Saturday: Cincinnati’s Best Donuts, Using Up the Grilled Chicken & Dinner at Silver Spring House

I woke up this morning to a text from my dad saying he had donuts for us and was basically waiting for our lights to turn on.

Not a bad way to start a Saturday.

He had gone to Golden Hands, which, if you’re local to Cincinnati, I am telling you: these are the donuts.

We’ve done the other Cincinnati favorites. Servatii. Holtman’s. They’re good.

But Golden Hands is our favorite by far.

They’re so fresh and delicious, but you do have to get there early if you want the full selection. Apparently my dad took that responsibility very seriously this morning. We like to do what we call the ‘donut draft’. I cut up donuts into chunks and you can have lots of little pieces on your plate rather than just one giant donut. You end up eating the equivalent of a whole donut, but get to try other flavors too…my kids love it!

My Donut Alternative

I can’t eat the donuts, but watching everyone else eat fresh donuts meant I obviously needed something good too.

So I made myself my one-bowl oat nut. I’ll link the full recipe here.

Today I used a nectarine in place of the apple in the regular recipe.

Then, when everything was still nice and hot, I tossed in some frozen blueberries. They thaw into the warm oats and get a little juicy, and the nectarine-blueberry combination was really good.

Not a donut.

Still a very good breakfast.

One Last Round of Grilled Chicken

For lunch, my main objective was to finish the grilled chicken I made Wednesday night.

Chris had an open-faced chicken sandwich.

My teen made a chicken quesadilla with a tortilla, cheese and chicken, then had dipping sauces on the side—salsa, Caesar dressing, whatever sounded good.

I used my portion to make another barbecue chicken salad.

A few of the other kids weren’t interested in chicken at all, so they had some of the leftover ham from last night’s dinner with pasta.

Same lunch period. Completely different-looking plates. But I didn’t really cook anything new.

And most importantly:

The grilled chicken is officially gone.

That’s exactly what I want to see by Saturday.

I cooked a big batch Wednesday night, used it for meals over the next few days, and finished it before starting another week.

We still have a little of the Costco ham left, but that has plenty of time since I just opened it last night.

Saturday Night at Silver Spring House

This afternoon we went to Mass, and afterward my parents took the whole family out to Silver Spring House for dinner.

We all really like it there, and tonight the kids discovered a very important new addition:

A wall of candy machines.

The old-fashioned kind where you put in your quarters, turn the knob and get a little handful of candy.

You can imagine how my children felt about this development.

Ten out of ten decision as far as they’re concerned.

Apparently We All Need Chicken Tenders for the Table

My teen tried their BLT pizza tonight and said it was really, really good.

But if you go to Silver Spring House, I also have one recommendation:

Get the chicken tenders.

Even if nobody at the table is technically ordering chicken tenders.

Just get some for the table.

Someone will eat them.

Actually, everyone will eat them.

They’re always a hit.

So between fresh donuts showing up at our house this morning, using up the last of the grilled chicken at lunch, Mass, and dinner out with my parents, this was a pretty great Saturday.

And I barely had to cook.

I’ll take it.