Making caramels and a cooking whirlwind

This week we were doing some spring cleaning at the house. I am a huge fan of magazines and I clip recipes from all the cooking magazines I come across. During the spring cleaning, I took my enormous oversize purple binder and got rid of all those silly things I would never end up making anyway. Lets face it, I will never make a recipe for steaks because we simply don't eat beef. Also, why on earth do I have 200 spinach dip, mac n' cheese, and cheesecake recipes? One will do quite well thank you very much! And when it comes to standards, I always turn to the Joy anyway.

Anyway, I was cleaning out my binder and found a recipe for caramels by Ina Garten, clipped from Food Network magazine. That and a recipe for chocolate truffles by Jacques Torres have been taunting me for months. I thought I was woman enough to step up to the challenge of making caramels so I did it....

...or tried to at least.

I put sugar, water and light corn syrup in a pot and boiled it up to a rich golden color. Then I added the melted butter/cream mixture and heated it up to firm ball stage on the candy thermometer. Poured into a pan lined with parchment paper and let set in the fridge for 2 hours.

The caramels looked gorgeous but there was just one problem. They were as hard as a rock! I popped the sheet of caramels onto the table and tried to go at them with my cleaver but it didn't do any good. Slightly pissed off at wasting 3 hours I went online to see where I went wrong. People were talking about temperatures so I went back to the drawing board and made another batch. I heated it to firm ball stage and then added the cream, then back to firm ball, testing in ice water.

While waiting for batch 2 to set, I decided to try to rescue batch 1. I googled that melting the caramel back down and adding more cream would soften them right up. I melted down batch 1 and added about a half a cup of milk because I was out of cream. Being a supremely daring and careless chef I decided to add a large amount of cocoa powder into the mixture just for the hell of it. Put those up to set in the fridge and went back to batch 2.

Batch 2 was just as hard as batch 1. I have no idea how to make these caramels soft the first time! I could google for more information or read another recipe but to be honest, who really wants a bunch of batches of fatty delicious caramels sitting around all the time???

When batch 1 redux was done I was pleasantly surprised. The caramels were soft and chewy, if not a little bit TOO soft and chewy. They were chocolatey and delicious. Like a cross between a caramel and chocolate fudge.

Om nom nom!

I did eventually melt down batch 2 again and add milk to make it soft. Now that batch is WAY too soft and in my freezer firming up until I get around to slicing and putting it in wrappers.

I would definitely make these again but probably only as a Christmas gift for someone. Unfortunately most other people I know do not crave caramels like I do. Also, these won't ship well...sadface.

Adventure into bread part 1 did not go well. I've made bread only a few times in the past and it never seems to get the air I want in it. Granted I was making wheat bread which is heavier. I think the 6 or so hours I put into caramels is probably enough major cooking for the time being but I'll definitely be back to it since homemade bread is the most heavenly thing on the planet.

Also our Meatless Monday is going well. This week we had roasted veggies on rotini with parm (hey it's not vegan Monday!). Last week we had a chickpea spinach curry from my new vegan book which was blah. My hope is to find some good options that are not soups or salads. I would really love to get some good Indian curries down. Also, a simple stir fry with marinated tofu can be heavenly.

Speaking of Asian food, we've been frequenting our local Asian mart a lot more often recently. Compared to the supermarket they have the freshest and best looking veggies in town. I have also been eating a lot of Glica's Tomato Pretz sticks which are almost identical to Pringles Pizza Stix. They are a wheat stick cracker with flavorings on them and I just know I could make these at home. But that is for another adventurous day.

I know my sister-in-law Tu will probably make fun of me but this product - 

-tastes like the green curry we get at Thai restaurants. It is hot, spicy and all you need to do are add veggies of your choice and chicken. We bought some mini corns and some green beans to simmer into the sauce. Simply amazing! Also they have this organic, gmo free rice that comes in a vac pack 10 lb. bag. Man, fresh rice is so incredible. There is such a difference from old rice that's been on the shelf forever and fresh stuff. The final find I found :) was a vac pack of lotus root. I ate these a lot in Japan and I'm not sure what to do with them.

I believe I had them sauteed with a sesame sauce but I can't remember. All the google links say I should just bake them into chips or roast them. That doesn't sound very Asian to me! They are sitting in my fridge and hopefully I will find a way to use them before they go moldy.

Well I hope that was enough food news for all of you. Everything else is going swimmingly.

Off to watch Bitchin' Kitchen!