Monday, January 27th - another windy weekend

It was pretty mild over the weekend, enough so that it rained most of Saturday night, destroying any chances we had of skiing on Sunday, as hoped. Not to worry, lots of other things to do. But then it dropped way down overnight last night and is currently -15 with a wind chill of -21 this morning. Fortunately the incredible wind we had last night has died down. But we are expected to go back up to +3 this afternoon with an unpleasant mix of rain, snow and ice pellets this afternoon and evening. Really difficult to keep up with, when you dress in the morning!

It was an uneventful weekend. I suppose the highlight was dropping in to visit Bernie at the hospital on Saturday morning on my way to work. Lloyd was already there, having stopped in on his way home from work. Brenda tells me he had a steady stream of visitors over the weekend so that was good.

We had planned to go out on Saturday evening for dinner as a belated birthday for Lloyd but our first choice of destinations was booked up and by the time we got home, we didn't feel like going back out again. So a simple supper of  homemade roasted garlic pizza worked for both of us.

As mentioned we were hoping to go skiing on Sunday but when we woke up to rain, I knew that wasn't happening so I spent the better part of the day out in the craft room, while Lloyd worked downstairs on his wiring project.

I'd gotten a call on Saturday evening from our friends out in BC.  Many years ago Doug had gone to New Orleans with us, so you can imagine my surprise later in the evening when I turned on a cooking program that I'd taped earlier in the weekend to find them making New Orleans style Bread pudding as well as Beignets, a very distinct and traditional New Orleans style doughnut.  Of course they showed some old photos and one was The Cafe Du Monde,  where we had all eaten more than our fair share of beignets while there. The photos brought back so many memories of a great trip. It was such a coincidence that I just had to try their recipe out, so first thing Sunday morning, that's exactly what I did, with great results! I was ever so pleased and they were actually really very easy. Needless to say, there were a number consumed throughout the day. Some even made it out to the craft room for our tea break later in the afternoon.  Those fluffy little pillows of goodness generously topped with icing sugar brought back so many memories for me.

So what is so special about a beignet compared to, say, a Tim Horton's doughnut?  Here's a tiny bit of history.

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Beignets

Beignets

The French-Creole colonists who came to inhabit the city in its earliest days originally introduced beignets to New Orleans in the 18th century. The concept of the dessert is simple – dough is fried then covered with mounds of powdered sugar – but the result is extraordinary. As a precursor to today's doughnuts, beignets are made from square-cut pieces of yeast dough and do not have a hole in them like most doughnuts. When served hot, they are absolute perfection, especially when accompanied with café au lait or chocolate milk.

The most famous place to get  a plate of beignets is the iconicCafé Du Monde, located on Jackson Square. Beignets come in orders of three on plates completely covered in powdered sugar. There are other places to get beignets around the city, and if you want to bring the treat home, you can purchase the mix from various vendors throughout the city.

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 I will definitely be making these again! But they are right, they are at their absolute best right out of the oil, hot with lots of powdered sugar on top.  YUM