Paczki Day

It took us all Fat Tuesday, but we did it. Yup for dinner (yes, dinner) last night we had jelly donuts….or paczkis as they’re called around here. And being that my husband is from Michigan, where in Detroit they call Fat Tuesday, Paczki Day, my husband thought eating paczkis at any time of day was just fine. (They were actually quite delicious with my homemade Curried Pumpkin Tomato Soup.)

We had several bumps in the road along the way to puczkis (pronounced POONCH-ki) making:  My 4 1/2 year-old spilled some of the yeast on the floor (so it had to be swept up and the amount in the dust pan carefully measured!); then there was the exploding resealable plastic bag used to jelly-fill the 'donuts.'  But in the end they were warm, yeasty, sweet and delicious!

In full-dietitian-disclosure, they were a brilliantly lightened version of the deep fried donut. Good Housekeeping developed this version which is actually a sweet yeast dough filled with jelly. Hint: My girls couldn’t tell it was lightened. They still loved having my homemade strawberry rhubarb jam squirt all over their faces. And my husband just loved having ‘donuts’ for dinner.

(Yes, my 4 ½ year old did do her own hair yesterday – with 2 different colored ribbons – but at least one of them matched the color of the jelly!)