Can doughnuts make up for my inconstancy?

I made molasses cookies yesterday! and also a really good quinoa salad with cumin lime vinaigrette, but I didn't photograph the salad or post about the molasses cookies. And tonight's dinner was just leftovers, so no fun there.



However, I did make doughnuts with star anise creme anglaise as a dipping sauce!



The doughnuts didn't rise nearly as much as I would have liked; they were supposed to double in size, but they didn't approach that. Nevertheless, they were reasonably fluffy, and quite delicious, particularly when dipped in the creme anglaise. I have eaten three, but they're small, so it's okay. In any case, my observation is that every time I actually follow directions and cover a rising bit of dough with a tea towel, the dough doesn't rise sufficiently. I think the weight of the tea towel is dragging the dough down, so from now on, it's plastic wrap or nothin'.

Andy came up with the brilliant idea to use the not-too-dirty oil in which I fried the doughnuts to make deep-fried hummus balls. Our first attempt fell apart a bit, so for the second try, I proposed that we roll the hummus in the flour and spices and then pop the ball in the freezer for a bit. Result:



It is so good. Fancy schmancy places in my soon-to-be-home city could charge like $5 a hummus ball. Look how much Andy is smiling at the prospect of eating one!



The only problem is that now he's plotting to deep-fry everything.

And, in conclusion and in apology, a link to one of my favorite poems about inconstancy: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=173139