How To Make Fresh Pasta. Finally.

   When I was younger, I never thought I'd be making pasta. I grew up in an Italian American household, an old school Italian American household. We ate Italian, we vacationed at Italian American resorts where we danced Italian dances to Italian music. I'm Italian on both sides with the exception of a Frenchman and an Irishwoman mixed in there somewhere. Even though my mother's family arrived in New Orleans in 1832 and moved on to California for the Gold Rush in 1849, my dad's family was fresh off the boat from Italy.

   He was born in San Francisco but grew up with Italian as his first language. Wanting me to speak English was a big deal, and so even though both my parents speak Italian, we grew up in an English only house. As a result there was one whole side of the family I was barely able to communicate with. They spoke limited English, I spoke only a few words of Italian. Of course I had the idea that if I spoke English s-l-o-w-l-y and LOUDLY they'd be able to understand me. I must have been a pain in the ass. A small child  yelling slowly to a group of befuddled Italians. The easiest solution to me was to shove a Stella'd'Oro  cookie in my mouth.

   As I grew older, I grew more appreciative of my Italian roots, and when I moved away from home for the first time to Los Angeles in the 1970s, my Great-Aunt Pallagina gave me what she thought were the essentials for a young woman going off to the big big city for the first time: A lecture on the evils of "mens" and a hand cranked pasta machine. Yeah, just what I needed in LA in the 1970's on my own for the first time. "Men's", I thought I understood, and the last thing I was planning for my evenings was hand cranking pasta. I didn't know which to chuck out first, but the pasta machine wasn't far behind.

   Boy, was I sorry. On a lot of levels. Let me say that again. Boy, was I sorry. The hand cranked Imperia pasta machine made in Italy joined a long list of gift appliances from relatives that found their way to the Salvation Army. The cappuchino machine, the slow cooker, the Cuisinart, all of them wound up having to be replaced once I really started my cooking life. The last one to find its way back to me was the pasta machine.

   I'd been wanting to get a pasta machine for the last couple of months. Ever since I home-cured my own guanciale (Roman bacon) last year I've been wanting to make pasta A'matriciana. The way I figured it, if I was going to go to all the trouble of curing my own meat, I may as well make my own fresh pasta to go with it. So I've been doing research trying to figure out which machine would be best for me. Even though I want to make pasta, I'm not planning on turning into an Italian chef. Then a very very weird thing happened. Two months ago I had no pasta machine. Today I have two pasta machines, a hand cranked and an electric model.
  
   When our friend Irving Ong came up from LA to spend Christmas, he brought me a hand cranked pasta machine, exactly what I was planning on getting for myself. Less then two weeks later I was getting a haircut and my stylist said he had something for me... a pasta machine. I told him I'd already gotten a machine but he said "why not take two?" Why not indeed! His was electric, and he was putting it on permanent loan to me. Suddenly I found myself with the best of both worlds. It looked like I was going to be making some pasta, and soon. I was going to make my A'matriciana , the first step was to make the fresh pasta.
  

Fresh Pasta

This Is What You Need:

A Food Processor
A Pasta Machine
A Pasta Drying Rack
3 Cups of semolina flour, (I used Bob's Red Mill )
1 tsp of salt
4 eggs
4 Tbs olive oil


This Is What To Do:

 In the food processor mix together the semolina and salt.
 Add the eggs to the flour mixture along with the olive oil, and water.

Mix it in the food processor for about 2 minutes or until the dough is all blended and pulls away from the side of the bowl.

 Put the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead it for a bit.

Since you've already blended it in the food processor it won't take very long.

It needs to be elastic.

Fold the dough into a round disc.
Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest for about 20 minutes.
Unwrap the dough round and cut it into quarters.
Roll each quarter out to about 1/4 inch thick, dust it lightly with flour so nothing sticks, and begin feeding it into the rollers of the pasta machine which should be set on the thickest setting.

Roll it out, fold it over and then run it through again.
Set the machine dial for the next thickness then run it through again.

Keep rolling and thinning until the dough is thin enough to start cutting. If you start to run it too thin the dough will break apart. I found that the 4 setting was about as thin as I was willing to go on my machine.
Put the spaghetti cutting rollers on the pasta machine.
Feed the thin strip of dough through the machine.

When the dough begins to emerge in strips.

Lightly flour it, and hang it on a pasta drying rack.

There it is! Fresh pasta! Homemade!

Let the pasta dry for a bit then fill a pot with boiling lightly salted water.
When the water is boiling. Drop the pasta in. When the fresh pasta floats to the top it's done. This should take about 2 to 3 minutes as fresh pasta cooks a lot faster then dry pasta.

So, you may ask, how did it taste?

Pretty damn good. I'm now convinced that fresh pasta is my new favorite thing. So I lost 20 years of pasta making and had some rather "unusual" experiences in LA. Did I regret giving away that lovely old machine years ago? I came to the conclusion that Great Aunt Pallagina was wrong about "the mens" but oh so right about the magic of fresh pasta!

   Coming up next, the perfect A'mitriciana sauce even if you don;t cure your own guanciale.
Follow along on Twitter @kathygori  

Peasant Bread, Royally Easy! #Baketogether

   Like everyone else, I spent the month of December glutting and rutting around the world of all things sweet and rich. Buttery, sugary, creamy and chocolaty, we went whole hog down the dessert rabbit hole. Hog is the operative word here. Any more cookies and treats and I'd have to start looking for truffles on a leash. After a month of sweets I bounced into January craving savories, turnips, and bao, and mushroom soup. Yes there were some donuts in there, but hey, they were baked!! But still they were donuts and I needed to get back to the good and the simple and the pure. Normally, that means getting back to the usual Indian vegetarian and vegan dishes that I regularly cook, but then I ran across something that changed my mind completely and that was Abby Dodge's Bake Togther Project.

   The Bake Together Project for the month of January was a Peasant Boule. A lovely homey and above all easy to make loaf of bread. This is not any old loaf of bread. This is special. This is the sort of loaf that calls out to one to "put some soup on, Honey. I'm home!" So what makes this bread so special?

• The Peasant Boule that Abby featured, is a bread that's made with "instant yeast" this is quick acting stuff that I'd never worked with before. This is yeast on steroids and it bulks up to a nice round puffy dough in no time, that is if you think 45 minutes is no time (I do!)

• The Peasant Boule is baked in an 8 inch cake pan (no special equipment here)  almost everyone has one of those.

• The Peasant Boule  is so versatile, anything  (flavors, herbs, fruit, nuts) can be added to it, that there is virtually nothing one can do to it to mess it up. 

 After reading all the great stuff about this bread I had to try it.

   As it turned out, I had the perfect opportunity. I'd recently come into possession of an electric pasta  machine, I had cured some guanciale (Roman bacon) that I was dying to try in an A'matriciana sauce and I was planning on busting out my new Ricotta making skills. The handwriting was on the wall. I was roots bound, I was going back to my ancestral origins, I was going to cook an Italian dinner. The Peasant Boule was going on the menu. In making Abby's bread, I followed the Bake Together Rules, and I made my own adjustment to the recipe. I decided to make an Olive Oil Rosemary loaf. You might want to try this bread and #Baketogether too.

Peasant Boule

Here's What You Need:

3 1/3 cups  all purpose flour
1 packet  instant yeast (Rapid Rise)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/3 cups warm water (between 115 and 125 degrees)
3 Tbs of Olive Oil
1 Tbs of chopped fresh rosemary

The preparation of this bread calls for a stand mixer. I don't have one, but I do have a food processor with a dough blade and it worked just fine.

Here's What To Do:

In the bowl of a food processor mix together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder,rosemary and yeast.
Turn the food processor on and pour in the warm water. The water needs to be at least 115 degrees and no more then 125 for this yeast to work. I used a cooking thermometer and it worked just fine.
The dough will start to come together in the bowl and will quickly turn bread ready. Run the food processor for about 5 minutes or maybe a bit less. I started to get a little worried since it was really flying around and my processor was bouncing on the counter. I was afraid I'd burn the motor out, but no way. It worked!
Scoop the dough out and roll it into a ball, put the dough into a lightly greased bowl (I greased it with olive oil) smooth side up. Cover the top of the bowl tightly with saran wrap and let it rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes, or until it doubles in size.
When it's doubled, dump it out on to a clean surface, (you don't have to flour it.)

Press it down to deflate it.

Shape it into a 7 inch round and place the whole thing in a lightly oiled 8 inch cake pan. Yes, that's right, nothing special, just a plain old cake pan. I rubbed the top of the dough with a bit of olive oil, and let it rise.

I didn't have an 8 inch cake pan. I had a 9 inch so my dough didn't get quite as tall as it might have.

Let the dough rest in the cake pan until it's doubled again, about 25 minutes or more. It all depends on the  temperature in the room the dough is sitting in. About 15 minutes before you're ready to bake the bread, preheat the over to 375 degrees.

Put the bread on the middle rack in the oven and let it bake for about 40 minutes. When the bread turns brown on top and the top sounds hollow when tapped, it's done!
Place the pan of bread on a cooling rack. Take the bread out of the pan and set it on the rack to cool. I set mine down next to my newly made fresh pasta.

 Serve and stand back because this stuff goes fast!

   The peasant boule toasts like a dream and it's the perfect sandwich bread. It was the perfect accompaniment for an Italian meal, but after looking at all the various ways of interpreting this bread I can't wait to try some of the other ways that have been suggested. That is, if I'm allowed. I've already received orders from headquarters for more of this great rosemary bread. It seems it's pretty popular for chicken sandwiches with roasted red peppers around our house. I on the other hand, am itching to try it with figs, or olives or orange zest for a great brunch treat. Okay, I have to make a confession here. Visions of French Toast have already danced through my head, but I'm not saying anything about it right now.

   Coming up next, I am no longer a pasta machine virgin as I present electric vermicelli bugaloo. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Turnips Go To The Circus. A Nutty Stand-In For Potatoes

   Friends of ours just had a baby last week the lovely and charming Little Miss Ella.

   Since Grandma has been working overtime helping out and leaving Grandpa on his own to forage for food, I decided to help out too and do a little cooking. I put together a little celebratory Indian vegetarian dinner. I love to cook using local produce and luckily living here in Sonoma I have access to good quality organic produce at very reasonable prices. So when I was roaming the market looking for stuff to cook, I came across a display of local turnips. Now, I love turnips. I call them potatoes without the guilt. Not that potatoes have anything to be guilty about. It's just that eating them gives me a sneaky furtive shiver. I feel like I should be alone with my spuds in a dark room somewhere where no one can see me enjoying them. Spuds are my dirty boyfriend and I'm being a bad, bad, potato girl.

   Turnips on the other hand are Spuds cleaned up worthy cousin. The guy with the great grades and the Med school future. He'll always respect you and your pants size. He's the one your parents want you to see. He's full of vitamins, minerals, he's GOOD FOR YOU! Which usually is enough to send anyone faced with turnips running for the hills. I'm not dissing potatoes here. They're good for you too. Filled with vitamins and minerals, I always ate them baked, skin and all. I ate a lot of things that way. They were good for me dammit!  Of course the kids in elementary school used to call me Applecore Gori too but that's a tale for another day.

   The problem with potatoes is generally not what the potato is but how they're cooked. Deep fry tofu, load it up with butter, cheese and bacon crumbles and it'll be bad for you too. I don't know what it is about the potato that makes people just want to tart them up like that, but it is what makes them soooooo desirable. People don't think of doing that kind of stuff with turnips. It'd be like putting a thong on your grandma. Now not all Grandmas look like.....well, Grandmas.

   But what does Helen Mirren have to do with the price of, or shape of turnips? Actually nothing.  Just go with me here. What I'm saying is that these aren't your Grandma's or your mama's turnips. In fact this isn't even a recipe designed for turnips, it's actually a recipe for potatoes but anything a potato can do a turnip can do too! The recipe is fast and easy, but the real magic is in the peanuts, and it's the peanuts that give it that "turnips go to the circus" fun.

Turnips With Peanuts:

Here's What You Need:

1 lb of turnips (you can also use potato, zucchini or yellow squash)
2 Tbs of vegetable oil ( I use coconut oil)
1 tsp of mustard seeds
1/2 tsp of cumin seed
1/2 tsp of turmeric
12 fresh curry leaves (if you can't find them omit them)
1 large finely chopped onion
1 tsp finely chopped shallot
2 fresh green serrano chilies slit down the middle
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/4 cup of water
2 Tbs dried grated unsweetened coconut
1 tsp of salt
2 Tbs roasted, ground, unsalted peanuts

Here's What To Do:

Peel and chop the turnips into small cubes.
In a skillet or kadhai heat 2 Tbs of vegetable oil.
When the oil is hot, toss in the mustard and cumin seeds.

When the seeds start to sizzle and pop, add in curry leaves, garam masala, 1/2 tsp turmeric, onion...

chilies and shallot.

Stir everything around for about 4 minutes or so then add in the turnips and the garam masala.

Stir everything around for a couple of minutes then add in the water, salt and coconut.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then slap a lid on things and turn down the heat. Simmer it all together for about 15 minutes or so, until the turnips are tender.

 Now for the part that snaps this out of plain old turnip land and into the circus fun zone.
 Just before serving, scatter the crumbled peanuts over the turnips and stir them around.

   There you have it, crunchy, spicy not your average turnips. This is a definite keeper of a recipe.

Serve this with rice, chapattis and another vegetable dish or two for an Indian meal, or pair it with any standard American fare. It's a winner on taste, and nutrition. You're being good, but you'll feel like you're oh so bad!

   Coming up next a sweet and sour shrimp dish made with coconut water vinegar, that can be on the table in under and hour. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Baby Take A Bao... Dim Sum With An Indian Twist

   Now that the holidays are over, it's game time. Bowl season. The meeting of padded out rivals with black streaks under their eyes who's main motive is to seize victory by tearing each other apart with no mercy or as it's known around our house, the Golden Globes and The Academy Awards.

  Yes, I do live just north of San Francisco, and as a 5th generation San Franciscan I am rooting for the Niners to make it to (and win) the Superbowl. But let's get our priorities straight people about what really really really matters. Is Charleize Theron going to get a nomination this year? And what about Ryan Gosling? What about Ryan Gosling indeed!! Oh the humanity! This is the time of year when I bust out my plastic tiara, start whipping up the finger food and inviting the crew over to watch awards shows.

   Now when it's Awards time, I do not want to be stuck in the kitchen and risk missing some enormous gaffe like someone coming back from the Ladies with toilet paper on their shoe (Golden Globes) or someone with two left feet trying to dance (Academy Awards.) Therefore I want my food ready, everything set out so people can help themselves and a minimum of fuss. My answer to the food question for last weekends Golden Globes was bao.

   I ate my first bao at the age of 13. I had gone down to Chinatown as part of a luncheon group from school, a reward to those who made the National Honor Society. We went to the Hang Ah Tea Room and it was my first brush with dim sum and my first bao. I loved it. I loved it so much I even ate the little paper doily attached to the bottom. I thought it was part of the pastry. Hey, I was in the National Honor Society. Nobody said I actually had brains.

   Back in the day, dim sum wasn't exactly something many people I knew were doing but it quickly became a habit with me. Every Saturday morning I'd get on the L Car and head downtown. I'd walk through the old Stockton Street Tunnel

...and have dim sum at the Hang Ah all by my lonesome.

   I think it cost me all of 2 dollars for a feast, the centerpiece of which was bao. Over the years I've eaten bao, but I've always eaten it out at large dim sum places in LA's Monterey Park. Restaurants the length of football fields with rolling cars and waiters with walkie talkies (I'm not kidding) a far cry from the dinky old beloved  Hang Ah. I was missing the bao love. Then I decided, why go out for bao? Why not try to make some bao right in my very own kitchen? And while I'm at it I thought, why not try a different filling than the standard pork I was used to. Why not try bao with perhaps an Indian filling? I  could do that? Who was going to stop me?

   Actually using an Indian-style filling for the bao was not such an outrageous idea. In the south of India, a popular snack is Ela Ada which is a sort of steamed rice flour pancake stuffed with a sweet filling. Not exactly bao but in the ballpark. I knew that there were rice pancakes also stuffed with a savory filling such as shrimp. I was in business. This was something I had to try. Bao with a South Indian filling. But it wasn't the filling I was worried about. It was making the lovely, doughy jacket for the dumplings. As it turns out it was easier than I thought.

   On my last trip to the Thai Lao market over in Santa Rosa, I came upon a bag of ready-made bao dough, one of those 'just add water' deals. When I got it home, I started thinking. What was I doing? I generally don't use anything processed. Surely there has to be an easier way. Easier than just ripping open a bag? Yes. A few years back, the LA Times did a feature on making bao at home. I saved the  dough recipe. It was simple. Flour, a dash of oil and sugar, fast acting yeast and water. I set aside the pre-made mix and I made the dough in my food processor. It was ready to rise in about 5 minutes. No lie. That fast. Check out the dough recipe link. It will turn you into a bao making fool. A couple of minutes out of the food processor this was what I had.

Let the dough rise for about 45 minutes in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with saran wrap and keep it in a warm place until it turns into a big, fluffy, ready-for-bao rolling pillow. While the dough was rising I prepared my filling, a spicy South Indian Shrimp curry.

Indian Dim Sum

Here's What You Need: 


1 pound of medium size  raw uncooked shrimp
1 seeded finely chopped green serrano chili
3 medium onions chopped
1 medium tomato chopped (or 1/2 can tomatoes chopped)
1 tsp of Kashmiri chili (or 1/2 tsp paprika mixed with 1/2 tsp of cayenne chili)
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp of turmeric
3 springs of curry leaves
salt to taste
4 Tbs of coconut or vegetable oil
1/2 cup grated dry unsweetened coconut
4 chopped shallots
1/2 tsp of fennel seed
2 serrano chilies chopped


Here's What To Do:
Rinse the shrimps and sprinkle them with
1/2 tsp of the kashmiri chili
1/4 tsp of turmeric
1/2 tsp of salt
Set them aside for 15 minutes

Chop the onions , curry leaves (if you have them.)
Heat 2 Tbs of oil and saute them starting with the onions first, then the chili, then the curry leaves
When the onions have cooked and are soft add in the chopped tomato and the spices.
Put a lid on things and let them cook at a low temperature for about 5 minutes.
What you want is for the tomatoes to soften.
Add a bit of salt
Add a bit of oil if you need it.
Keep sauteeing until the whole mixture is cooked together
Set the mixture aside.

In another pan heat the shrimp.

Let them cook in their own juice. Add the rest of the oil and fry them for a minute or two.
Chop the shrimp roughly.

Add the shrimp to the pan with the tomato mixture and heat everything together and set it aside.

Heat a cast iron pan and when it's hot, dry roast the grated coconut, the shallots, the fennel seeds and the chopped green chilies.

Stir it all around and toast the mixture until the coconut browns lightly and the spices are fragrant.

Put this dry mixture into a food processor or grinder and grind it up. Do NOT add water.
Add the dried coconut mix to the shrimp and tomato mixture and stir everything together.
Your filling is ready.

How To Make The Bao:

Prepare a large steamer over a pan of water. I use a bamboo steamer. I have a huge, 2 tier one that I bought at a Thai market for about 10 bucks. They can also be purchased online. 
Cut out a bunch of little squares of parchment paper. The bao will sit on these in the steamer as they cook.
Put the risen dough down on a lightly floured surface. Pat it down until it's a thick round disc. Cut it in half. Keep the part you're not immediately working with covered so that it doesn't dry out.
Take the half you are working with and roll it into a log about 1 foot long. Cut it into about 8 even pieces.

I used an Indian dowel-shaped rolling pin and rolled out each of the little chunks of bao dough. The idea is to keep the dough thick in the center (the bottom of the bao) but thinner at the sides.

When the dough round is rolled out place it cupped in your lightly floured palm.
Place a few teaspoons of the cooled filling in the  center of the dough and then fold the sides in around it.

Make sure the little dough packet is sealed tightly. Place it on one of the squares of parchment paper and let it rise again for another 15 to 30 minutes. I let my bao rise in the covered steamer. That way when I'm ready to cook I don't have to move them again. I just take the steamer and place it on top of the pan of steaming water.

When the bao have risen, steam them gently for about 15 minutes or so until they are puffed and the filling is cooked.
Take them out of the steamer and cool them for 5 minutes of a wire rack.

Eat and enjoy. Repeat  the process for more bao.

I served them with a  Gujarati salad of cabbage , carrots and peanuts I also offered Crispy Bitter Melon Chips which btw are fabulous with beer. So, will I be making bao again? You betcha!

   They were delicious, and this time I didn't eat the little paper doily. Since I discovered it's so easy to make the dough, I'm going to be perfecting my bao-making skills and trying out a variety of fillings. I also just found out the  The Hang Ah Tea Room has opened a North Bay branch in Santa Rosa. I'm definitely going to try it out, but it's nice to know that dim sum can also be available in one's very own kitchen without the 50 mile round trip.

   Coming up next more tricks with those stars of the Winter Vegetable World, Turnips! Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Baked Donuts! Golden Globes With A Hole In The Middle.

   One of the great things about having this website is all of the great people I've met. They're from all over the world but they all speak one common language and that's food and the love of cooking. Some I've met in RL (real life) some I only know through the Virtual World or the Social Network, but every one of them has taught me something. I love it when I can pick up on a new way of doing something I've never done before.

   Take donuts for instance. After my high school work experience at The Donut Hole, donuts, no matter how cute and tempting they may look, held no charms for me. Too many traumatic experiences perhaps. What do I mean exactly? Well this device, which even though it looks like it's straight out of a David Cronenburg film, is merely a simple pastry and donut filler. I still have nightmares. Don't ask. And then there's all that boiling deep fat.

   Plus there are other embarrassing traumatic donut memories. When we lived in Malibu for a while I formed the dirty little habit of running across Pacific Coast Highway or The Road To Hell  as I used to call it, and nipping into Ralphs Market every morning for a couple of donuts and coffee. Don't  even ask about the place that used to be next to Malibu Lumber and sold the brie and turkey sandwiches on homemade farm bread. Nipping across the highway from the beach soon turned into galumphing across the highway, and so the donuts had to go. Let it be said that making donuts was the last thing I was thinking about. And then I met Heather aka Farmgirl Gourmet.

   I met Heather a couple of weeks ago when we were both featured in the New York Times "Fine Dining Column" What We're Reading. I immediately loved her site. Local, homegrown and sustainable, there's something for everyone, including as it turns out, donuts. The thing that won me over about Heather's donuts was that they were baked cake donuts. No deep fat fryer, no weirdly erotic jelly loading device. Another plus was that they were made of something called hard wheat, which turned out to be a whole grain, winter wheat and the recipe called for olive oil and non fat milk. No full fat milk, no butter. I was sold. I had to try those donuts.

CORRECTION:
Okay, I've got to stop here. Heather just informed me that it wasn't her in the article! I got  my Farm girls mixed up. The site featured with me in the article is girl farm kitchen ..I don't know her, but her site is great too. I blame it all on those donuts. Those baked donuts! Just on the basis of those donuts, Heather should be in the New York Times. I have to admit that when I see baked donuts, I want to know the person who's made them. It was wishful thinking. Anyway, I do know Heather now, I can't remember how but I do know it had to do with seeing those donuts, and she inspired me. And now back to our story in progress...

   I immediately set off to find a donut pan. I was faced with a couple of choices. One that baked regular sized donuts and one that baked mini donuts. I chose the mini donut plan, less guilt inducing I thought. Of course there's always the possibility (as Alan pointed out) that one will eat more of the minis because they're well... mini. But, there's risk in everything. I chose the mini pan.

   I decided to kick off these donuts with what we consider the first "game" in what is to us as screenwriters, our "bowl season" the Golden Globes.

We'd invited friends over to watch the awards and since I was serving easy finger food, I thought mini powdered sugar donuts with chai shots for dessert would be perfect.

Baked Donuts

Here's What You Need:

1 cup of hard wheat flour
1 cup of pasty flour
2 eggs
3/4 cup of white sugar
1 tsp of salt
2 large eggs
The zest of 1 orange
2 tsp of baking powder
1 cup of non fat milk
4 Tbs of olive oil
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
 2 cups of powdered sugar

Now I couldn't leave Heather's recipe well enough alone, so to her recipe I added a couple of extras to underscore the Indian spice profile:

 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
 1/4 tsp of ground cloves
 1/2 tsp of ground cardamom

Here's What To Do:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Spray a donut baking pan with non stick spray and set it aside
In a medium sized bowl add in the flours, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and orange zest.

 Mix it all  together with a whisk
 Add in the eggs,

Milk,

Olive oil.

Mix it together until it's all combined. Pour it into the greased donut pan. Bake the donuts for about 12 minutes or until they're not tacky on top.

Okay, here's a note. Don't overfill these little suckers. I know it's hard to get just a bit in a mini pan (it was for me) but if you overfill, you don't get donuts. You get an unholy cross between a donut hole and a mini bundt cake. You don't want to do this, trust me. So, be careful and fill the small cups only half way.

If you're careful you'll get this.

 Mini donuts! Wheee!
 Drop the mini donuts into a bag containing the 2 cups of powdered sugar. Shake it up baby.
 Put them on a wire rack to cool a bit.

and serve.

   Here's another note about these donuts. They're best served warm right off the rack. If you let them hang around too long (not that they will) the sugar will sort of melt into the donuts and you'll lose all that great powdery stuff and will have sort of mini glazed donuts. No bad, but not that pretty. Belive it. These donuts are great served with chai, coffee or tea. You don't necessarily have to have George Clooney as accompaniment...

But it doesn't hurt.

   Coming up next, I take bao to India and find that dim sum can be the perfect party food. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori