My sister has declared me to be a Suck-Job Extraordinaire. I haven't blogged in....about a month. It's not that I've not been doing stuff either...it's that I just have felt busy. Really, really busy. October has been a crazy month and I know it's not getting any better until January. So, I'd better make time.
There was a pumpkin patch to explore...
A Dorothy costume to make...with a little help from my mom. I'm pretty sure this would have been a disaster if I had been on my own. Beside the zipper which never would have made it in....it would have been wrong in every way. Thanks Ma!
As well as a new quilt from a wacky selection of clearance fabrics that I've been holding onto for about a year...
More of that later.
I was explaining to my sister all the delights I was planning on making for Halloween dinner...she told me if I don't blog about it she will never be my sister again. Fine! I'll take a few pictures, write a few words, see what happens.
Our Halloween tradition is invite the parents over for dinner and doughnuts. Dinner being chili at my house and doughnuts at her house...I'll talk about the doughnuts at a later date...let's just say they are going to be extremely questionable this year.
So, in addition to the chili I figured I had to have some dessert items on hand just in case. It so happens the my oldest and I were watching the lovely Ina Garten and she made a couple things that my oldest was desperate to try. As her mother, I felt it my obligation to high-tail it to the gourmet food store and buy a week's salary worth of chocolate to indulge her wishes. I need to encourage her, right?
White Chocolate Bark topped with pistachios and dried apricots and dried cranberries. Yum. This seems like it will have a Middle-Eastern vibe to it and I love me some Middle-Eastern food. The salted pistachios against the sweetness of the white chocolate with the tanginess of the dried fruit...it sounds like perfection. So, that is item #1
Chop up a nice hunk of white chocolate. I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for the good stuff. This is Callebaut White Chocolate. Yum! You have to temper the chocolate to ensure that it will harden and not look yucky. Please refer here for tips on how to handle your chocolate.
Add some delicious toppings to your melted chocolate...
Reap the rewards. I will tell you after tomorrow how this tastes. It needs to set up and it's for after the doughnuts don't turn out.
The other item we will be having is home-made marshmallows and gourmet hot chocolate. I have yet to make the hot chocolate, so I will hopefully have some pictures to show you of it tomorrow. It's Jacques Torres' recipe and he is a fancy lad from France who is a big-time chocolatier. So, hopefully it's yum. It involves my dark chocolate Callebaut and powdered milk basically.
To go in the hot chocolate, we have Homemade Marshmallows also by Ina. My Oldest was entranced. To actually be able to make your own marshmallows seemed like some kind of holy magic that she had to be a part of. I have attempted homemade marshmallows in the past...but I had never actually seen Ina make them and so I watched and realized I had always made some fatal errors...and maybe the recipe I was using wasn't quite accurate either. So I tried it her way...and they worked perfectly! They are sitting on my counter drying out a little bit...Cross fingers they are awesome.
The gelatin softening. I don't even know what I did wrong in times past...I do remember the smell of wet dog though coming from my mixer...this time, they did not smell like wet dog...that, in and of itself is a success if you ask me. Something about the gelatin..I don't know...not delicious.
Yes, there is a candy thermometer involved. I seem to ruin my candy thermometers on a semi-regular basis, but this $5 jobber did a very nice job!
Marshmallows getting mixed to smithereens. Let me just say the marshmallows poured beautifully into my pyrex dish and I have extremely high hopes for them. Again, I will give you the review after tomorrow.
I was not done yet! For Sunday dinner, we decided to have caramel apples thanks to This woman. I did not follow her recipe at all, I did my own thing which involved a nice caramel block from the gourmet candy store and some Callebaut milk chocolate drizzled over the caramel...but she did give me a little inspiration.
I didn't take a finished picture...oh well, we haven't eaten them either. But, I guarantee they are going to be some kind of good! I'll try and remember to take a picture before they are all devoured.
This is what is known as experimenting, which just so happens to be my favorite kind of cooking. I am hoping for the best!
I love Fall!
There was a pumpkin patch to explore...
A Dorothy costume to make...with a little help from my mom. I'm pretty sure this would have been a disaster if I had been on my own. Beside the zipper which never would have made it in....it would have been wrong in every way. Thanks Ma!
As well as a new quilt from a wacky selection of clearance fabrics that I've been holding onto for about a year...
More of that later.
I was explaining to my sister all the delights I was planning on making for Halloween dinner...she told me if I don't blog about it she will never be my sister again. Fine! I'll take a few pictures, write a few words, see what happens.
Our Halloween tradition is invite the parents over for dinner and doughnuts. Dinner being chili at my house and doughnuts at her house...I'll talk about the doughnuts at a later date...let's just say they are going to be extremely questionable this year.
So, in addition to the chili I figured I had to have some dessert items on hand just in case. It so happens the my oldest and I were watching the lovely Ina Garten and she made a couple things that my oldest was desperate to try. As her mother, I felt it my obligation to high-tail it to the gourmet food store and buy a week's salary worth of chocolate to indulge her wishes. I need to encourage her, right?
White Chocolate Bark topped with pistachios and dried apricots and dried cranberries. Yum. This seems like it will have a Middle-Eastern vibe to it and I love me some Middle-Eastern food. The salted pistachios against the sweetness of the white chocolate with the tanginess of the dried fruit...it sounds like perfection. So, that is item #1
The other item we will be having is home-made marshmallows and gourmet hot chocolate. I have yet to make the hot chocolate, so I will hopefully have some pictures to show you of it tomorrow. It's Jacques Torres' recipe and he is a fancy lad from France who is a big-time chocolatier. So, hopefully it's yum. It involves my dark chocolate Callebaut and powdered milk basically.
To go in the hot chocolate, we have Homemade Marshmallows also by Ina. My Oldest was entranced. To actually be able to make your own marshmallows seemed like some kind of holy magic that she had to be a part of. I have attempted homemade marshmallows in the past...but I had never actually seen Ina make them and so I watched and realized I had always made some fatal errors...and maybe the recipe I was using wasn't quite accurate either. So I tried it her way...and they worked perfectly! They are sitting on my counter drying out a little bit...Cross fingers they are awesome.
The gelatin softening. I don't even know what I did wrong in times past...I do remember the smell of wet dog though coming from my mixer...this time, they did not smell like wet dog...that, in and of itself is a success if you ask me. Something about the gelatin..I don't know...not delicious.
I was not done yet! For Sunday dinner, we decided to have caramel apples thanks to This woman. I did not follow her recipe at all, I did my own thing which involved a nice caramel block from the gourmet candy store and some Callebaut milk chocolate drizzled over the caramel...but she did give me a little inspiration.
This is what is known as experimenting, which just so happens to be my favorite kind of cooking. I am hoping for the best!
My donuts are going to be epic and amazing. I'll tell you what. Plus...which year hasn't been a failure? I imagine that I can't get any worse at homemade donuts..right?
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