I forgot to write a post last night. No good reason for it – I ate, did a little work, watched t.v. and folded laundry then went to bed. I realized it when I was almost asleep and then let it go. Oh, well – nothing much happened yesterday anyway. It’s supposed to snow on Friday, that’s our big news.
Archives for January 2019
Apple Cider Caramels, Batch One
Have I talked about my candy store on this website before? I want to learn how to make candy, but I know I won’t be any good at it. Plus, I don’t have any time for it. My store will be called Terrible Candy. I won’t be open very often and I will have an extremely limited selection of sub-par homemade candy. There will be a cover charge to get in, and you will be obligated to buy something. It will be very expensive and very bad. Gotta pay that electric bill.
My first batch was apple cider caramels. I mostly used this recipe, and I would just like to pat myself on the back for not halving it and messing up. I did almost everything according to plan, except I didn’t reduce my apple cider down enough (bad) and I didn’t put in all of the salt (good).
Basically, you boil apple cider (mine was pre-spiced) until it’s a syrup, then add white sugar, brown sugar, butter and cream.
Then you boil it until it gets to 252 degrees, but I’ll never know that becuase I once stupidly left my candy thermometer in the oven and then baked a pizza. There’s no recovering from a 450-degree shock like that. I made my best guess using the ‘blob of sugar in cold water’ test method. I do not have that perfected.
Let’s just look at butter melting in sugar lava.
When it’s ‘ready’, you add some cinnamon (I didn’t add much) and salt (I used less than half of the recipe), pour it onto some parchment, let it cool and cut it up. The recipe said it would be soft, but mine was very, very soft. I sprinkled the remaining salt on half of it and it’s too weird-tasting, but the rest is pretty good. I kept the remaining squares in the fridge and have been nibbling on them. I might even make a second batch.
See you at the store.
A new old friend and the next phase of cat feeding
Brady, who has commented on this site, has been in Seward the past couple of days visiting Concordia and checking on some work done at the Center for Liturgical Arts. We met him in real life and had dinner with him Sunday and Monday, and learned that he is a very cool dude! Brad, you pick good friends. (Brad and Brady both taught in Baltimore.) Safe travels, Brady!
In other news, the cat feeding has not been working. Emme doesn’t like the wet food anymore and Wally just licks the gravy. Ralph bursts out of the bathroom when he is released and gobbles up everyone else’s leftovers. Tonight, I tried just serving half of a can and dividing it among three plates.
I set them down on the kitchen floor. Emme left right away, Wally licked the gravy and Ralph ran from plate to plate, gobbling it all up.
Eh, at least he ran a little. That’s gotta be progress, right?
You ain’t got no legs, Lieutenant Dan
This has been Lloyd’s spot for the past month as he recovers from his cold. I especially like when he sits like this, just like Lieutenant Dan.
Twinsies
I saw a commercial for an app that lets you see what you’d look like with different colored hair. I downloaded a free one just for fun. I could only try the colors that were free since all the extra ones cost money. No matter – I think I like the purple best!
We went over to Deborah’s for a delicious supper and I made everyone play with the app. I even stood in front of her kitchen cabinets, which are brown like my hair, to see if they’d turn purple. “How come the cabinets don’t change color?” I asked. Lloyd said, “It’s using that facial recognition software and just changes what it recognizes as hair. You should try using that on a photo.” So, I went around trying it on Deborah’s photos and even the church directory. It sort of worked, but the best experiment was…
… y’all ready for this?
.
.
.
.
.
.
Must be VBS week!