Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen

Have you ever had a Crunchie ? I love them and it is utterly pornographic to watch me eat one as I am one of those people who tries to eat it from the middle without getting the chocolate coating involved.  Alas, Crunchies are mostly unavailable in the good old you-ess-of-ay. So when you want one, you have to make it yourself.  Which turns out to be pretty fracking easy akshully.  Take a very large pan. And by large pan, I mean one that is bigger than what you think. I used the maslin pan. Combine honey, sugar, Karo syrup, and a little water in the pan and heat it up.  (I went with the recipe found here:  Candy with a Crunch - Honeycomb Candy from the Seattlest via the Kitchn ) Let it boil And boil (it mixes itself!) Until it is boiling furiously. And then watch it until it turns light amber. Ok so this is where I stopped taking photos because once the sugar starts to turn color, the distance between light amber and burnt was abouthisclose. I pulled the pan from the hea

OMG I love donuts. It is ridiculous how much I love donuts. I brought donuts to the office today, under the Happy Holidays Clause, and am really hoping I donut embarrass myself by eating them all. These are from Doughboy in Southie. The Evil Twin raves to me just about everyday how awesome Doughboy is and so I figured I would give it a shot. Plus the people who work there are ridiculously nice. Like normal nice, regular nice, which makes the morning MUCH better. My vote: sugar raised. Serious YUM.

JILL! Whoo hoo! You are going to LOVE this book! (shoot me an email with your address and I will get it right out to you!)

Seriously, you are going to LOVE this book.

How come the first cup of coffee always tastes SO DANG GOOD but each subsequent cup doesn't? And those single cup brewers don't do it for me either, so it's not because the coffee sits around disconsolately oxidizing. I guess I just need a bigger mug.

( Editor Update : So the Sales & Marketing Director just put the kibosh on promoting the book as it technically is not supposed to be released until January. So I will just adjust this to a SURPRISE giveway (*wink*wink*) to keep this post alive. If you don't win this "mystery" title this time, I hope you will all pre-order the title over at Amazon. Thank you and sorry for the confusion!) I am ridiculously excited about this book - a) because I love books, and b) this is one of those books where you go from recipe to recipe, eager to make the next one immediately, and c) the author ( Faith Durand ) happens to be a lovely, down-to-earth person who has created a very nice cookbook that is a perfect blend of normal everyday food with just the right amount of fancy. It's a necessary antidote to the Ad Hoc at Home type titles that collect dust ton my bookshelf for most of the year. How lovely does  Beans Baked with Caramelized Onions, Corn, and Cheese sound on a ch

To the person who invented stretchy pants, I give thanks to YOU. Brandied Cranberry Preserves from Linda Ziedrich's Joy of Jams & Jellies  .  I will NEVER make cranberry sauce any other way. Ever Mennonite Cheese Bread for the stuffing. Blanched pearl onions ready for peeling.  Onion and garlic puree. I cooked onions and garlic for ages, slowly, before pureeing it and mixing it with grated cheese to make the sauce for the pearl onions.    Instead of pumpkin pie, I made pumpkin flan. It was pretty and pretty delicious.  Apple Pie.  I love apple pie.  Stuffing.  I could literally eat stuffing EVERY day. This is turkey sausage, apple, cranberry, and sage. Infrared turkey cooker. No oil, no nothing but heat. As you can see it came out looking good. It was also the juiciest turkey I ever cooked. The Thanksgiving Table with my crafty centerpiece. This is my folks house. I am MUCH messier. Shredded raw squash with vinaigrette & dried cranberries. I wanted to lik