Caramels

Whether you say carmel or caramel, they're delicious!  Before Christmas, I got a craving for homemade carmels.  I hadn't made them in years and knew they would be a good addition to all the holiday goodies.
I didn't have a thermometer, so I bought one at the grocery store for $4, how bad could it be?  I made one batch that disappeared real fast.  Right before the holiday, I made time for 2 batches intended for taking to my family gathering.  The first batch went fine and the second seemed to stall at 220 degrees.  I watched it forever before I decided the thermometer must be broken.  Into the trash with that thing!  I saved the carmels, barely.
I went to the kitchen supply store last week and steeled myself to buying a good thermometer, I feared it might be $20-30.  Happy to say, it was $10 on sale 10% off.  I know good tools are important, why hadn't I gone there first.  I've had many a "cheap" thermometer over the years.

Gather all your ingredients-

2C sugar

2C dark corn syrup- the whole pint

1/2 C butter, salted- the whole cube

2C whipping cream- the whole pint

1 tsp vanilla

nuts if you like

Prepare a 9 x 13 pan.  Iv'e always buttered it, but discovered a new use for my Silpat.  Genius!  I just pushed it into the pan and it worked better than anything else I've tried.  I only wanted half of my carmels to have nuts.

Add the sugars and butter together and bring up to a boil over medium heat.  After it's really at a boil, start adding the cream a little at a time.  You have to go slowly and stir a lot to make sure it doesn't boil over.  All that liquid in the cream.

When all the cream is in and your sure it won't boil over, let it continue to boil and watch the temperature.  It'll stay at 220 degrees or so for quite awhile.  When it starts to climb it won't take long.

At 240- 245 degrees, take it off the heat, stir in the vanilla and pour it out into your pan.  Don't dawdle.

The nuts all stayed right where they were,  Not sure if that was the Silpat or not.  The next morning, I put a piece of waxed paper on my cutting board, lifted the Silpat out of the pan and turned it upside down on the paper.  I worried about getting any residual garlic or onion flavors. 

I cut them into pretty small cubes, 1/2- 3/4 inch square, they seem to grow when you chew them.  Use a sharp knife and wrap them in squares of wax paper.  If you don't, they stick right back to each other.  Cut a little, wrap a little.

This is about half of the carmels.  I took a bunch to work.

Rose Festival

Last week we went to Portland's Rose Festival.  We promised the little girls a few rides and elephant ears.  Along the way, we got some fresh squeezed lemonade and cotton candy, too.  The weather was mild all day, so that meant we needed to take some coats for later in the evening when it got chilly.

We missed the fireworks, at the opening 2 weeks earlier, because I had a lousy chest cold and was completely worn out from coughing all day at work.  The rain convinced me that I didn't want to go.  Rain didn't stop me last year.

The warm up ride was a turn on the carousel.  They both liked it a lot.  

Sienna's leery of anything she thinks might be scary.  This was her, "I'm not having fun, but I really am" face.

The next ride was secretly a test to see if she'll have any fun at all at Disneyland next week.  She doesn't know she's going with me and Camille.  I don't think we'll tell her until we get to the airport.  She's a lot like her mother, she'll make herself sick worrying about every tiny detail and drive us crazy with questions.  It'll be my entertainment on the plane, to answer 1000 questions.

She passed the test.  Her first word when it came to a stop was, again!

Hard to get a picture where someone wasn't moving.  I had to settle for this one of the elephant ear eaters.  By now, it was after 9 and the band in the background was quite loud.  The ships were in and the band was all Navy personnel.  They sounded great.

Camille and I went on the Zipper.  Each time I go on it, I think this'll be the year it's no fun any more, but it was still great!

Next year, Fireworks.

Spring Break

Last week, I was lucky enough to have the whole week off with my girls for spring break.  This hasn't happened, ever.  My job involves working weekends and having 2 days off in the middle of the week.  This means that I almost never have days to spend with my kids.  We didn't plan any big vacation, just tried to squeeze in a few things we haven't done in awhile.  On Thursday, we drove from Portland to the coast and went to the Newport Bay Aquarium.  Our group was my youngest daughter, Camille, my oldest daughter, Rachel and her two daughters, Sienna and Olivia.  And me. :)

Rachel, Camille, Sienna and Olivia

Don't the Jelly Fish look like some kind of imaginary creature?

After the aquarium, we went down to the beach.  Sienna hadn't been since 1 1/2 years old, so she didn't remember it.  Olivia had never been.  They were both excited, but couldn't be convinced that it wasn't going to be sunny and hot.  Oregon beaches don't get much warmer in the summer, either.

We were lucky to get about an hour break from the rain.  Just about the time the little girls hands were getting too cold, we started back up the path and felt a few little drops of rain.  It poured the rest of the day.

 Aren't my girls beautiful?

Every picture Camille drew, they had to come over and start digging a stick into it.  She was drawing as fast as she could.  :)

After, we went to Mo's restaurant in Lincoln City for dinner.  They've been there for 56 years and are locally famous.  I'm not a big seafood fan, but I decided to try some of  their grilled salmon and I had the clam chowder to start.  The few times I've had clam chowder in my life, it was gross.  Overly salted, too thick and tasting like old dead fish.  Not a big surprise to a non-fish eater.  But, if they're famous for their chowder, I can try it.  It was great!  Why doesn't it all taste like that?  The salmon was great, too.

We got Dairy Queen cones as we headed home.  All in all, it was a very fine day.

Weigh in Wednesday

I know, it's Thursday.  I worked yesterday and forgot to get to this.

214 pounds, 1 pound lost, 8 so far.  Slow, but going the right direction.  I don't think there's any difference in my pictures, yet.  If I keep losing 1 or 2 pounds each week, there's got to be a point that I can tell it in the pictures.  I'm looking forward to having less belly.

2 nights ago, we had homemade hummus on homemade flatbread.  Even though this little one likes hummus, it took awhile to talk her into trying what came out of the food processor.  Then we had to keep telling her to get her finger out of the bowl.

This is the first time I've made it myself.  Well, I had lots of help.  Her big sister was right with me the whole time.  I wish I'd had the camera out for that.  Next time.  She put most of the ingredients into the processor and ran it.  She added most of the bread ingredients to the mixing bowl and stirred and kneaded the bread.  I was so impressed that a 5 year old could be such a lot of help.  After the bread rested for awhile, I cut it into 8 pieces and rolled out the first bread.  She wanted to try, I thought I'd have a mangled bread to save, but she did it perfectly.  All I did was put the flour on the board and she rolled out all remaining 7 breads.

We ate the flatbread sandwiches with chicken, cucumber, bell pepper, red onion, lime, cilantro and spinach.  What a great dinner!