We got pretty well gunnysacked by some cruddy bug. Tis the season. I am finally feeling about 85% so I won't complain about that. Now I just have to get my girl feeling all the way better. She missed three days of school last week but on the first day she and I had a very nice relaxing time making valentines for her class. She made them, I watched and helped with glitter clean up. It was a very nice morning.
The only thing worse than being sick is not being able to get the drugs that I know will make me feel better. I don't drink alcohol or do caffeine (very often) but one bad cold gets my ears hurting and all I want is this:
But of course, the meth makers have made it so in this state, you have to have a perscription from a Dr. We are between Dr's so I had no one to call. Thankfully we live by the border so my dear dear Father in Law brought me two boxes one night. Sweet relief! Adults should not get earaches.
So I didn't do so well with the whole blog every other day but Feb. is another month. On the good side, there is a handful of us ready to take on creative challenge month so off I go on that.
I hope everyone had a great Groundhogs Day. Did you see the photo of that poor creature this morning? Some guy in a top hat with the poor thing hoisted up over his head, tiny feet waving in the air. If I came out of my hole to that, winter would last a whole lot longer than 6 more weeks.
We decided against doing Valentine gifts this year but I figured that didn't mean I couldn't make him something. He loves those salted caramels so I figured I would give it a go. I used this recipe and figured I could probably handle it though candy making is not usually my strength. My first recommendation would be to invest in a good candy thermometer, which I do not have. Mine has a funny dimple mid way up that serves as the spot that takes the temperature. Great if you have a nice big deep pot of something or other but my caramel goo was too shallow. Because of this I didn't get an accurate read the first time and the stuff turned into a brick of hard candy. Fine if you have no fillings, or teeth for that matter, but we do so I chucked it and started over. Another frustration was that I could not get my parchment to fit and stay put nicely in my pan. I tried to tape it on the bottom but the tape would not stick to parchment (which I guess is the whole point of using parchment). I ended up smearing butter on the sides of the pans and the overflow parchment stuck to it like a charm.
My second try I slowed down and kept the temp as low as I could while still simmering and then tipping the pot to imerse the dimple in the goo until I got the proper read. It worked! After they were cool I used kitchen shears to cut them into rectangles then covered them in the darkest chocolate and sprinkled them with fleur de sel. I over heated my chocolate initially so it was really runny but it worked ok. We just got new burners for the stove so I am going to go ahead and blame my overheating of things on that. They were amazing! I say were because they did not last long. I left some undipped because my hubby requested it but the chocolate ones were yummier to me. But they were for him so next time I will cover them all! And there will be a next time. Probably sooner than later...
