My Sugar Daddy

NO I am NOT referring to HIM! At least, not yet.
I have been wanting to learn how to make candy and dipped chocolate for years. We have some extended family that inspired me to get started. Today was the day. I'm making caramels!

Here we have some sugar, whipping cream, milk, Karo syrup, and salt. Only put about 1/3 of the milk mixture in the pan to begin with.
Give it a little stir at the beginning, and then go get a book to read.
Don't stir it! Just watch it from time to time. Nice bubbles. Time to turn down the heat.
The magic is starting to happen. It's changing color. Don't stir it!
When it reaches 220°F, get your spoon or heat-proof spatula. Add the rest of the milk mixture while stirring (keep it boiling!). Now add 1/2 can of sweetened condensed milk and stir, stir, stir.
See it getting thicker?
And more brown? Brown? Brown? Brown! BROWN! (Cheryl, that was for you!)
It's done! Pour it onto a cookie sheet (jelly roll pan) lined with parchment paper. Let it firm up.
And see what you get? Now you can have a Sugar Daddy too!
Caramels

2 cups whipping cream

1/2 cup milk

1 1/4 cup white corn syrup

2 cups sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 can sweetened condensed milk

This recipe can be doubled, and then you won't have to worry about how much is half of a can of s.c. milk, but I just eye-balled it and was fine. Cover a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet with sides (which is what a jelly roll pan is!) with a piece of parchment paper.

Mix the cream and milk together and pour about 1/3 of the mixture into your pot. Add the sugar, corn syrup and salt. Give it a little stir over medium-high heat. When it boils, turn the heat to medium-low.

When it turns a pale beige, turn up the heat and add 1/3 more of the milk mixture, while stirring. Keep it boiling! Stop stirring and reduce the heat once more. Cook for about 10 more minutes, turn up the heat and stir in the remaining milk/cream mixture. Reduce the heat for the last time for about 10 more minutes (the goal is to reach 220°F on the candy thermometer). Add the sweetened condensed milk at this point. Now you have to stir, stir, stir until the thermometer reads 230°F. Keep at it! You're getting so buff from all that stirring! You can do it! You're almost there! Don't give up! When you reach the magic number of 232°F, pour the caramel onto the prepared cookie sheet. Spread it out a little (quickly!) If you really want to make them into Sugar Daddy's, you'll have to pop some sticks in there right now. You'll cut it into rectangles in about 30 minutes when it has cooled off.

Now, if you make this, and if you eat this, if you get it stuck in your teeth and don't brush afterwards, you may be needing to see my "sugar daddy" to remove your sugar daddy.

One of my sugar babies with my sugar daddy.

Disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible for any fillings that may or may not be pulled out of your teeth due to eating these caramels!

My Wish List and Frosting

Did you know that today is National Chocolate Day?

I've decided this is what I want for my birthday. I'll weed out as many as three other cookie books to have it! I'll even GIVE Meredith my High Altitude book to have this one.


Reasons why I love it (and just so you know, I borrowed it from the library, I don't currently own it):

• it has over 500 pages. If I were to make one cookie recipe per day, it would take about a year and a half to make them all!


• it gives measurments by weight as well as by standard measurements


• it gives nutritional info (so I can see how fat I'll be after eating the cookies)


• it has a whole chapter just on Molasses cookies, including one named Joe Froggers.


• There's another recipe called My Favorite Jammies, and one called Nora's Date-stuffed Cookies. Let me just say that when Nora is old enough to be dating, he'd better not stuff himself with cookes. Really, I just like it that her name is in the book and that it's spelled correctly!

I could go on, but I won't (you're welcome). Let's get to the frosting recipe for yesterday's cookies.
This is like Wheel of Fortune's same name category-

Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting (see? whipped cream, cream cheese :))
1 (8 oz) brick cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract (or almond, if you prefer)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
Combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, salt and vanilla. Mix until very smooth and no lumps remain.
In a separate bowl, whip cream to stiff peaks (but don't overwhip). Combine the two mixtures until blended. Store leftovers in the refrigerator for up to one week.

If the cookies are left out overnight, the frosting will set up enough to semi-stack the cookies on to a plate. Otherwise, you need to keep these in a single layer.

Now to get back to reading my library book...

Spooky Sugar Cookies

Big pumpkins, little cats, owls and bats! If you like your sugar cookies soft, this is the recipe for you. The frosting doesn't get hard, so they aren't stackable, but maybe that isn't an issue for you.

Sugar Cookies (because Karen needed this recipe)

3/4 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup powdered sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

extra powdered sugar

Cream butter and both the sugars with mixer for 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each egg, then add the vanilla.

Add salt, baking powder and 1 cup of flour, and mix briefly. Add the remaining flour and mix just until incorporated (don't over-mix the dough). You can chill the dough at this point, to make rolling it out a little easier, or you can roll it out immediately. In either case, roll it out using powdered sugar (instead of flour) to keep the surface from getting too sticky.

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper before transferring cookies to sheet. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 400° F. for 7-9 minutes, depending on the size of your cookie. You need to remove them from the oven when the edges of the cookie are just barely starting to brown.

I'll give you the frosting recipe tomorrow :)

This Was Soup-er!

When Laura was here last winter, she made some soup. It was so memorable that I asked her to find the recipe for me so I could make it for my dinner party.
My company raved about it and demanded (in a nice way) the recipe. I think the soup was the hit of the party. This recipe comes from Family Fun Magazine, however, it is not low-calorie :(

Creamy Mushroom and Chicken Soup (I don't know why the mushrooms get top billing)
6 T butter
1 medium onion, chopped
3 T flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
6 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 lbs sliced mushrooms
3/4 cup sliced celery
3/4 cup chopped carrots
2 cups quartered baby red potatoes
1 cup chopped yellow squash (the kind like zucchini, but yellow)
1 1/2 cups frozen corn (thaw it if you want- I didn't)
2 tsp thyme (I have some growing in my yard. Come over, I'll give you some)
2 cups light cream (half and half)
3/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish, if desired
2 cups chopped cooked chicken

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until tender and translucent (I forgot to buy onions so I threw in a handful of dehydrated onions from my food storage). Stir in the flour, salt and pepper. Cook for about a minute. Add the chicken broth. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring soup to a boil. Add all the vegetables and the thyme. Decrease heat to low and simmer soup about 30 minutes or until potatoes and carrots are cooked through.
Add the cream, cheese and chicken. Heat the soup for 10 minutes longer but don't let it boil.
Ladle into bowls and add additional cheese, if desired.
I made this soup two nights in a row. The first night, I forgot to add the Parmesan cheese, and I purposefully did not add the chicken. The second night I made it as given here. To tell you the truth, I liked it better the first night, which is when our company was there. They could not stop saying how fabulous it was. Give this one a try, with or without the cheese and/or chicken. It's soup weather here. We had our first snowfall yesterday! Five months almost exactly since our last snowfall.

Say Cheese...Cake

In all my baking, I had never made a cheesecake until last Saturday.

The reason I've never made a cheesecake is because I don't like cheesecake, but this one was really quite tasty. This is a pumpkin cheesecake, and it got great reviews from those who ate it. I even had a little sliver of it myself! Make this the day ahead of when you actually need it.
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Crust:
25 gingersnap cookies
5 whole graham crackers
3/4 cup chopped pecans
4 T brown sugar
6 T butter, melted

Filling:
3 (8 oz.) blocks cream cheese (I used 2 regular, 1 lite)
3/4 cup canned pumpkin (not pie filling; that's about 2/3 of a small can)
6 oz. (1 cup) white chocolate, melted (use 30 sec. intervals in microwave, stirring in-between)
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Topping:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla
4 T sugar or powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°. Place cookies, crackers and pecans in food processor. Pulse until you have fairly fine crumbs. Add melted butter and sugar. Stir to combine. Press onto bottom and up about an inch onto the sides of 9" springform pan. Don't put it in the oven yet! You need to cook this in a water bath, so get out your big turkey roasting pan. Wrap the outside of the cheesecake pan with 2 to 3 layers of heavy-duty foil. You're trying to protect the water from the water bath from leaking into your cheesecake. If your foil is not wide enough to cover the entire bottom and up to the top of the pan, consider putting it in a turkey bag to keep it in the water, but out of the water!
Here's a hint in melting the chocolate- you can start with a full minute in your microwave, but then take it out and give it a good stir. Add about 30 more seconds and stir it again. You should be able to stir the lumps out completely at this time. If not, try another 15 seconds and that should do it. Set chocolate aside.
Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the pumpkin, vanilla, and pie spice. Then add in the chocolate. Pour into unbaked pie crust.
Put cheesecake into the roasting pan, put the roasting pan into the oven and fill the roasting pan so the (hot) water goes about halfway up the cheesecake pan. Don't put so much water into the pan that the cheesecake starts to float (how in the world would I know that?).
Bake for about 60 minutes or until set (it may take up to 15 more minutes). You want it still jiggly, like Jell-O.
Remove both pans from the oven. I had a hard time lifting my cheesecake out of the water bath and ended up using my turkey baster to lower the water level until I could get the cheesecake out. I don't know how this is normally done, but that worked for me.
Cool the cheesecake to room temperature, and then put it in the refrigerator for 12 hours or longer. Run a knife along the edge of the cheesecake, then loosen the band on the pan, and pop off the ring.
Just before serving, whip the cream, sugar and vanilla (I used clear vanilla) until stiff, but don't turn it into butter! Pipe (or plop) on a dollop of whipped cream and serve. A little sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg onto the cream would be great. I spooned a little homemade caramel sauce onto the cheesecake and then added the cream.
This sounds like a long process, but it really wasn't a big deal. I guess I don't make cheesecake because I don't like most cheesecake, but I'd make this one again in a heartbeat!

Skookies

I can't finish the Jungle Jim pictures because they're on my work computer and I'm not going to work today, so you'll get this one instead.

One of Karen's favorite desserts is this...a chocolate chip cookie baked in a cast-iron skillet which is called a Skookie.
Caleb, on the other hand, would prefer to eat grapes for dessert.
Karen and I had to share this one because it was too much for either of us to eat by ourselves.
I think someone likes this boy.
His nana likes him too!
A lot!

Roller Coaster

We're almost done with Jungle Jim's. This is a good one...keep your eye on Kaydence (she's the one with the flower headband). All is calm- waiting for the ride to start.

Are we happy? No clue by the looks on their faces!
And here we go...
Getting a little sideways...
A little more tipsy (check out the happy faces now, uh, except for Kaydence)
Then look at what big sister Addyson did- she scooped her up and held on to her (which almost made me cry, it was so sweet!).
The boys had a turn too.
The last time Caleb was here, he wouldn't go on this by himself. Karen and I were glad he didn't have that problem this time because neither she nor I wanted to go with him.
Cool ride, dude.

Bumper Cars

Caleb is waiting for the worker to help him put on his seatbelt. "How do you put on this thing?
All right! Let's roll!
Smash!
Looks like they're having fun!
Crash!
Can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!
It was fun that just our kids were on the ride. It made it easier to take pictures of just "the good kids!"

If these are kids of first cousins, does that make them second cousins? Third cousins? Second cousins once removed? Does anyone know how that works?

Jungle Jim's with Cousins

Last week we took Caleb to Jungle Jim's (yes, again).
But this time we had lots of people with us! I'm not sure why Cheryl is going on this ride (I DON"T do the rides!). I don't know if Caleb wanted a passenger, or if Cheryl thought she could get "action" pictures of the other kids this way.

I like this picture because you can see the moms in the background examining their shots.

I like this picture because both girls have their hand in their mouth.

This was the only shot I got of the boys, but look at Cheryl smiling in the background!

Jeremy's knees go up to Elyssa's chin!

These girls look so nonchalant...just another day, just another ride. Kyanna with her little man, Jones.
Look at this face!
Why, of course, I would love to show you more pictures tomorrow! Thanks for asking!

Caleb's Dental Check-up

Caleb has seen the dentist before, so he wasn't afraid. But just to make sure, Mommy went first.
Caleb was very curious about what was happening to his mommy.
Mommy is fine! Now it's Caleb's turn.
Let's count your teeth...1,2,3,4.....21!
Great job, Caleb! I know you love the dentist Grandpa!