Weekend Update

So, I mentioned in my last post some things I wanted to do over the weekend. Some I accomplished...some I did not. It was a good weekend either way.

Friday, we had our company Christmas luncheon, which I enjoyed much more as a luncheon rather than a more formal dinner. It was much more relaxed and fun. Afterwards, I ran around and did a little Christmas shopping, but not much...traffic was absurd! That afternoon, Kyle called me to ask if we had plans for that evening that he was unaware of {good boy} and said he'd been invited to go to a hockey game. So we went! I'm not that huge of a hockey fan because, well, I don't understand most of it. But like baseball, it's a lot more fun to watch in person than on TV. The best part, was that I got to know some of Kyle's co-workers and their wives. Very cool people. It was nice to hang out with like-minded people socialize for a bit. I forgot how much I missed that kind of stuff. This is a bad picture, but it's the only one I took.

Saturday, I began doing some holiday baking. I made fruit cakes, marshmallows, ginger snap cookies, and red velvet whoopie pies. The only thing I had made before were the ginger snap cookies...the rest were total experiments. The thing about me and cooking/baking is that I'm pretty good at it...but I make HUGE messes. I ran the dishwasher no less than five times over the weekend. As you can see from the picture below, our rent house doesn't have a lot of counter space...so I used every surface available, even bar stools. 

I'm not going to use this whole post to write out the recipes I used and such, but I've linked each goodie to it's respective recipe above. The only one I really changed up was the ginger snap cookie recipe. I liked Alton Brown's recipe in terms of spice mixture and such, but he used metric measurements for everything...and I'm just not a metric kind of gal. So, I used the spice mix from Alton's recipe, and the recipe for the actual cookie from the link above the picture. I was also pretty impressed with myself that I made the marshmallows without a candy thermometer. They aren't perfect, but pretty darn good for not having something to gauge it by.

The other thing I learned is that in Houston, you don't necessarily need to store baked goods in an airtight container for them to retain moisture. The air is so humid already, my ginger snaps were softer the next day. No worse for the wear, though. I just don't know if I'll ever be able to make merigues.

There wasn't enough football on TV to keep Kyle entertained, so he went shopping/people watching. My other sidekick did this. I guess he thinks he's a cat.

Every now and then during the night, he'll growl and bark in his sleep, but this was a first during the day. He did it long enough that I was able to catch it on video.

So, earlier I said something about making fruitcake...I'm sure some of you went blecgh! This one is a little different than those green candied cherry things (cherries are not supposed to be green!). It's a recipe I found on Alton Brown's website...so I thought I'd give it a try. It starts with soaking six different kinds of dried fruit in rum overnight. Not a bad way to start a cake, right?! The next day you cook the rum-soaked fruit in sugar and apple juice until it's almost caramel-y. Then you mix in the flour and eggs, pour, and bake. Here's the interesting thing, and what makes it super yummy. After the cake has cooled, you wrap it in cheese cloth and spritz or baste it in brandy...for TWO WEEKS.

I started this a little late, so my cakes won't get the full two-weeks of brandy basting in, but I'm sure they'll still be good. I couldn't find a normal spray bottle for the brandy, so I bought a little travel sized hair spray bottle. I'm so innovative.

So, after all of that taste-testing...I'm surprised I'm not diabetic. It was a lot of sugar, but it was well worth it. I packed most of it up this morning and brought it to my co-workers as a Christmas treat.