Tom and I are truly soulmates. Or, as it often seems, stomach-mates.

How do I know this? Well, when Tom and I visited my grandparents in Florida last week, our combined “Top Five Things to Do on Vacation” was almost entirely consisting of things we wanted to eat:

1. Eat nachos at Moe’s 
   • Moe’s is like Chipotle. But better. Why? Because there’s no food poisoning and everything’s named after Seinfeld & other similar references
     • Note: There is a Moe’s in MN now but it’s terrible. The FL ones are so much better!
2. Eat ice cream at Royal Scoop
   • I have eaten a LOT of ice cream in my life (seriously, like everything in the aisle at Target) and there is NOTHING like Royal Scoop. NOTHING I TELL YOU! 

     

3. Run outside everyday
   • 65 degrees make stink for laying on the beach, but it’s great running weather!
4. Eat at Junkanoo during sunset
   • Required touristy stop

     

5. Eat at Cheddar’s 
   • Restaurant chain that is crazy cheap, has everything made from scratch, and makes delectable buffalo chicken wraps

I somewhat wish I was kidding about the above…but it’s no secret that we literally plan our daily itineraries around what and when we get to eat. We love food and we love sharing meals together. And while I may love the running part more than Tom, it still made the “Top 5” list out of necessity—there’s no way he could eat both an entire 16 inch pizza and over 50 pieces of sushi if he didn’t work up an appetite, now could he?!

{Note: Yes, he did do both of those things. No, they were not in the same sitting. Yes, I was oddly proud of him. It was quite a feat. Although I did refuse to kiss him after eating all that sushi. I mean…c’mon…it’s like the equivalent of kissing someone who just ate a few whole raw fish…bleh!

For photo evidence, see the below time lapse:

That’s my man. I still think he’s the most attractive man in the world…even after he ate over three pounds of pizza}

Anywho, while the pizza-eating at Junkanoo may have made the best story, our favorite thing to eat in Florida is the “Billy Barou Nachos“–delectable chicken nachos that you can top with as many toppings and fresh salsas that your heart desires:

Because that’s truly the best part of vacation: you eat the foods you don’t normally eat at home.

Besides eating ice cream at Royal Scoop multiple days in a row, we ate nachos at Moe’s twice in our six days in Florida and we even made nachos at home after we went to a minor league hockey game one night (for those keeping score at home…we ate nachos 50% of the days we were on vacation)

To put it simply, we were eating nachos like they were going out of style and loving every minute of our vacation diet (or lack thereof)…until we landed back home.

Returning home post-vacation diet is rough. Besides the positive fact that Tom gained back a significant portion of the weight he lost since we got married during our vacation (yay!), we returned home feeling kinda gross and craving our normal diet that included a heck of a lot less tortilla chips.

That being said, while we were craving our normal way of eating, I couldn’t help but think that there had to be a way to fulfill our craving for nachos year-round to help alleviate our binge-fest on nachos every time we go on vacation.  So while nachos themselves are inherently unhealthy (they’re 90% chips & cheese for pete’s sake) the toppings themselves are usually pretty good for you–grilled meat, veggies, etc. Noting this, I was determined that there had to be a way to satisfy our craving without sacrificing taste.

So…where’s the compromise?

Here’s our answer:

• Invert your typical nachos by making the traditional toppings the base of a flavorful, chunky soup and using the tortilla chips as a topping and way to eat the soup
• Maintain the delicious textures and flavors from loaded nachos by packing the dish full of meat, veggies, beans, and spices
• Ditch the queso and sour cream and replace it shredded cheese and plain greek yogurt

| Na-cho Average Nacho Soup |

Serves: 6 Tom’s or 8 Alaina’s

Ingredients Needed:

For the soup base:

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 bell peppers (any color), chopped
• 1 tbsp. minced garlic
• 2, 15 oz. cans low sodium black beans (drained & rinsed)
• 1, 16 oz. bag steam-in-the-bag frozen corn
• 2 cups rotisserie chicken, chopped
  • Or any pre-cooked chicken/meat you have on hand!
• 2, 10 oz. cans Rotel
  • We use one can of “original” and one can of “hot”–but you can substitute the mild or even do two cans or “hot” if you’re feeling feisty!
• 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
  • Ensure it’s low-sodium–you don’t need all that salt!
• 6 tsp. tomato paste
• 2 tsp. lime juice
  • Both fresh squeezed lime juice or lime juice from a bottle work–just use whatever you have on hand!

For the soup spice mix:

• 2 tsp. chile powder
• 1 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt

For the toppings:

• Tortilla chips
• Plain 0% greek yogurt
• Shredded cheese
• Chopped cilantro
  • Yes, you need the cilantro–it makes it the dish! If you live somewhere where it’s actually warm enough to grow cilantro, I am very envious. This is what my sad indoor cilantro plant looks like…so I obviously had to get mine from the store…

 Directions:

Prep Tip:

• Chop up ALL your veggies/chicken, steam your corn, rince your beans, and mix your spice mixture together before you start cooking
• Once you have everything chopped, the soup comes together in just 10 minutes of active cooking time and then you just let it simmer on its own for 30 minutes–easy peasy!

First up, you need to get your raw veggies a-cookin’…

• Dig out a large stock pot–this will eventually need to fit all your veggies, beans, corn, & six cups of chicken broth
• Heat pot on medium-high and add a splash of olive oil to the pan
• Once pot is warmed warmed, add your chopped onion, peppers, and minced garlic to the pot and saute until onions just become translucent

Next, you get to add some flavor and more of the hearty additions…

• Add both cans of Rotel to the pot along with your entire spice mixture; stir until combined

• Once that well mixed, all your steamed corn, rinsed beans, and chopped chicken; stir until well combined

All that’s left for you to do is make some deliciously flavorful broth…

• Add about half (no need to measure!) of your chicken broth to the pot; stir
• Add your tomato paste, lime juice, and remaining half of your chicken broth; stir

Now all YOUR hard work is done…the soup is going to do the rest…

• Cover pot and reduce heat to a low/medium-low and let simmer for 30 minutes (stirring occasionally)
• Once 30 minutes are up, you’re ready to serve!

To serve, get out the rest of your favorite nacho fixings and go to town…

• I recommend topping with cheese, cilantro, and greek yogurt for SURE, but avocado, guacamole, or some crushed chips are delicious as well!
  • Remember, you eat it with chips/a spoon–so you may not want chips on top of it as well! Unless you’re Tom…then of course you will want chips on top of it 🙂

• This dish has a bunch of veggies in it, but we like serving with a simple salad with some of the remaining chopped cilantro, a dash of lime juice, and some greek yogurt dressing that is a perfect cool complement to our nacho soup!
  • Like our favorite greek yogurt blue cheese dressing, Bolthouse Farms also makes a great greek yogurt cilantro avocado dressing!

 

So there you have it! Nachos! In soup form! How magical.

Now I know you might think I’m teeny bit bonkers for saying that this soup is a healthier version of nachos…but I SWEAR it gives you the exact same satisfaction as eating a big ol’ plate of melted chips and cheese.

On top of that, what I love most about this dish is how Tom and I can each choose the amount of carbohydrates (read: chips) we want to eat with our meal. If Tom is SUPER hungry (which he normally is) he can eat half a bag of tortilla chips with his serving and I can eat a big handful with mine. We each leave the table satisfied and feeling good about what we ate.

{Note: We LOVE the Costco tortilla strips with this soup. Are they any healthier? Heck no. Are they way cheaper than most chips, way more delicious, and easily scoop up the hunks of deliciousness in our nacho soup? You betcha they do!}

 

So while your vacation “top to-dos” may not include mostly foods you want to eat like ours, I can almost guarantee that every single one of us falls off our normal eating bandwagon when we go on ANY trip–it doesn’t matter if your trip was to Florida or to Fargo.

So enjoy your vacation diet filled with your pizza, your burgers, your fries, your ice cream and neverfear--you’ve got a delicious nacho soup that will help make your transition back into normal life just a little bit easier.

Because let’s get real: it’s not vacation if you don’t eat some ice cream.

Here’s to making many more culinary compromises…all in the name of love.

xoxo,

alaina

 

 

To be frank, I’m not exactly a football fan. I like cheering for my home team (and I also went through a Tim Tebow phase. I know…. I was young), but in general I would rather be doing anything other than an activity that requires me sitting for hours on end.

That being said, my attitude towards football always shifts a bit this time of year. The games leading up to the Super Bowl are woven with a sharp intensity from the players, the fans, and even the announcers. Every yard matters more. Every mistake is scrutinized more harshly. Every play seems like the game is on the line.

In general, there just seems to be a magical spark in the air that makes you believe that anything can happen and that the underdog just may win it all. It’s emotional for all parties involved; there’s a multitude of tears of both joy and sorrow shed by players and fans alike.

On top of this riveting drama playing out on our television every Sunday, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the other highly important part of playoff football: the food.

We’ve all been to game-watching gatherings and we all know the usual spread:

• Dips (usually of the cream-cheese or sour-cream based variety)
• Chips/Nachos
• Buffalo wings
• Lil’ smokies/Pigs in a Blanket
• …and (last but certainly not least) meatballs

Now my husband loves himself some meatballs. He loves them on his spaghetti. He loves them on their own. He even really, really loves them from the bag in the freezer. In fact, he thinks that frozen meatballs are pretty much the best thing since sliced bread–open the bag, dump ’em in the crock pot, and cover with barbecue sauce. In his mind, this is basically heaven.

And while I completely understand the beauty of the simplicity from going from bag to crockpot, I do have some hesitations when he looks at me with puppy-dog eyes as we push our cart through the Target frozen aisle and he lingers by the frozen pre-cooked meat products:

• Sodium
  • Most heat & serve meatballs are packed with sodium–even the “all natural ones” can easily have almost half of your daily sodium intake in one serving of six meatballs…and there is no way in heck my husband is only eating six meatballs (try more like twenty-six)

 

• Saturated Fat
  • I’m not afraid of fat (fat=flavor is my mantra) but these items are often filled with your entire day’s allowance of saturated fat in one serving. Tom–despite being the epitome of health and working out every day–has some cholesterol issues that (while getting better since we’ve gotten married!) are still lingering from his bachelor days of consuming a lot of Jimmy John’s. I love this man’s heart–so there is no way I’m taking any chances in him eating too much of this type of fat.

 

• Added Sugar
  • Believe it or not, most heat & serve meatballs contain corn syrup and other added sugars in them to add flavor to the meat. On top of this, most barbecue sauce’s are almost all sugar. The combination of frozen meatball drenched in sugary barbecue sauce is one that just doesn’t work for my pre-diabetes. 
    • Note: Stubb’s Original BBQ sauce is the one exception to this rule. There’s still some sugar, but it’s way less than anything else you’ll find in the sauce aisle!

And while I am usually a sucker for Tom’s puppy-dog eyes, these frozen meatballs are where I draw the line. Not because I don’t want him to enjoy some meatballs, but because I know that we could make something so much better*

{*Note: The one thing Tom’s puppy-dog eyes will ALWAYS work on is sushi. I know he loves it…but there is no way in heck I’m making him homemade sushi. I hate the smell of fish. Luckily, he knows this…so he tends to get sushi a lot…}

And since I’ve recently been joining my football food-loving husband in these all-day football watching-filled extravaganzas, I decided we needed to find a way to create a healthier version of his favorite game-day treat…and amp up the flavor without having to drench it in sugary barbecue sauce so I could enjoy it too.

So…where’s the compromise?

Here’s our answer:

• Swap the traditional fatty ground beef used for meatballs and replace it with ground turkey and add a touch of shredded cheese to make up for the lack of fat in such a lean meat
• Use my mom’s trick of swapping oats for breadcrumbs to keep the carbohydrates down
• Increase the nutrient-density of the dish by adding ground carrots & celery
• Toss out the idea that meatballs have to have sauce to be flavorful by filling the meat with lots of spices 
• Replace the sugary barbecue sauce with a Frank’s Red Hot mixture that delivers additional flavor and moisture to traditionally dry meatballs

| Game-Day Meatballs |

Serves: 5 Tom’s or 15 Alaina’s

Ingredients Needed:

For the meatballs:

• 1.5 lbs ground turkey
  • Use 1 lb and adjust accordingly below if you’d like, but this is how it comes at Costco and it makes the perfect amount for a crowd!
• 2 cups quick cook oatmeal, roughly processed or finely chopped
  • You want the oats to be broken down–not in their full “oat” form; this is most easily done in a food processor to get them to be the consistency of bread crumbs
• 3/4 cup finely shredded cheese
  • I prefer a “mexican” cheese blend or a colby-jack blend for this dish, but any will work!
• 3/4 cup carrots, finely chopped
  • This is about 4 carrots
• 1/2 cup celery, finely chopped
  • This is about 4 stalks of celery
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp. garlic, minced
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. onion powder
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1/4 tsp. salt

For the sauce:

• 2 cups Frank’s Red Hot
• 4 tbsp. butter
  • Yes, you need the butter. It thickens the sauce so it sticks to the meatballs! This is key. 

Directions:

First up: get everything ready…

• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F
• Line one or two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat
  • One is fine, but the process will go quicker if you have two pans going!
• Dig out your crockpot, set aside
  • We all know that getting your crockpot out is a process…ours is in the most hard to reach cupboard! 
• Using a food processor (can also use a knife), process your oats, carrots, celery, and onion one ingredient at a time and set aside in a large mixing bowl

Second, get your meatball mixture together…

• Once you’ve processed/chopped the above, add the remaining ingredients to the bowl

• Using your hands, mix ingredients together until well combined and ingredients are evenly distributed

After you wash that sticky, meaty mess off your hands, start making your meatballs…

• Using your hands (I know you just washed them…sorry!) form 1 1/2 inch meatballs by grabbing a heaping teaspoons worth of mixture and tightly rolling into a ball
• Place meatball onto baking sheet, leaving about 1 inch between all meatballs

Now you just have to quickly bake ’em to set their shape and color…

• Once baking sheet is full, bake in the oven for 10 minutes

• Once ten minutes have passed, transfer to a plate or other baking sheet until all meatballs are complete
• Continue above steps until all meatballs are rolled and cooked
  • This recipe makes about 85-90 meatballs! Just FYI! 

Now that your meatballs are done, you have to make your sauce…

• In a medium saucepan or medium microwave-safe bowl, melt your butter into you Red Hot–stirring frequently
  • Note: Although I did it in the microwave in the photos, I will say that doing it in a saucepan is easier!

Woo hoo! Now you just have to put it all together!

• Gently (this is key!) place all of your meatballs in your crockpot
• Pour sauce mixture over meatballs
• Gently (again, this is SO key–you don’t want broken meatballs!) and using a silicone spatula or other soft-edged kitchen utensil, combine your meatballs and sauce until all meatballs are well-coated

Now the crockpot does all the work!

• Set crockpot to HIGH and cook for one hour–stirring halfway through
• After the first hour, set crockpot to LOW and cook for an additional hour–stirring halfway through
• After two hour have passed, you’re ready to serve!
  • The meatballs can stay in the crockpot on low for another 2 hours if needed–just be sure to continue to stir every twenty to thirty minutes

Ready to serve? Here’s a few ways to do it…

For a crowd/football-watching soiree:

• Plain Meatballs: Nothing fancy here–let people serve themselves out of the crock and give them a fork. Mission accomplished.
• Meatball Appetizer: Using toothpicks, stab one meatball onto each stick and dip into blue cheese dressing; sprinkle with blue cheese crumbles and chopped green onion; serve with more blue cheese dressing and celery sticks.
• Build-Your-Own Meatball Sub: Create a meatball sub assembly line: lay out buns, cheese slices, chopped onions, and extra Frank’s/blue cheese on the counter next to the crockpot containing the meatballs. Tell your guests to go to town with their creations…but make sure you have extra napkins handy!

For dinner:

• Buffalo Chicken Salad : Serve over lettuce with a drizzle of our favorite greek yogurt blue cheese dressing

• Buffalo Chicken Wrap: Follow the recipe in my previous blog post and substitute the meatballs for the pulled chicken

Tip: No matter what you make, ensure you have this greek-yogurt based blue cheese dressing…it’s our favorite!

As you can see, the options are endless with these delectable meatballs. They are so flavorful–it’s honestly the tastiest meatball we’ve ever had. There’s obviously a kick from the Red Hot and the cayenne, but the flavors run so much deeper: a subtle sweetness from the carrots, a savory bite from the onion, and a slight saltiness from the cheese. It’s truly unlike any meatball you’ve ever had.

On top of all this, these meatballs are actually really good for you. They are packed with nutrients from all the veggies, and they have a ton of lean protein. A serving of meatballs (which I think is about eight meatballs) contains 235 calories, 12 carbohydrates, 2  sugars, and a whopping 16 grams of protein!

Here’s the best part: Tom loves them. And I know the bar for Tom to love a meatball isn’t set all that high (I mean, he loves the frozen ones too), but he ate 26 of them when I made them for dinner last week. TWENTY-SIX.

If he ate that many of the frozen ones I’d be concerned for his health…but with these? He can eat as many as his heart desires. His crazy serving of 26 meatballs was still under 800 calories (with only 38 carbohydrates and 8 sugars) and gave him over FIFTY grams of protein.

This weekend our hometown Vikings have a big playoff game and I am truly excited to watch it with my husband. Being that it’s supposed to be a high of zero on Sunday, I can’t imagine a better dish to serve than some easy, spicy meatballs that will warm us and our friends from the inside out.

So enjoy this playoff season and make your fellow fans (or maybe just your family) this easy crockpot dish that’s sure to leave everyone feeling like they’ve won the big game.

Here’s to making many more culinary compromises…all in the name of love.

xoxo,

alaina

PS: Go Vikings!

 

My phone is filled with pictures of two things: snapshots of little ones we love (normal) and snapshots of donuts (not so normal).

Yeah…I’m not kidding. I found the below in just a two second scroll through my phone:

I know having this many pictures of donuts is quite odd, but I like taking pictures of things I love…and in this case I love fried dough.

Tom and I are a bit crazy in our love for donuts (as is exhibited below by the fact that instead of cake we had donuts at our wedding), but our shared love for this bakery treat actually blossomed out of something pretty simple.

As a dating couple, we really didn’t have a “casual” place to go on a date. Why? Tom hates coffee (which eliminated having dates at my beloved Starbucks or local coffee shop) so we had to get a bit creative in finding a place we could go on lazy Saturday mornings.

Knowing that I still needed my Saturday AM coffee fix, we created our first “culinary compromise” without even realizing it. By choosing to go to a local bakery on a Saturday morning we could both get something we wanted: I could get my coffee and Tom could get as many creme-filled donuts as his heart desired.

Now if I was someone with self-control, I would have just had my coffee when we had these Saturday morning adventures. But alas, the smell of warm sugar overtook me every time we went on these excursions…and as we continued this Saturday morning tradition I fell deeper and deeper in love with both my then-boyfriend and a good donut.

{As a quick aside, Tom and I have eaten at almost every donut shop in the Twin Cities area. Here is our list of the best donut shops in town…which may or may not be completely against what most people think and the what the “trendy” shops are…but psh…this is my blog 🙂

BEST:

• YoYo Donuts (Minnetonka, MN) | Best Cake Donut/Filled Donut
  • All-around best donut shop in the Cities–you seriously cannot go wrong with any item in their case. Tom loves their “bombs”–mini bavarian-creme filled donuts 

• Hans’ Bakery (Anoka, MN) | Best Raised Donut
  • Split a Texas donut (it’s literally the size of your face) with a friend! Or, in my case, get your own smaller raised donut because your husband can eat the entire Texas donut by himself

• Lindstrom Bakery (Lindstrom, MN) | Best Traditional Donut
  • Get a classic Scandinavian donut and watch your life be changed forever. Also, it’s worth the drive just to pick up a loaf (or three) of their Swedish Orange Limpa bread. 

WORST:

• Bogart’s Donuts (Minneapolis, MN) | Best Terrible Donut
  • Awesome company, terrible donut. If you like your donuts to taste like straight yeast…this is your place.

Phew, I digress…that’s enough about our local donut preferences!}

Now I know what you’re thinking: isn’t this girl pre-diabetic? Why in the heck is she eating so many donuts that she can write a local donut review?

Well, that is a very good point. And you’re right, I shouldn’t be eating very many donuts. But even with my diet restrictions, there is room to have some sugar in moderation. One or two Saturday donut shop adventures a month is a-okay with how I limit my diet the other 90% of the time…but it doesn’t mean I still don’t crave donuts basically every time I open my Instagram feed.

So with this silly fried food having such a special place in our relationship, I decided it was time to get creative. There had to be a way for Tom and I to enjoy our special food in a way that doesn’t sacrifice taste or leave me feeling guilty for eating something so delicious.

Luckily for this challenge, this Christmas I received a donut pan (thanks, Jenny!) and I put it to use straightaway. I knew I wanted to go for a unique flavor profile that would eliminate the need for any topping (aka the need for any additional sugar) and have the right texture and mouth-feel of one of our favorite YoYo donuts.

On top of all this, I also knew I wanted it to be decadent (it’s a donut!) and it had to be something we could easily whip up with ingredients we had on-hand on a lazy Saturday morning. We needed a new “culinary compromise” tradition that would allow me to have my coffee…and eat my donut too!

So…where’s the compromise?

Here’s our answer:

• Ditch the deep fryer (and all that oil!) and bake the donuts in the oven
• Replace traditional all-purpose flour with almond flour–my go-to high protein, low-carbohydrate (and gluten-free!) substitution
• Use banana to both naturally flavor and sweeten the donuts
• Eliminate the need for refined sugar by adding just a touch of honey
• Maintain the decadence of regular donuts by using just a small amount of semisweet chocolate chips or cacao nibs

| Lazy Saturday Baked Donuts |

Serves: 4.5 Tom’s or 9 Alaina’s

Ingredients Needed:

Dry Ingredients:

• 1 cup almond flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:

• 1 ripe banana, mashed
  • Keep peeled ripe bananas in your freezer for when the Saturday morning donut craving hits–then you always have them on-hand!
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp. butter, melted
  • Would this recipe work without the butter? Yes (I’ve even tried it!). Does it taste as good? No. Fat=flavor, my friends. And the touch of salt from the butter is just perfect in this recipe. 
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Mix-Ins:

• 1/2 cup. semi-sweet chocolate chips or cacao nibs
  • Cacao nibs are cacao beans that have been roasted and broken up into smaller pieces–you get a less-sweet chocolatey taste (and a TON of fiber) when you use this chocolate chip substitute
  • You can also sub-in 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts if you want to nix the chocolate. I just add it for a touch of decadence since there’s not frosting or filling. I mean, it IS a donut! Treat yo’self!

Special Equipment Needed:

• 6 cavity non-stick donut pan
  • NordicWare makes a great one (you can get it at Target for under $15!) otherwise the bakeware brand Wilton has one as well 

 Directions:

First off, get everything prepped and ready for these delicious donuts…

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees F
• Using cooking spray, spray your donut pan and use a paper towel to ensure each nook and cranny of each of the six cavities is well-oiled
  • As I’ve said before, Simply Balanced cooking spray is the best!

Next, mix together your dry ingredients…

• Mix together the almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a medium mixing bowl using a whisk
  • Whisk the dry ingredients well–this is key to ensuring the donuts rise properly!

• Set aside

Once that’s complete, mix up your wet ingredients…

• In another medium mixing bowl, use a mixer (stand or hand) together your banana, eggs, butter, honey, and vanilla

That was easy! Now just combine the two mixtures…

• Slowly incorporate your dry mixture in your wet mixture until well combined using your mixer

• Once well-mixed, stir in your chocolate chips/cacao nibs

Now you just have to get these donuts into the oven…

• Using a piping bag or small spoon, fill each donut cavity about 3/4 full

• Bake donuts for 20 minutes
  • Check donuts to ensure they’re done using a toothpick–if the toothpick’s clean, they’re good to go!
• Let donuts cool in the pan for five minutes, then flip onto a cooling rack

• Bake second batch of donuts and repeat above steps
  • Just FYI: the recipe should make about nine donuts
• Let donuts cool completely before storing in an airtight container–ideally overnight, if possible
  • Almond flour baked goods tend to get overly moist when stored in airtight containers, that’s why it’s so important to let them cool and dry out completely. If the donuts get too moist when stored, simply set them out on a plate to let them dry out a bit. 

We love these donuts. Why? 

• They don’t sacrifice taste for flavor. At all.
  • They taste like a vanilla cake donut and a slice of chocolate chip banana bread had a baby. There can be no wrong in that. They’re to-die-for. 
• They allow us to guiltlessly enjoy donuts together
  • Each donut has only 165 calories, 10 net carbs, 8 sugars, and a whopping 5 grams of protein
  • If you eliminate the chocolate chips (which, again, I actually don’t recommend…live a little!) each donut has only 120 calories, 5 net carbs, 3 sugars, and 4 grams of protein
• They allow us to easily whip up donuts on a Saturday morning in under thirty minutes…and with only two bowls to clean
  • This is very important. I hate doing dishes. 
• They allow for us to carry on our favorite lazy Saturday tradition on any Saturday we want without even having to leave our house
  • Again, it’s winter in Minnesota. It’s not always a bad thing to stay in when it’s supposed to be a high of 10 degrees!

Now, despite the above, we will of course still go and visit our favorite bakeries for a donut now and then. Tom can only go so long without his favorite “bombs” from YoYo Donuts and I can only go so long without some pink sprinkles.

That being said, our tradition that grew out of one of our first compromises has blossomed into a new tradition that we can share with our family and friends during brunches and after-church breakfasts. Although it seems silly, it’s our special tradition and our special food that I know we’ll be whipping up for our kids someday*

{*Note: Because let’s get real…once we have kids we’ll be lucky if there is ever a such thing as a “lazy” Saturday morning where we have time to head to our local bakery. We’re going to have to make the donuts at home!}

All in all, this is one of my favorite culinary compromises because it’s so quintessentially us. Because if you know us, I would hope you’ve picked up on three key things:

• We really love donuts
• We really love each other
• We really love Jesus

Because at the end of the day–that’s what matters. So whip up a batch of donuts and spread some love this week. I promise you won’t regret it.

Here’s to making many more culinary compromises…all in the name of love.

xoxo,

alaina