diverting back to houseblog, this will be my final houseblog post for a while. why? today nate and i finally closed on our house – two weeks past the initial closing date. woo! finally we are homeowners again. I’m excited to not worry about keeping quiet, paint the walls, put in a garden, PARK IN A GARAGE. omg. winter’s coming, you know. it was nice today, but it’s right around the corner.
and speaking of around the corner, christmas is. but thanksgiving is still only 2 weeks away, and for some reason the coffee shops have decided to get rid of anything pumpkin. i don’t understand it? thanksgiving is as much about pumpkin as halloween is. hello?? pumpkin pie??? but no, they’ve converted to mint everything, and i already miss my pumpkin mocha. (they do still have pumpkin bread, though, which is a relief.)
caribou, if you read this, let’s keep pumpkin around til at least thanksgiving. i like mint as much as the next person, but come on! let’s not rush things! life is short enough as it is to not savor pumpkin as long as possible.
let’s take a momentary break from HOUSEBLOG to dwell on something truly glorious: the panera chocolate cupcake. take a moment to dwell on the perfection of this cupcake form. now imagine a moist cake part that is full of chocolate chunks and a GOOEY CHOCOLATE CENTER. not to mention the frosting wasn’t gross or crusty at all. totally worth the 500 calories the website claims.
ok, now that that’s over, nate and i are looking at the awesome kitchen house again tomorrow morning and my dad is coming along to take a look. he drove past this afternoon and sounded like he approved (unlike our house in st. joe). i’ll try to remember to take more pictures and who knows. maybe tomorrow we’ll make an offer. hmmmm.
this thing
is amazing. limeade sparkler from taco bell. and no devil’s syrup!
called the realtor today and left a message. i called at 4:30, so either he was out for the day or out looking at a house with someone. hope he calls me tomorrow.
august was an epic fail whale on blogging every other day! september shall be a fresh slate. we’ll see what happens.
after much deliberation (well, not that much), i decided i had to go back to the state fair because the first time was so hot and gross and i didn’t find my deep-fried milky way. i called up jane and said, hey! let’s go to the fair again! so we did, this time in the evening so we wouldn’t be so hot.
first i got a footlong hot dog because i hadn’t had supper. then we went to the ag/hort building again and found the internet seed art thats making the rounds on reddit. also found an awesome krampus piece.
afterward, i finally finally got my deep-fried milky way. it was glorious. heaven on a stick. wonderful, gooey nougaty, caramelly, chocolatey donutty fried goodness. *drool* (i should’ve gotten two).
took a little stroll and ended at the food barn where i bought my coworker some taffy and some cheese curds to split.
we walked to the horse barn after i had a mouthgasm and checked out the horses since nate can’t peruse the horse barns (allergic) and jane missed them previously. then off to the midway!
then, and i’m still not sure how i managed this, i convinced jane to go on the skyride across the fair to the other side (it was closer to the place where we had to catch the bus, maybe?). totally worth the $4/person cost! we went across the fairgrounds at night and saw all the lights. here’s jane scared outta her wits.
we ended on a high note of some lemonade and tom thumb donuts, then had to leave because i still had to drive back to rochester that night (work the next day). definitely worth the second trip.
the great minnesota get together was certainly hot when nate and i went. ugh…
we got there around 9:30 and stayed until almost 1:00, by which time i’m pretty sure nate had some level of heat exhaustion or dehydration. lovely.
the food scene was pretty minimal since it was so hot a person didn’t really want to eat anything. i had a chocolate sundae upon entry at the dairy building, and then i got a huge bucket of french fries (a mistake – should have gotten a smaller bucket). nate got a chunk of cheese deep fried on a stick and a scotch egg while i sucked down a summer shandy.
we stopped at the craft beer booth and each got something we didn’t necessarily like – he got a surly furious and i got a something something pumpkin pie spice beer. i drank it with my mini donuts (tom thumb, of course). we walked down to where our landlord’s food stands were and got some crab fritters for free (the star of the day, actually! they were really good!).
i missed cheese curds and especially my deep fried milky way. wouldn’t have minded something a little more substantial, like a hot dog or something.
overall the food experience was pretty bad and we didn’t see that much of the fair because we were hot and felt gross, although the crowds were minimal. it was sad because i was so ready to forgo my devil’s syrup rule and eat all things that i would normally avoid. 🙁
we went to the poultry, rabbit, and sheep barns, but steered clear of the horse barns (we didn’t need a trip to the ER for nate in anaphylactic shock). (look at the sheep’s hardware! omg! nate said as i was taking a pic: “are you getting a close-up of his balls?”)
nate and i are going to the mn state fair next tuesday. guess what happens at the state fair? i toss my devil’s syrup rule out the window for the day. what do i most look forward to this year?
1. mini donuts!! (tom thumb baby!)
2. deep-friend milky way!!
3. french fries!
4. beer! (summit or leinie’s)
5. deep fried lobster!
6. new – they have a candied bacon canolli – omg
7. corn dog!
nate’s looking forward to the 1. deep fried cheese chunk and 2. koshari from the holy land delit place.
i love this: http://www.mnstatefair.org/find/food/?-skiprecords=0 (food finder)
and this: http://www.mnstatefair.org/fun/new_food/ (new foods list)
relaxation station! relaxation station! relaxation station!
i made some marshmallows to take to the reunion since plain jane ones from the store have devil’s syrup in them. it was my first time working with gelatin, so that was interesting (i never said i needed vegan marshmallows…). anyway, it was pretty easy. boil together water and sugar while the gelatin chills in some water, mix in the gelatin and bring back to a boil. then whip it for 10-15 mins until it looks nice and fluffy, like marshmallow…fluff.
it actually looks a lot like meringue. add some vanilla and salt (i also added a wee bit of almond extract) and pour into a pan to set. and that’s where we’re sitting right now. hopefully tomorrow it’ll be less tacky to the touch and i can slice them up and roll them in powdered sugar. smores here i come!
(on a side note, i realized today that everything i’m bringing treatwise to the lake is gluten-free – good for kathy and josie, i guess!)
so i’ve been living another lie! i think the fda has recently started requiring food companies to list ALL ingredients, even those that comprise a very small amount. which means that things that have contained DS have gotten by me because it wasn’t required for it to be listed! but i’ve been seeing a lot of ingredients lists with a big old “Contains less than 2% of the following:…” and lots of times, DS is listed.
the only thing i could find in a quick internet search is this lady’s blog who lists the “2%” rule (#1).
case in point: M&Ms. i know i had read the ingredients list of M&Ms in the past and deemed them ok. yesterday i bought a $9 party pack for monster cookies, and guess what’s listed on the ingredients as less than 2%? yep, devil’s syrup.sigh. the damage was done, as that little DS isn’t going to affect my bowels in any way, and my goal is primarily monetary. now i’m going to have to start reading the ingredients lists of foods i’d already deemed awesome.
so while some companies are changing their recipes, ie honeymaid grahams, special K, worcestershire sauce, others are now finally required to list all their ingredients. i can’t win!
what does a person do with a dozen eggs and a pound of spinach a week?
egg bake! i started off using a recipe, but ended up not really following it. I fried up a half a package of bacon, a bunch of green onions, and adde some parsley and all my spinach (maybe a half a pound?). whisked a dozen eggs with some sour cream (1/2 cup or so) then added about 2 cups of cheese. spread the spinach/bacon mixture on the bottom of a 9×12 then covered with the egg mixture, then sprinkled more cheese on top. baked at 350 for 25 mins (a knife stuck in it came out clean).
in other cooking news, i am trying to decide what goodies to bring to the derry reunion in a week and a half. i’m already making some homemade marshmallows. what else? special k bars? monster cookies? cake pops? i’m not making macaron again this soon!
so you want to make some macaron. first, let’s say it right. not macarOOn. it’s not even technically macarahn or macarohn (although those are both better than macaroon). it’s frenchie. macaroh – and end on a nasally frenchie sound from the front of your throat.
the first two batches of macaron i made were bad. yes, they tasted good, but the macaron is as much about the aesthetic as the taste. you’ve got to get that foot on there. without the foot, you’ve got a bad macaron. on my third try, i found a good recipe, and i had watched a tutorial on youtube on how to prepare the batter. my feet arrived.
the first and foremost thing you need to make macaron? a kitchen scale. this makes all the difference in the world, because you can get your ingredients exact. and macaron are picky, so you need exactness.
the ingredients are pretty minimal.
120 grams egg whites, divided
35 grams white sugar
150 grams almond flour
150 grams powdered sugar
you will also need to make sugar syrup:
150 grams white sugar
50 grams water
making macaron starts the day before. as much as conventional wisdom says not to, you need to let your egg whites sit out on the counter overnight. this thickens them up and helps maintain the meringue. you can cover them – they just need to be room temperature for about 24 hours.
start off by whipping 60 grams of egg whites in your mixer until you get soft peaks. then add the 35 grams of sugar. let this whip away while you make the sugar syrup.
you can use your smallest pan for the syrup. throw in the sugar and water and whisk to combine. let it come to a boil and once it reaches 230F on a thermometer, you’re golden. pour the boiling syrup slowly into the mixer as it’s still whipping your egg whites and sugar. let that whisk for about 10 minutes or so while it cools down and creates a nice, shiny meringue.
in the meantime, you can get your almond flour and powdered sugar measured out. it helps to push the almond flour through a sifter, just because there are occasionally still larger chunks of almond in it.
once everything’s measured, combine the almond flour, powdered sugar and remaining egg whites (60 grams) in a bowl. mix it together.
this is also a good time to prepare your pans. i use cookie sheets with parchment paper. you can also use those silpat things.
by this time, your meringue should be pretty cool. fold in the almond/sugar mixture into the meringue. this is where diligence is key! once everything’s combined, you need to continue to mix the batter. this is called “macaronage” – you push the batter up against the side of the bowl until it runs off your spatula like magma. too little and your foot is nonexistent. too much and your foot will run all over the place (hahaha). not quite there.
once your batter is good to go, stick a little bit into a pastry bag to pipe onto the cookie sheets. i put some food coloring in the bag itself to get the swirly look. had a couple weird ones when some of the food coloring splattered out. if your macaron don’t flatten out to a smooth, shiny surface, you haven’t macaronaged your batter enough.
in the past i’ve made my macaron about 1″ wide – this time i made them wider because i hate filling so many macaron. smaller macaron take up 3 of my cookie sheets, but these wider ones only took up 2 sheets. woo! now it’s time to let them sit. yes, leave the macaron out on your counter for about an hour – the top should turn from shiny to matte.
once they look like this, time to turn the oven to 320F. put them in for 15-25 minutes. the smaller macaron i make take about 13 minutes, while these guys took close to 23 minutes. you can test them by grabbing the top of a macaron and shaking it to see if it kind of slides against the parchment. if the top comes off and leaves the foot on the parchment, not done yet! (i did that today…oops.) check in 2-minute intervals until they’re good. look at the foot!
let them sit on the parchment for a while before unsticking and filling. i made a cream cheese/almond butter/powdered sugar filling this time. try to match up the cookies with like sizes and fill away. this time i used a piping bag to fill – much easier than a knife! put them in the fridge for the first 24 hours at least. and above all, make sure you don’t store them with any other kind of cookies – they will take on the flavor of the cookies around them. and if you don’t have a perfect macaron the first time around, my experience has been there are always many people willing to eat your mistakes 🙂
