Whenever there is a fresh blanket of snow outside, I always find myself reaching for comfort food. Lately it’s been casseroles, homemade soup, fresh baked rolls, warm mugs of apple spiced tea and all the baked goodies imaginable. The freezer as of late has become pretty bare because we’ve somehow managed to eat through all the carrot ginger soup and leftover turkey stew I made and promptly froze at the end of December. Luckily with all this soup and stew we’ve been eating, my new bread maker has been getting plenty of use. I’ve become a master of the “dough” setting and turning out fresh rolls like nobody’s business. Hopefully later on in the year I’ll be able to face my fear of making fresh bread on a regular basis and we can stop buying up all the spongy commercial bread at the grocery store across the street (possible goal for 2015?).

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A couple weeks ago, I decided to join a gym near my office. I figured that it was well enough passed the busy resolution season and I really needed something to get me off the couch. Now three times a week, I pack my running shoes, gym clothes and a water bottle in my old university backpack and lug everything onto the subway during my morning commute. I find that the best motivation is having my workout gear under my desk seeing as how there is no excuse for not going immediately after work if I’ve already made the effort to bring everything with me.

Easing into the gym routine hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. Of course, I’m clearly knocking on wood here seeing as how I’m only a few weeks into this and my attention span for all things exercise can be pretty bad. A couple summers ago I took advantage of a hot yoga studio’s 30 days for $30 deal and ended up bailing the moment my month was up. I’ve also done pilates (lasted 2 months), exercise DVDs (still on my shelf – I refuse to get rid of them) and Zumba dance classes (just finishing now). At this rate, it will be interesting to see how long this gym thing works out.

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For a couple of years, I’ve been fighting the urge to buy a doughnut pan. The main reason I didn’t want one was because doughnut pans really only have a single purpose – making doughnuts. I love doughnuts just as much as the next person who has a baking blog, but I could never picture myself making them very often. To own a baking gadget with only one purpose seemed pretty pointless unless you plan on using it a lot.

Of course, this changed last week when I spotted this cute little mini doughnut pan at Kitchen Stuff Plus. I can’t say that it was love at first sight because it took me several days to make the purchase, but now that I have it and made these doughnuts, I’m definitely smitten.

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