar Sasha.

We'd really like to find homes for Hera and Napolean...

Anyone interested?

They are really sweet!

We've also had refugees of another sort...

Sahel dorm kids!

We've had several different ones staying with us at one point or another and the Wrightlings LOVE every second of it.

All of the dorm kids have been amazing guests and we are looking forward to more weekends with visitors throughout the year. 

My kids are lobbying heavily for two donut Saturdays each month - the weekends we have visitors and the last Saturday of the month.

We'll see!

Any guesses where this guy's from???

Tori finally made it ~

... to Parc W, that is!

The first time Tim took some of the kids, he didn't want to take the littlers as he wanted to go and scope the place out... see what it would be like before taking the whole family camping with lions, baboons and elephants roamin around. That year, Tori was still considered a littler.

We were all going to go last Christmas break - but then the youngest half of our gang all got sick with a really nasty virus and it didn't seem prudent to take off into the African bush with fevers, croup... well, I'm sure you get the picture. One of those sickies was Tori.

Recently, a young man visiting from Belgium, our pastor, his wife and their kids asked Tim if he'd drive them out to the game park, for the day. He agreed... and decided right then and there that it would be Tori's special trip, too.

She had a G! R! E! A! T! time!

I'm forecasting a less melodious carpool to and from school this year...

Why, you ask?
(We still can't believe school starts tomorrow!)

What do carpools and melodies have in common?

Last year, this gal was what they had in common.

She's back in California now, getting ready to start college.

We're excited to hear all about her college experience...

...but we'll be missing her, too!

Multitude Monday - 1000 Gifts - It Really is Raspberry (shhhh) Meringue Pie

Ever heard of a raspberry meringue pie?

I hadn't.

But I had just taught my son how to make lemon meringue (he did a phenomenal job, by the way)... I was thinking about missing raspberry and blueberry picking season in Michigan this year, AGAIN... and I started wondering. I'm really glad I did.

In the words of the teacher in one of my all-time favorite children's books ever, "Sometimes when you begin to wonder, you begin to make things happen..."

I guess I could've simply typed raspberry meringue into a google search, but I didn't.

Well, not until our Google-independent creation had already been gobbled and devoured. I was the tiniest bit disappointed, though not really surprised, to find I was not the first to have this idea. There are actually lots of recipes out there.

However together, Nadia and I figured out how to make  a raspberry custard simply by modifying the lemon custard recipe and voilà: Raspberry Meringue Pie.

We used raspberry preserves to make a syrup from which we made the custard.

Nadia likes to use butter when she makes her pie crusts... and... 
we've found that adding a tbsp of vinegar helps make a flakier crust, more like what you'd get with shortening.

In the oven after adding the meringue to the cooled pie.

Just out of the oven...

Doesn't it look yummy?

Tim volunteered to be both guinea pig and blog "model..."

And it was... delightfully yummy, that is!

If you don't believe me, just ask Tim!

You can be sure we'll be making this again!

SOON!

this week's gratitude list:

(#s 2878 - 2904)

fun in the kitchen with my Nadi-girl!

for not relying on Google to tell me what to do

creative solutions

creative cooking

more rain than I've ever seen in Niger

lots of arrivals - meeting new friends and renewing acquaintance with old friends

watching the Olympics

internet that has been sufficiently fast to allow us to actually stream some events live - since London is almost the same time zone!

new, unimaginably fast world record in women's 100 m butterfly - at least I couldn't have even imagined it many moons ago when that was my best event

it's my last week working in the business office - finished just in time for school to start up again at Sahel

company for the week - colleagues from Benin have been up this past week. They have four boys. Brendan is calling his bedroom the "party room!"

our company brought their pet monkey... his name is Dexter. The kids are highly amused, particularly Rebekah (Why am I not surprised?)

Lego contraptions

dancing tinikling late at night

the good tired that comes from having fun...

...so tired, in fact, that my exhausted little boy feel asleep, sitting straight up in a metal chair during the church service last night. I didn't even notice (he was sitting a row ahead) until I did notice that everyone else had gotten up and headed for the finger foods and fellowship snack after the service... except him!

first finding and then discovering that M&M LOVES unsweetened cranberry juice (since it is her "medelin" (i.e. M&M-ese for medicine), that's not just a good thing but a GREAT thing!

watching a non-destructive (I think) wash of water down a waddi - from very far away!

finding 5 pounds of homemade meatballs sufficient to feed 20 people, including several big boys... especially since I had my moments of doubt as they started dishing out their plates!

lots of homemade donuts (powdered sugar cake donuts, glazed twists, powdered suar lemon and raspberry-filled for the last Saturday morning of the month

almost emptying the freezer so we can defrost and clean it later this week

blogging while littlest Wrightling brushes my hair (she claims she's looking for lice... that's a whole other story and please DON'T ask!)

getting ready to sort through clothes and figure out what is still acceptable to use at school

looking forward to a quiet weekend next weekend - after all our visitors of the past week and one-half... before the new school year starts

friends who make the effort to stay in touch, even though their lives are busy

things I'm learning as I prepare to teach a seminar on meeting the needs of exceptional learners... in French (i.e. I'm teaching in French)

it still never fails to amaze me that, by God's grace, I actually can communicate in another language

Not-so-wordless-but-heartfelt Wednesday

Just wanting to say

a huge and heartfelt thankyou to Pastor David Warren,

his wife Maria

and their three children...



...for their investment and corresponding sacrifice!

~to Pastor David, in making this trip...

~ his family in facilitating it and agreeing to say "Goodbye" for awhile...

They've certainly contributed to what God is doing through His church here in Niger.

We've enjoyed the opportunity to fellowship with and get to know a little better Pastor David as he's spent this last week with us - it has been a fun and encouraging time.

We know all the seminar participants agree whole-heartedly,

and we can't wait to see them begin to use their newly acquired

and/or fine-tuned skills for His glory!

Thank you, so very, very much! 

Thanks, also, to our home church, Calvary Baptist- Midland, Michigan -

for helping to make Pastor David's trip possible.