Years ago, I tried — and failed — to make English muffins. I don’t remember what the problems were exactly. Perhaps the flavor was flat? But I do know I tried about a half dozen different recipes before throwing my hands up in disgust.

Fast forward to last month when I came across a recipe in, of all places, a news magazine. We subscribed to The Week — a weekly (duh) magazine filled with lots of short snippets from lots of other news sources — when we were in Puerto Rico because we wanted a simple, hands-on news source. But then we ended up hardly ever reading it (or anything else) while we were there, so it might not have been the best use of our money, oh well.

ANYWAY. Last month the magazine ran a recipe — they run one recipe each week — for English muffins. Four-ingredient English muffins, to be exact.

My first reaction was a ginormous eye roll. English muffins are hard! There was no way you could make good English muffins with just four ingredients. Obviously, these people didn’t have a clue. Also, their method called for baking the muffins in the oven and everyone knows that English muffins must be cooked on a griddle. That’s what makes them English muffins!

But at the same time, I was intrigued. Could flour, salt, baking powder, and yogurt actually make a decent muffin? And as long as the muffins tasted delicious, did I really care if they were baked or griddle-cooked? No, I decided, I did not.

Turns out, the muffins are delicious — the yogurt adds a subtle tang — and the method is blink-your-eyes-and-you’re-done fast. And as for the baking method: IT WORKS, end of story.

P.S. In the middle of all the renewed English muffin vigor, I purchased a box of “real” English muffins … and was horrified to realize that they tasted like chemicals! Has anyone else noticed this?

English Muffins
Adapted from a recipe found in the August 31, 2018 issue of The Week.

Note: Once, I mixed together the flour and yogurt the night ahead of time, thinking that the extra fermentation might yield a more tender, flavorful product. However, the result was a batch of gummy-gross muffins that got tossed to the chickens. Summary: say no to pre-mixing.

Note Number Two: These muffins are quite moist on the inside, thanks to the yogurt, so, in order to have a good ration of toasty crust to tender bread, it’s important to shape the discs into no more than half-inch thickness.

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups plain fat-free Greek yogurt

Combine all ingredients. Knead briefly. Divide the dough into eight equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and then flatten into a puck that’s about a half-inch thick (similar to a hamburger patty).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or grease it with butter) and sprinkle with cornmeal or semolina. Place the muffins on the baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 10 – 12 minutes. Flip each muffin and baked for another 10 minutes.

Cool for a bit before splitting the muffins in half with a fork (stab all the way around the edge of the muffin before pulling the two halves apart). Serve warm, with tons of butter and jelly.

This same time, years previous: the relief sale donuts of 2017, peanut butter fudge. up and over, contradictions and cream, roasted red pepper soup, old-fashioned brown sugar cookies.

Donuts.

I have a love-hate relationship with this whole donut operation thing. The hardest part is the anticipation of it. Or maybe “the dreading of it” would be a more accurate term.

For weeks, the event hangs over my head like a French guillotine. The all-nighter, the loooong stretch of monofocus. The noise, the people, the grease. All the details to keep straight: Who is driving what car and when, the volunteers to be lined up and the items to purchase, calculations to figure, notes to read and re-read and re-re-read. In the final days leading up to the sale, I feel like I’m grinding down into low gear, my body going rigid as I brace for impact.

This year I was terribly tired before I even started (I tried to sleep a little on Friday night but I only dozed briefly before finally giving up), and, let me tell you, it’s horrible to be dog tired and yet be up against once of the longest and hardest days of work of your entire year.

Then again, it’s not that horrible. Because by that point there’s really nothing to be done but cry a little, tell your husband through clenched teeth that you will never EVER do this again, drink a coffee, and then get on with it.

And the funny thing was, once we got to work (at 12:30 in the morning), I began to enjoy myself. Like, REALLY enjoy myself. Which leaves me wondering how it is that I can go from utterly loathing something to thoroughly enjoying it?

My husband, on the other hand, doesn’t worry about the relief sale at all. Instead, he gets excited and weirdly happy.

And then when it’s upon us, he works harder and longer than I ever could and has a rip-roaring fun time doing it, too. I don’t think we could be more different if we tried. (The older two kids love it, too, and they claim they want to be in charge completely next year.)

A few highlights from this year:

Guests!
My husband’s brother and his three girls traveled down from Upstate New York, dragging their camper behind them. They arrived at the sale about the same time we did and spent their whole weekend working right alongside us.

Coaching!
This year, I took more time to actually coach the volunteers. For example, if someone was new to the dough-rolling process, instead of explaining and then walking away, I stood beside them, pointing out problem spots and giving hands-on demonstrations. I was impressed on two accounts:

1) how receptive and appreciative the volunteers were to input (because I’m always afraid I’m going to offend someone), and
2) how much more uniform the donuts were.

Quality Control!
I also made a much bigger deal about quality control and how to do it. I’d tell the volunteers, YOU are in charge of quality control. It’s YOUR job to check and double-check the product when it arrives at your station.

For example…
*Dough mixers make sure the milk-potato mixture is hot enough and that the potatoes are thoroughly blended.
*Dough-room people make sure the dough is neither too sticky nor two dry.
*Tray-fillers check for donut size, discarding the ones that are too skinny or too fat.
*Tray-runners double check donut size and make sure the trays have been properly filled.
*Glazers set aside donuts that are too dark or too light, or that got mangled in the fryers.

And everyone rose to the occasion! It was so fun watching the volunteers take ownership, especially when it was an assertive wee-spright of a lass keeping tabs on a Mennonite lady.

Made me chuckle, it did.

This year’s process was the smoothest yet. Aside from being short three bags of mashed potatoes (our church’s senior group mashed all 180 pounds of the potatoes I’d given them, but I should’ve ordered 200 pounds, I guess), everything went swimmingly.

We turned all the dough into donuts (except for one bucket of dough that got skipped over in the proofing room and then fermented — drunk donuts anyone?), used up all but about a couple inches of glaze, and sold out completely. And we kept an official tally so for the first time we actually know how many donuts we made: sixteen thousand, seven hundred and forty, ba-BAM.

In other news, Chiro, Lery, and Demeric made (nearly) six hundred pinchos! Even with a late start and inadequate grills — one didn’t show and another didn’t work right so mid-morning my older two kids had to take leave of the donuts and run home to fetch our grill — the pinchos were a smash hit.

The line was crazy long (Lery said it made her feel panicky so she avoided looking at it), and they sold out completely. To top it all off, they managed to do some fantastic PR (ha! PR for PR, get it?) for MDS. (Currently taking volunteers for the upcoming winter! Sign up here!)

They even made the paper!

And then they came home, cleaned up, and, at nine o’clock, left for DC where — GET THIS — they proceeded to rent bikes and spend the entire night biking around the city before finally, in the early morning hours, making their way to the airport and flying home, crazy-azy-AZY Borinqueños!

Me, on the other hand?

The end.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (10.10.17), the quotidian (10.10.16), salted caramel ice cream, it’s for real, clouds, party on, the quotidian (10.10.11), what we came up with, green soup with ginger.

everyday; ordinary; commonplace

PREACH.
(Also, grammar.)

What distracted looks like.

From her auntie, with love: birthday lasagna and cake.

The head strikes again.

This same time, years previous: happy birthday, sweetie!, pasta with chicken, broccoli, and oven-roasted tomatoes, o happy!, catching our breath, one foggy morning, green tomato curry, pie pastry, with lard and egg.