Dinner for the last day of September

Tonight's dinner was especially satisfying even there was no one else around to enjoy it. After being lazy last night and eating leftovers, I knew I would be cooking tonight. Weekends are my best time for cooking anyway, so I have to get it in while I can. I had a few things on hand that I needed to cook, but I didn't have a concrete plan for how I wanted to make them. But, I did go to the grocery today as well and was very happy to find that Publix suddenly started carrying my favorite "Sunlight" potatoes again. Naturally, I had to buy some. That meant they then became a part of my dinner. Here is one of the "before" pictures to demonstrate how they were used:

I made skillet potatoes with some olive oil, onions, garlic, and green peppers. They really hit the spot. I will have to make them again some time when I have a bigger pan so they will cook faster. The other two things I made were chicken breast (because I needed to cook the chicken) and spinach with chicken broth and red peppers. I need to find out how Craig made the chicken the night we had plank salmon at his house, because it was really good spinach. Even without his recipe, this dinner hit the spot, it was delicious, and exactly what I was in the mood for. This is what my dinner looked like after it was assembled:

But, that's not all, I made dessert too! I planned ahead on this because the dough had to be refrigerated for three hours prior to cooking. I got the idea for this from Nicole at Bakingsheet, who got the idea from Epicurious. I halved the recipe because I couldn't think of any reason why I needed a full batch of pumpkin spice doughnuts sitting around. But, I must say that the only reason I made these was because I was trying to find a way to use up the buttermilk I have leftover from making cornbread, I couldn't just let it go to waste! Anyway, I've never made donuts before, and these are perfect ones for fall. I actually followed the directions for once and had good results. The only problem was that the dough was super sticky so I had to use lots of flour and it was much easier to make holes than entire donuts, so I made a huge batch of holes. If you decide to do the same beware because they're such a nice small portion that you can eat a ton of them before you realize how many you've had - they're really addictive! I didn't glaze any of mine, I just coated them in sugar and spices, but that tasted great. You can really taste the pumpkin in the mix and it makes it taste like Fall, I loved it. It's hard keeping the oil the perfect temperature for frying, and I was even using a thermometer, but everything came out well for me anyway. I really thought it was fun making donuts. I love the way they puff up in the oil, and they taste heavenly. If you're looking for a fall treat, this is it! Check out my results:

Aren't the insides a cool pumpkin color? And look how puffed up this one is:

A half batch makes a gracious plenty of doughnut holes, so if you're not feeding a group, I would recommend cutting the recipe in half like I did, it's easy with this recipe.