macaron lesson 3

I tried another macaron recipe yesterday. It worked out pretty good, actually. It was the first time I was super impressed with my batter before I even turned on the oven. And by 'super impressed' I mean, this is how it looked immediately after I piped it. Did I have to scrape it out of the bag and remix it? Nope. Did I cry because I had to stand there helplessly as they spread into each other? Nope. Look at these beauties!

I was a little wary of the oven temperature. It was much higher than my previous recipes indicated. I don't know why the macaron makes me want to mix and match instructions, but for whatever reason, I'm always comparing recipes. This one says to mix it for 10 turns; this one says 15; this one describes the batter as 'lava'; this one's temperature is at 300; and this one's way higher. It's really unsettling.

So macaron lesson for this week is oven temperature. I've concluded that that's the only reason I had two different outcomes using the exact same batter.

Wow, right? With the oven set at 375 then reduced to 325, those poor (perfectly mixed) macarons damn near exploded out of their little shells. I reduced the oven to 300 for my second pan, and voila! Perfection!

With decent shells again, I decided to try making a buttercream filling. I used T's recipe, which was all fine and dandy, but like a total putz, I put in rose water instead of vanilla cuz I thought that'd be all fancy and macaron-y. Boy, was I wrong. Remember how I didn't like lavender macarons cuz they tasted like soap? Yup. Ditto on these.

Rosey!

Deciding the buttercream was a) too sweet and b) becoming more and more rose flavoured (aka disgusting) the longer it sat, I opened up each macaron sandwich and scraped that crap off. They're tinged pink on the undersides and there's probably residual rose taste (gah. It's everywhere), but I just couldn't expect anyone to muscle through that filling. I just couldn't.

Here's my revised idea:

Nutty! 

Peanut butter is starting to be my favourite filling for these. It's easy and it juxtaposes the intense sweetness of the shells really well. 

To be honest, I'm about thisclose to scraping this stupid macaron idea of mine altogether. I really am. Not because they're tricky but just because the more I make them, the less interested I become. Plus I've found that I don't like them as much as I liked them the first time I tried them. I'm on the other end of the bell curve now. So I keep thinking, why should I bother making something I don't like? And more importantly, something that's tricky and troublesome to begin with. 

I would still really like to figure out how to tint the shells. That's something that's definitely not working for me at all. And it would be super nice to figure out some fun flavours...sigh.

Maybe attempting another macaron recipe yesterday was going one step too far. I did do a ton of baking and at one point, I had three different recipes going at one time. Hey, it was rainy. I had to take advantage of the cool weather since I knew I'd have to have the oven on for most of the day at some point this week. I don't trust the weather to be not hot when I actually want to bake. 

Here's a sneak peak at something else I'll be working at starting this week and for the rest of the month!

Yes; that is a stack of sugar cookies. *rubbing hands together* hmmm whatever could I have made these for?

a week of obsessions

1. pearl barley. The texture is amazing! Why haven't I been eating this instead of rice all these years?! (more on this later)

2. getting a half decent picture of the super pretty waxwings that suddenly showed up. I was surprised to see that they were eating the juniper berries. So I'm sorry, junipers. Personal, heartfelt apology. I stand corrected. There is a purpose for you afterall.

not quite! damn focus

oh now we focus when the angle is dumb. awesome.

3. farmer's markets. T and I walked to our local one last night. It was it's first night of the season and you could tell. I think there were only about 10 vendors (and I'm counting the hotdog, popcorn, and mini-donut carts). We're going to give them a couple weeks to get their act together and then check up on them again. It would be so so so nice to have a useful farmer's market within walking distance.

4. the broken fence. I had a dream that we fixed it and then built a garage-like structure over our entire backyard. We couldn't see the motorhome, no one could see us, and everyone's garbage couldn't get into our yard and we sat out there all the time. We were like, haha! Who's obtrusive NOW?!

5. macarons. After making semi-successful ones, I only want to make more! Not to eat, just to make! I've never felt so satisfied and dance-around-crazy excited about baking as I was when I saw those little feet appear. Next time, I'm going to focus on fillings and I might might colour the shells! Eeep!!

6. poppies and peonies. My orange poppies are thisclose to opening.

poppy watch continues

Did I tell you how my neighbours mowed over their practically-a-hedge of orange, oriental poppies last year and subsequently killed them? And subsequently killed a little piece of me in the process? Well, this spring, I noticed a peony growing happily almost where their poppies used to be (never forget), and I've been watching it, excitedly wondering what colour and type it was. You know, since the peony easily ties with poppies as one of my all time favourite flowers (hey, guess what I've always dreamed of having an entire garden plot of!) And then Tuesday came (it shall forever be known as Black Tuesday), when he whipped out the lawn mower he suddenly owns (what?! what?! wait!!! NOOOOOO!!!), and, as I stood in my window and watched, vrroooom right over the peony. This man knows how to hurt me. Deeply.

7. lettuce and chives. I've almost given up on my poor tomatoes who've gone from getting kinda bad to are those dead? Oh wait, there's still a leaf growing. On the bright side, with all the rain and cooler weather, the lettuce I planted last year is doing extremely well! That's right! I planted this lettuce last year and it was so hot and sunny, that I gave up on all my lettuce dreams. The poor things kept getting majorly sun burned no matter what I did. Now that I've discovered these little lettuces doing their thing on their own, I planted some more seeds. If I can't have fresh tomatoes, at least I can have lettuce.

I discovered there were chives in the backyard last year, but I didn't use them as much as I should have. This year, I'm being more diligent. I love the way they smell.

happy kitty bunny pony

I love this book

wrestler cookies

I had to make bread yesterday so I figured that since the oven was going to be on anyway, I might as well give the ol' rolled cookie dough a go. Mostly, I just wanted to use my new cutters. Having cookies was just a side benefit.

I was going to try some random sugar cookie recipe off the internet, but the cutters had a perfectly fine looking recipe on the back of the package so I thought I'd wing it and go with that. The most appealing part of that recipe? No chilling. Any time I have to chill dough for X number of hours super pisses me off. Rising bread dough for an hour? No problemo. Heck, when I make pitas, that dough has to rise for 3 hours and I friggin' love making pitas! I have no problem with waiting for rising dough at all. So you'd think it would be exactly the same for chilling. But it's not. I hate it. I think the reason I'm cool with having rising time is because it's so satisfying to see how much the dough grows in that time period. Like that dough was working the whole time. Not just sittin' back relaxing, doing shit all. Chilling gives no gratification and when you eventually do take the dough out and get to rolling it, it's nearly impossible because it's too stiff and icy cold which makes it even more unpleasant to work with.

Macho Man

Anyway, this dough recipe was seriously the best I've ever used for rolled out cookies. Which is saying a lot because rolled out cookie dough never produces anything remotely good looking for me. Ever. So the fact that I have tons of cookies that all look perfect like this:

Hulk Hogan

and I only minimally wanted to pull out my hair is saying a lot.

The only lesson I learned when it came to that whole rolling and cutting process was to ensure that I rolled the dough out to a thickness that would create the impression from the cutters. Not too thin and not too thick. I had to scrunch up my first two rolling attempts because of those two problems, but after that, I had it down pat. I think the only other thing that might have made more sense would have been to roll the dough out directly on the cookie sheet. Moving the shapes was very difficult. Using a spatula made it a little better, but it got super frustrating when I'd be just about there and the head would rip off, or even worse, one foot on an otherwise perfect cookie. Patience is something I really have to work on.

So then, while they were cooling, I thought (just for fun -- or extreme torture), I'd give a go at royal icing. Something I've never attempted. I used frozen egg whites that I had to quickly unthaw which ended with me slightly cooking them (I've been trying to use my toaster oven for melting and defrosting lately because I want to see if I can go microwave-less. Apparently it doesn't turn off automatically on toast setting 7. Good to know). So I kind of just strained off the cooked egg white bits and went with that. Amazingly, it still worked, I just didn't need as much icing sugar. I decided to pipe an outline on the back of the WWF logo cookies (since they were essentially a square shape -- E. Z.) and flood the interior with thinned out icing. I thought it would be easier and make more sense to do it on the back of these since the detail is so fine on the front. Even with the proper tools, I think it would have taken an expert piper to get the details in with icing. Naturally, it would have been impossible for me to do it at all with a ziplock baggie. So I didn't have some exorbitantly crazy wigged out piping schemes. I didn't even tint the icing to make it even easier. The only problem was the ziplock baggie. Otherwise, I think it would have worked fantastically and looked totally awesome if I only had the proper tools.

Here's what did happen. I almost immediately sprang a leak in the ziplock bag (since the icing was a little on the thick side) so I had frosting coming out up near my hand the entire time, and I got frosting on the zipping mechanism so it wouldn't close which meant I also had frosting coming out the back, and it was near impossible to get an even line after outlining the first two cookies because of clumpage. There was frosting everywhere. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of all that because I was too frustrated to care anymore and the only good looking one I had, I packaged up for T as soon as it was dry. The rest of the WWF logo ones (completely, although awkwardly and mountainously iced) Idle Husband and I devoured last night.

Just so you know, these cookies are friggin' fantastic! Once in a while IH would bring home a decorated sugar cookie from Second Cup, and I swear to you, these cookies taste exactly like that. So now I'm pretty determined to get them right because I want to send a whole bunch of them to work with IH for his coworkers. I mean, hello? Coolest wife ever award? Yeah, me! That's right!

See that little dab of white on Boss Man's head? I ended up just quickly smearing the leftover icing on the back of all these cookies. It ain't pretty but it tastes good.

Rolled Out Cookie Dough (from Wilton's)

1 cup butter (I used margarine)

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar together until nice and light.

Add the egg and vanilla, beating to incorporate.

Add in the baking powder, mix.

Add in the flour one cup at a time and thoroughly mix after each addition. You may have to remove the dough from your mixer after 2 cups of flour have been added and knead in the last cup, but my Kitchen Aid handled the 3 cups just fine.

Do not chill (whoop!) Divide the dough into two balls and roll into a 12" diameter circle about 1/8" thick on a well-floured surface. That's super more important than being precise with the inches (or the circle for that matter), so I suggest you use whatever cutters you're going to use as a guide and roll it till it's right for the cutter (who gives a damn if it's in a precise circle). To get the hang of this, I put the cutters beside the dough and kind of set the rolling pin on top so the dough wouldn't roll down past the thickness of the cutter which would make the dough too thin. Then I'd roll a couple times more so it wasn't as thick as the cutter (since that's too thick) and that'd be perfect. I only had to do this about two times before I could eyeball it.

Dip your cutter in flour for every single use (this is very essential when you have a really detailed cutter like mine were. Sometimes doing it once wasn't enough). Feel free to knock off any excess flour just to be sure it doesn't get in the way of pressing in any details (I did).

Bake 6-7 minutes or until lightly browned (they puff up a lot in the oven which is something I wasn't expecting).

I found my royal icing recipe and tips here.

found: the coolest cookie cutters that ever existed ever

$1.99 buys a lot of happiness, my friends

To her credit, T actually stumbled on them and brought them to my attention as a joke. I don't think she realized I would think that finding this was right up there with discovering gold  in your backyard or a new planet or whatever else you'd discover that would blow your mind away. I don't think she realized I would immediately snatch them away from her and buy them myself. (To be honest, there was a point there where I really didn't know if she intended to buy them at all. We kind of stood there laughing about it then I asked her if she was going to carry them around with her or what, because if she wasn't about to, I totally would because leaving the store without either of us having them wasn't an option. I've since apologized profusely about buying them out from under her nose, and we're totally going to share them.) These have now given me a new purpose. A reason to master the rolled cookie dough that I absolutely hate and have never had any success with ever, and piped icing which I've never even done (I'm sure it's got disaster written all over it); but these cookie cutters can't languish in a drawer, they have to be used and celebrated and enjoyed and laughed about! Next week, I'm making Hulk Hogan and Macho Man cookies come hell or high water!

springy!

I love chasing a post about eating correctly with a gushing review for chips! Most excellent! Well, stupid Superstore sent me an email about their no G.S.T. whatever event this Saturday and Sunday only. Which only mildly pissed me off having just returned from getting groceries Friday morning (and I had to buy meat, too, you bastards). Anyway, I didn't buy chicken because my usual 3 pack of fresh chickens wasn't as cheap as I would have liked, and I sadly lamented not having any chicken in the house to Idle Husband later on when he got home. So even though we don't usually venture into the Superstore on the weekend (danger danger!), he suggested we get some today while still slightly benefiting from the no tax business. Naturally, we were hungry and were eyeing the healthy chips when I remembered I had spotted these Greek flavoured chips a while ago. Approximate reenactment:

Idle Wife: ZOMG! I saw Greek flavoured chips today! I wonder how they'd taste! We have to try them!

Idle Husband: Well. Did you buy them?

Idle Wife: No. Of course not.

Idle Husband: That makes sense.

All right, so I really hope you have a Superstore in your immediate area because you have to go get these chips right now! They were so delicious! I think they might be our new favourite chip and we've always been pretty devoted to Miss Vickie's kettle chips, never ever straying from that choice. We devoured pretty much the whole thing on the way home (ripping open the bag to finish it off as soon as we got in the door). It's nice that this bag comes with an easy open tab and even a ziplock closure but who's actually able to keep some for later? They have a really tangy taste to them. You can taste the olive-y, oregano flavour but it's not super strong, there's just enough of the salty feta vibe, plus there's a creamy, cheesy aftertaste (I'm not even going to mention that it was only $1.49, either). It's very addictive and yummalumma! (I have no idea why I started saying that but now I can't stop. Stupid annoying catch phrase.)

In other news: It's frickin' gorgeous today! (except for the wind wuh wuh) First day of the season without a jacket! Can you believe it? We wore them out, but we were barely in the car 5 minutes when we had to take them off or risk cooking to death. Apparently, it's supposed to rain tomorrow which would be good cuz it's super dry out. Have I mentioned how much I hate the wind? There's nothing quite like the feeling of grit in your teeth after having leftover snow dust blown into your face.

the backyard's pretty cute looking if you use super macro zoom on your camera

I actually spent some time looking out at the backyard today, and as I forced myself to avoid eye-contact with the motorhome, I noticed a ton of these blue flowers had opened! I have no idea what they are (I could probably take 5 minutes and look them up, but meh), but they're super pretty and all around the rock 'garden' a previous owner had attempted. Such a welcome pop of colour. Gasp! I should go cut some for a tiny bouquet!

Happily, the rhubarb T gave me last year (that I unceremoniously plunked in whatever part of the ground I could actually dig into), has survived! There's a big Jehovah's Witness building on the corner that we always have to drive by, and last year I noticed they had used rhubarb as part of their landscaping. I thought that was so clever! Rhubarbs don't have to be relegated to the vegetable garden or the back of the yard away from sight! I wish I had thought of that! Now I don't look at the rhubarb as just an eating plant, but as nice greenery, too. Years down the line, it should be able to grow to a large bush size and provide colour and texture while giving us yummy stalks for crisps and crumbles. Brilliant. (I feel like a PSA for rhubarbs now. "Buy yours today!")

just some quick updates

I read about this weight loss idea (I don't want to call it a program) called, Eat Stop Eat, from this blog a week ago. Basically, the principle is that you take two days per week and fast for 24 hours. I know it sounds kinda crazy and strange, and I thought that, too. But then I started thinking about when I (noticeably for the first time ever) lost a bunch of weight a couple years ago. I pretty much did my own version of this only instead of consciously fasting for 24 hours, I just wouldn't eat if I wasn't sure I was hungry. The idea of that was whenever I felt like I was hungry, I'd get something to drink instead. Almost 95% of the time, I realized I was just really thirsty and not super hungry like I thought. Doing this really helped me listen to my body and listen to what it wanted. I quickly found out that it doesn't need as much food to function as I thought it did, and for the first time in my life I was actually in control. Well, I've since lost that control again and while I gained some weight back, I gained it back differently so while I don't feel or notice it as much, I would really love to regain that control I found before. I decided to give this diet a go, and I started fasting on Tuesday between 8 p.m. and 8 p.m. Wednesday (actually it might have been more like 7:30. I've decided I'm not going to be super strict about it, because I want to eat with Idle Husband when he gets home -- which varies so much I can't really set specific times). Honestly, I wasn't hungry at all until maybe the last hour of the fast, and when I did eat, I didn't even feel like eating as much as I normally would. Thursday was an eat day (I decided) and while there's no rules on what you can or can't eat, I didn't feel like gorging myself just because. I had a reasonable breakfast, I actually had lunch (which I stopped doing before in an effort to lose weight) and a very nice dinner. I felt neither stuffed or deprived. Then I started fast number two at 8 p.m. last night. As strange as it sounds, I already feel better. I think I'm going to continue doing this for at least a month just to see where it takes me.

I've been fiddling around with some ideas for things, but I don't know where I'm going with them yet.

It finally feels like spring might be here to stay, though it's so windy that it's really hard to be outside and actually enjoy yourself. I really hate the wind.

I finished lining the dresser drawers. I used Mod Podge to glue down my antique wallpaper which seemed to work just fine. Only I rushed the job, cuz some of it ended up a little wrinkly. Oh well. I've finally got clothes in them and our other dresser is no longer (literally) bursting at the seams.

I have an idea for moving some curtains around between the bedroom and the office, I don't know if it'll pan out but I'm going to test it today (before I do any major curtain rod moveage). This is all because I'm not really keen on making yet another set of curtains (lazyness abounds).

T's got a charity garage sale going on next weekend, so I've been going through my boxes (again) sorting some of the nicer things out to donate. I'm almost glad I didn't get rid of that stuff. I was going to donate it to charity anyway, but at least now I know exactly where it's going and who it's helping.

Hermes is starting to develop quite the attitude. If he doesn't like something, he squawks incessently until it stops. If he's nervous, he does this little chirping thing. He doesn't flap all around the cage like he does when he freaks out, he just chirps a bit and moves back and forth. He's also getting smarter when it comes to treats. We bought some millet spray (which is basically a bunch of seeds on a long stick) and he completely freaked out when I put it in his cage. Then, a day later, he kinda nibbled it and after that it took him all of two days to completely strip it down to the bare stem. Now I'd really love one of those quick-job hand vacuums as there's tiny, static-clingy seed shells on almost every surface of my house.

Besides all that stuff, I've been feeling kinda unmotivated and uninspired. There's lots of things I should be doing, but I don't want to. I guess it's just been that kind of a week.

Texas brownies

This is what I ended up making as my birthday cake. I'd been waivering back and forth on a cake because I didn't really feel like making the cake I had initially craved about 3 months ago. Apparently, I stop craving silly things like cake if I wait 3 months before making it. There's a good factoid to remember for the future (if in the future I'm able to hold off on doing any craving-related baking for a whole 3 months again). Anyhoo,  I just rediscovered this recipe and since I haven't made it in about 10 years and Idle Husband had never tried it, I figured I might as well. I was doing dishes anyway (never before has that been a good reason to make a cake).

Well, it tasted just as fantastic as I remembered, thankfully. Sometimes when I'm making old recipes I tend to screw them up because they're tried and true so I never seem to follow the instructions as closely as I would with a new recipe. I also had the idea of baking and icing and stacking the brownie to resemble a more traditional cake form (as seen in the picture), but I don't think that idea really worked out the way I thought it would. I think it's best to just let it be a traditional cake-like brownie and be done with it. This cake is anything but fussy so it shouldn't be presented in a fussy manner.

Texas Brownies (from an old Great American Recipes card pack I found in a thrift store in the '90s)

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 cup butter or margarine

1 cup coffee or water (I usually use water, but I had instant coffee this time)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 F degrees.

Combine flour and sugar in mixing bowl.

In a large saucepan, combine butter/margarine, coffe/water, and cocoa. Whisk to combine and heat to boiling.

Pour boiling mixture over the flour and sugar. Mix a little. Add buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Mix well and combine completely.

Pour into a well buttered 17 1/2 by 11 inch jelly roll pan (back in the '90s I had no idea what that was, so I always used -- and continue to use -- my large casserole pan for this recipe. It's about 9 by 12 inches).

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until they test done in the centre.

While the brownies are baking, make the frosting.

Frosting

1/2 cup margarine or butter

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 cup milk

3 1/2 cups (or less) powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

In a saucepan, combine margarine/butter, cocoa, and milk. Whisk occasionally while heating to boiling. Mix in the sugar a little at a time until smooth. Add vanilla.

Pour the warm frosting over the brownies as soon as you take them out of the oven. It'll fill the pan right up, but as the cake cools, the frosting will melt into the cake and settle down so don't be alarmed!

Try to cool it completely and enjoy! (I think it tastes best the next day.)

OH, I also enjoyed these cookies from T. They came presented in the cutest box with a hand-drawn tag. They taste very peanut-buttery, and I like to imagine they're completely healthy because of the oats.

Bienvenue Chez McDonald's!

I finished my portion of T's photo project yesterday and I just have to say, I'm so happy with the way the pictures turned out! Honestly, as we were hunkered down in McDonald's on Tuesday, shooting away and constantly touching and mangling that hamburger, the pictures seemed to be getting more and more unappetizing as the morning wore on. I can safely say, however, after editing the pictures yesterday, that the entire time, my mouth was watering and I needed to keep snacking on cereal and rice cakes just to keep myself from going for a fry run. Here are some of my favourite pics:

Winter fun

Nothing says, "I am Canadian" quite like eating an ice cream cone with mittens on

Please, pimp my car

We officially resumed our walks for 2010

OMG!

Together again!

I found it! I found my lost earring this morning on my walk! Can you believe it! I just looked up to see T crossing the street, and when I looked down again, there it was! And if you happened to drive by at that precise moment, you would have seen me jumping for joy. Yup! I did a little leap/jig with excitement, so in case you saw that, this is why I was doing it. I'm not really some crazy person jigging it up on the sidewalk every day (though, I do tend to sing along to my mp3 player while walking, so maybe I am that crazy person on the sidewalk). Anyway, I couldn't wait for T to get any closer before I yelled out the great news to her which caused the poor man I'd been following for the last 10 minutes to look back nervously. Sorry! It was too exciting to keep to myself any longer!

You know, I'm not that big a believer in prayer or anything like that, but when I talked to mom last week she said to say a prayer to St. Anthony (it's a catholic thing. Say a prayer to Saint Anthony when you've lost something, and you'll find it again), and as usual, I never said a prayer. As usual, I was like, oh yeah, ok whatever. St. Anthony, yeah yeah. But I'm starting to think this whole St. Anthony thing holds water because I'm pretty sure any time his name is even mentioned I've found what I was looking for shortly after. I mean, how likely was it that I was ever going to find this earring anyway? Pretty slim. I practically gave up on it right then and there when I came home last Tuesday and discovered it missing. It could have come off anywhere. Then I find it, a whole week later, on the one path I always take and it's right there, on the sidewalk, not a scratch on it? Not even kicked in the grass or anything? Just laying there, like, oh hey! there you are! I've been waiting for you! Why didn't I see it on Thursday? I scoured that very sidewalk on Thursday! Today I was just sadly glancing at the ground. Half trying to stop because I thought it was futile. Strange, strange, strange.

Well, whatever magical forces aligned to help me find it, thank goodness for it! Happiest Tuesday walk ever!

All by myself...don' wanna be...all by myselfffff -- anymore...

SOB!

These are one of my most favourite pairs of earrings that I ever bought at Value Village for less than $2 and this morning, after my walk, I discovered I'd lost one of them along the way! Part of me wants to go and scour the streets, but another part of me is way too lazy for that. Maybe I'll be able to spot it when I go for my walk on Thursday? Who knows. We walked all over the neighbourhood for a good two hours. It could have fallen off anywhere. Woe is me.

I can't even get full leg extension while walking on this ice and then I see THAT

I have to tell you about my walk this morning! T and I encountered two rather strange things. The first was a minivan plastered with decals from tv shows, movies, restaurants -- you name it! It had so many different ones we  kept circling it so we could look at all of them.

Where does one even find a huge "Ka-Chow!" sticker for a vehicle?

Awesome doesn't even begin to describe this

Then, on one of the slushiest, slipperiest (it's a word now) days we've had, we spot this:

Your eyes do not deceive you. That is a guy on a unicycle.

Mmmm delicious!

Remember that first batch of crabapple jelly I mentioned? Remember how we managed to effectively boil all the water out of it turning it into gummy candy? Well, as it so happened, this was the very first jar we opened. How's that for luck?

* Yes, that knife is sticking straight up in the jelly. It's not leaning on any of the sides.

** And yes, it did take all of my arm muscles to get any jelly out, let alone stick a knife in there.

Now I should go and swiffer the stick off my kitchen floor.

Crabapple jelly (ingredients: crabapples, sugar). The colour is so pretty, and the taste is slightly tart and tangy with a hint of sweet.

Our first batch (read: two jars only) was more like crabapple gummy paste. We had no idea how long to boil it, so we ended up boiling most of the water out. I hope I have one of those jars and T has the other. It would be really sad if one of us got both jars because I doubt that batch is even spreadable. Chewable, but not spreadable.

Peach jam (ingredients: peaches, sugar). So sweet, a little tangy, but mostly sweet. I think this would be excellent on chicken, too.

T seems to think the first batch of this was slightly screwed up as well, but I have no way to confirm it.

Frozen plum slices.

Admittedly, we were going to make the plums into jam as well, but when I went to check on them the day before, I found that most of them had started to turn. So I made the executive decision to freeze them. It's too bad because they were so ripe and sweet and juicy straight off the tree, I think they would have made fabulous jam. Oh well, maybe next year.

We also made applesauce (ingredients: apple), but I decided not to take pictures of that since it looks, well, like applesauce and that's not exactly a very pretty and photogenic food.

I started typing food like this, 'phood'. My eyes must still be hungover from staring into a pot all yesterday.