Okay, so we all love doughnuts, right? Krispy Kreme is my doughnut (or donut? I never know…) of choice on Christmas morning (along with bacon, my mom’s sausage roll-ups, sugared pecans and Hershey Kiss peanut butter cookies, but that’s a story for another day. Oh Christmas, I need you). For every day doughnuts, I prefer Dunkin’ Donuts – I adore their chocolate frosted and blueberry beauties. And sadly, that’s about as far as my doughnut expertise stretched, at least before Tuesday. I had never had a non-mass produced doughnut.

It’s a total travesty, actually.

On Tuesday, however, that all changed. Forever. FOR-EV-URRRRRR!

My co-workers and I were treated to a little departmental office party on Tuesday morning. I jokingly wished for doughnuts, thinking of the delicious Dunkin’ Donut varieties. Little did I know that we were actually going to be treated with “homemade” doughnuts from a cute bakery in Athens called Ike and Jane’s!! When our supervisor opened the two doughnut boxes, my jaw probably dropped – it was like the Holy Grail of doughnuts! There were so many delicious varieties that I thought only existed on Food Network shows! There were maple doughnuts, blueberry doughnuts, red velvet with chocolate icing doughnuts, Snickers doughnuts and my personal favorite, CINNAMON TOAST CRUNCH DOUGHNUTS! It was so beautiful. I even took a picture for you guys.

Obviously I picked that doughnut. It was lightest, fluffiest doughnut I had ever had the pleasure to eat. The icing was just thick enough, the cinnamon toast crunch was abundant and crunchy…oh man, it was TOTAL BLISS. Adam and I also split a maple doughnut that was delicious, but in my opinion did not hold a candle to the cinnamon toast crunch. I also had a bite of Adam’s blueberry doughnut, which was SO much better than the blueberry glazed kind from Dunkin’ Donuts. There was no stale chew, just soft, fluffy and slightly spongy doughnut. Do those textures match? That’s what I felt when I chewed, so whatever. I will never look at Dunkin Donuts the same way again – there is NO comparison.

So Alexi and Bella (her dog) are almost settled in our apartment – so exciting!

Meet Bella!

Alexi actually decided to make some banana nut bread last night (which I have yet to try) and is making some meatloaf for dinner! MEATLOAF CRUNCH X 2!!! The recipe she uses is actually one she made up herself.

Alexi’s Meatloaf
Serves 6-8

– 1.5 lb ground beef
– 3/4 cup ground oats
– 1 egg
– 1 package dry onion soup mix
– 1 whole shredded green pepper (or carrots)
– 2 tablespoons garlic powder
– 3/4 cup ketchup (plus more for topping)

Preheat oven to 400.

Ground the oats in a food processor, then mix all ingredients together and pack into a loaf pan. Top with ketchup. Bake for 45 minutes.

This meatloaf was SO delicious! I have some serious meatloaf decisions to make between my mom’s, Shelley’s and Alexi’s! What I liked best about Alexi’s was the texture and the extra oomph of flavor that the pepper and dry soup mix added to the meatloaf. It was kind of like new age meatloaf, while my mom’s and Shelley’s is more old school. I heart meatloaf. So much.

Also, I tried my first fresh fig, courtesy of Chris. This week we fixed our own pizzas at Chris’s swanky apartment instead of dining out in Athens. It was really fun – I love having great friends at work that I can hang out with outside of the library. Anyways, the fig was actually really good! I was afraid that it would end up being disappointing, much like the dates I tried a while back. The fresh fig tasted a lot like a dried fig – same seedy inside, but much less chewy (obviously) since it’s fresh!

And now I’m off to pack! Kayla and her boyfriend invited Shelley and me to accompany them to a surprise Panama City Beach trip that Justin’s mom gave them for Justin’s graduation present – fun!! I might skip out on food pictures…it would probably look pretty weird to their other friends.