April's Fool: That Would Be Me

Setting: I'm driving down the road on a Monday evening, trying desperately not to fly off the most pot-hole ridden street in Houston. I'm listening to NPR and decided that I am going to blow my head off if I heard just ONE more story about civil unrest or natural disasters. (I get it, it's a bad situation over there. Can we just have one other story type or must my entire 2 hours of commute each day be this: tsunami, earthquake, Libya, nuclear meltdown, Egypt, Gaddafi, nuclear power, Libya, Libya, Ivory Coast, Rick Perry dicking over education and making a lot of racist comments, Libya, Libya.)

*Suddenly my phone rings*
(So weird, my phone just rang as I finished typing that)

It's my lovely husband. He has come into a possible barter situation with some high end baking tins for muffins. He said that our buddy Patterson was in possession of said tins and was willing to barter for Rock-o-liscious Peanut Butter Cups.




A far better picture of Patterson than my earlier portrait.


Jon asked me what a fair barter was for the tins. He started at 6 dozen PB cups.

That doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that would be the equivalent of 36 packages of the store bought Reese's. That's a package a week for most of a year.

I get a little dizzy. That is a lot of work. I waver. Do I really want these tins THAT bad? In a shaky voice, I tell Jon that I feel that number might be a little high. Would Patterson settle for a smaller number? We proceed to seriously barter for the next 5 minutes until we agree on 4 dozen. I still feel a little shafted, but I detour to the poor-people grocery store for chocolate.

At the store, I found a few bricks of bulk melting chocolate for a reasonable price for the very first time. I carefully read the package to see if it was the dreaded milk chocolate that would cause problems noted in previous posts. Although it had some different ingredients than the baker's chocolate, I got it anyway to save time and money. A one pound brick of  bulk chocolate was the same price as a half pound brick of the Baker's chocolate.

Yes, I like my chocolate with Jack...

I drag ass out of the store, get home, cook dinner, then set to work cranking out candy. I started melting the bulk chocolate, which, by the way, melted horribly like the milk chocolate did for some reason. After about a dozen are complete, Jon stepped in to start helping. He sweetly started me a second pb ball, and started chopping the second brick to melt. After awhile, he steps out to go watch the NCAA Championship Game. I put two completed muffin tins of candy in the fridge to harden.

Jon stepped back in a few minutes later to help me finish of the 3rd and 4th dozen. I sigh with exhaustion. Then, Jon asked if I could make him a special one (read extra fat with 2 layers of peanut butter and chocolate.) I told him I would, except there was a slight problem: we were coming up a little short on chocolate for the 4th dozen. We were about 5 cups shy. He told me that was OK and not to worry about making the full dozen, that we would just stop when we ran out of chocolate.

I got upset because that meant I would have to, at some point, pay Patterson the additional 5 or so cups I owed him. This meant another trip to the store, and another evening making a mess of the kitchen. Jon seems oblivious to why I am upset despite my whining clearly thought out communication. Then he  begins to realize why I'm so upset when I say, "I am almost to the 4 dozen, I just want to finish them out with whatever chocolate we have in the cabinet."

Jon: *blank stare* Four dozen?
Me: Yea, you said Patterson wanted 4 dozen for the tins.
Jon: Yea, but you only have half a dozen here and 1 dozen in the fridge. You're not even close to 4 dozen.
Me: Umm... open the fridge

The only food in our fridge

Jon: Oh my...
Me: What?
Jon: I was only joking about the 4 dozen. You couldn't tell?
Me: EXCUSE ME?
Jon: I was only joking about that number, you just had to make a few for Patterson. I didn't honestly mean for you to make a whole 4 dozen.
Me: *facepalm*

*On a side note, I am now the proud owner of 2 restaurant quality muffin tins. Jon took some of the cups to Patterson at work today. Here is Patterson's response: "These are better than Reese’s!  They’re hearty like they’re full of sustenance.  You should sell give me some of them around Christmas."

Keep dreaming Patterson, you should have enough to last you until about Christmas if you only eat 2 a week, for the rest of the year.

My new pans

Sweet Anniversaries and Other Great Achievements

I know Jonathan and I just got married in December, but it was so close to our 5 year anniversary that I HAD to do something. He is also having a crummy time at the office, so I thought I might do something to brighten up his day.

Guys get embarrassed about flowers so I didn't want to send those. I decided that perhaps a cookie or candy bouquet would be better because a fruit bouquet would have probably gone straight in the trash. He scorns all things healthy. After Googling around, I found some neat ideas. Since he is a Reese's Peanut Butter fiend, I thought this number would be nice:


Awww!


That was until I realized that it cost 60 freakin' dollars! Sixty dollars + delivery charge for 12 standard sized Reese's PB cups plus another dozen or so "fun size" (read: mini) ones, a bow, and tissue paper. Screw THAT! I decided I could probably make it on my own and save myself some money. Not that he isn't worth the $60+, but if I ever want to move out of our ghetto hovel, we have to make some cuts somewhere. So I made a scaled down version because he didn't need THAT much candy, and I had to sneak around the house in spells to get it done. It would have looked suspicious if I carried in a giant grocery bag of candy. I swear he is like a puppy following me around at times. So here is a look at how it turned out, and I will give you a general brief on how it is made:



Not quite as flashy, but does the job. Probably should've added a bow. Oh well.

 To do this project, you will need:

• 1 cheap flower pot, coffee cup or tin bucket
• Floral foam that will snuggly fit into the bottom of your cheap pot
• Wooden craft sticks, dowel rods, or Popsicle sticks in the number appropriate to the number of candy stems you want.
• A hot glue gun with hot glue. Hopefully, your gun has a "low" setting.
• 1 bag of crinkled paper. (If you are cheap like me, you found some old construction paper you had lying around from a previous project, accordion folded it a bit, and sent it through the paper shredder. Ta-freakin-da! Shredded crinkly paper at half the price.
• A big bow (if you're into that sort of thing)
• Your loved one's favorite candy bar in a variety of sizes, in the amount according to the number of stems you want.

Heat your glue gun on a low setting and grab all your supplies. You can glue your foam into your container if you like. I didn't so I could reuse the flowerpot. The end result wiggled a bit because of this, but it was no big deal. If you want to glue it in, put a ring of hot glue around your floral foam and press firmly into the bottom of the container.

Now it is time to start making your "flowers". Turn your candy face down so that you will be displaying the candy name in the final product and not gluing over it. Spread enough glue along a wooden stick that will run down the entire length of the candy bar. Give it just a second to cool so that it does not melt the plastic wrapper of the candy. Then, firmly press the wooden stick into the back of the candy packaging. Repeat for all your stems.

Once all your stems have had time to harden, jab them into the floral foam at various heights and rows. Start with the back and tallest row first, working your way shorter and more forward. Feel free to break of the bottom of your sticks to achieve different heights. An ugly bottom won't matter because it is hidden in the foam.

Slap a bow on the pot for good measure. We had no bows, guys don't dig bows. ALL RIGHT! I forgot the damn bow. Stop judging me. Add the crinkly paper around the base of the sticks to hide the floral foam, and there you go.

I'm sure mine would have looked better if I had more time. (I.e. not done while hopping on one leg while trying to pull pants on for work and running late as usual). The happy effect was achieved despite missing the bow. My beau was happy to get some sweets on a day that was so completely shitty, except for the fact that 5 years ago on that day we became a couple. He was even sweet enough to bring one candy home for us to share.

Magical Candy Making

This weekend, I had to rearrange the kitchen to be more user friendly. During the engagement period, I just shoved kitchen-like items into various cabinets and hoped for the best. After having a wine bottle come crashing down on my head and a stew pan fall and bruise my leg, I needed something else to do while not to getting hurt in the kitchen. I decided candy making would be the next challenge to undertake. Molten sugar burns sounded fun compared to being skewered and concussed.

If you haven't figured it out by now, Jon and I are huge fans of the peanut butter and chocolate combination. It's in everything from our Thanksgiving pies to our wedding cake. However, before I undertook this endeavour, I flashed-back on the batches upon batches of chocolate I've burned over the...um... months. In no mood to relive THAT nightmare, I decided on using the old-fashioned, double boiler method. Microwaves and chocolate just don't jive people. They just don't jive. *very serious face, arms crossed*

Here's what you need to make *trumpets blaring*

Rock-o-licious Peanut Butter Cups
(I added the rock-o-licious part, you can just call them PB cups if you like)

1 (11.5 ounce) package milk chocolate chips*
1 cup peanut butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 package of mini-muffin cup liners or trim regular muffin cup liners to half of their height. (I tried both methods, and the big ones were just too much candy in one sitting. Yes, even for me.)

*Let me just say that I used chips in one batch and 1-2 boxes of Semi-Sweet Baker's Chocolate in another. I preferred the Box-o-Baker's Chocolate myself. You can use the flavor you like most. Oh, I also didn't divide. I melted all at once.


Distructions Directions:

Microwave 1/2 chocolate chips in a microwave safe container for 2 minutes, stirring each minute. Don't EVER do this! Use a double-boiler, which is just fancy for a pot of boiling water with a metal bowl fitting snug over it. Trust me on this one; don't relive my shame. You have to use a bowl that the will not sit in the water. If the water splashes over the chocolate, it is ruined. See below picture for an idea. Be sure to stir regularly so the chocolate doesn't burn. Believe me, as soon as you turn your back...it will. *dramatic music*

While the water starts to boil and the chocolate starts to melt, make the peanut butter ball like so:

In a small bowl, mix together peanut butter, confectioners' sugar and salt. The peanut butter loses its tackiness when you add the confectioner's sugar. I then made a PB ball, wrapped it in plastic wrapped, and put in the fridge to chill. To me, it made the PB even easier to work with. You don't have to do it, don't get your panties in a wad if you don't have time to chill it.



"Mise en place!" as Chef Anne would say.


Spoon melted chocolate into muffin cups, filling halfway. If you have hands of steel, you can make a piping bag out of a sturdy plastic bag and clip the corner. I tried both ways, each with their own advantages. You have to work quicker when piping because the chocolate cools faster. However, it is less messy. The spooned chocolate stays hotter, but gets everywhere on the way to the muffin cup. Messy Messy Messy! You decide what works for you. Here is me attempting not to scald myself:

Piping bag inside the oven mitt.

With a spoon, you can draw the chocolate up the sides of the cups until evenly coated (if you like). What I did is make a fat, quarter-to-half-dollar sized disc of PB from the ball and gently pressed it into the hot chocolate at the bottom of the muffin cup. If you look closely at the first picture, you can see that it sort of welled up around the PB disk. Don't press too hard or you will have PB at the bottom of your cup instead of the inside.

If you divided your chocolate, melt the remaining chocolate. Spoon/pipe over the peanut butter center and spread the chocolate to edges of cups. Then place the candies in the fridge to cool and harden. Here is how my came out:



Excuse me little niblit, you PB is showing. Oh my! 

These beauties were summarily nommed until gone. There were no survivors for the office.