75. My Homemade Pedialyte

Why do I make homemade? Well, I need it so infrequently that I don't want to keep the storebought stuff on my shelves for years when I can make it out of 3 ingredients I use all the time and one that I keep just for this (potassium salt, aka "salt substitute"). According to my sister, too, it turns out like salty kool-aid instead of the storebought stuff, which she refers to as "battery acid sugar water." That can't be good. I've never had it. But here's mine. The nurse on the help line said she hadn't heard that recipe before, but it sounded like a good one:

1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon salt substitute
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 Tablespoons koolaid mix with sugar (not sugar free and not just the flavor packets--if I didn't have koolaid mix on hand, I would use sugar plain, or I've read ones that use a bit of flavored gelatin powder).
2 quarts of water

Mix all together. I mix the dry with 1 quart of water and stick it in the fridge. When I need more, I cut it in half with plain water from the tap.

Daisy makes a face but she drinks it.

74. Donuts

I made donuts today. I used a recipe in a reprinted cookbook, identical to an ancient (well, 1940s) one that sits in my parents' kitchen. It, in general, makes lousy cookies and some creepy things (there is a recipe for possum & stuffing, for instance), but it is the source of my waffle recipe and now my donut recipe.

Jake grew up making donuts. I have never made them. Like fried chicken, donuts were something you purchased, not made. We made other things (like waffles, for instance) but we didn't fry anything.
(note: glass milk bottle, aluminum pitcher, unbrushed hair: just a glimpse of life in Chez Kennedy)
I didn't use a deep fat fryer--we used to have one but it was purged long ago. After I made the soft light dough and cut the donuts with an upturned glass and an icing tip, also upside-down, I dropped them into 3 inches of oil in a 3 quart saucepan, with a meat thermometer attached to keep it between 350 and 365 degrees.
h(note: this is as clean as the stovetop ever is. Mark this down, red letter day)
I have an electric stove, and I know many cooks look down their noses at it, but I've never found it to be a problem (except when you want a large pot on the back burner, but that's the stove's design, not the fuel source). I turned the burner to medium high and if the oil got above 365, I eased it half-off the burner. That was it.

I made a cocoa icing from the same ancient cookbook. Cocoa powder, butter, confectioners sugar, vanilla, and coffee. Perfect.(note: the cookbook is next to the donuts. I didn't even realize I'd done that when I took the picture!)

Jake kept some plain, and shook some fresh from the oil in a container of cinnamon sugar. The other third or so got iced. I have leftover icing in the fridge. I might spread a bit on toast tomorrow morn.

This could quickly become a New Year's tradition.