Fun in the Snow

It was a beautiful sunny day today, but unfortunately it felt like -28°C (-18°F). I couldn't stay out too long, but I needed to see the sun. A little sun on my cold face was better than none at all.

I don't have snow pants but I went ahead and made a snow angel. It was quite enjoyable, actually.

I also became a scientist for a few minutes and did the experiment to see what boiling water does when thrown into cold air. There is a great summary of people trying it out here and here. Apparently some people who try it burn themselves, so if you try it, don't burn yourself!

Here is my attempt at it this morning. It was only -20°C but it still seemed to work.

I Live with a Magician

Around suppertime last night, I noticed there was leftover mac and cheese, but not enough for both of us.

John said: "You have it and I'll make something later."

We've been together long enough that I know full well that the 'something' he made later would be 1000x better than the mac and cheese. By that time, I would already be full of my supper and be extremely envious of whatever he spontaneously came up with.

I told him I wanted what he was having (I trusted it would be amazing), and we agreed the mac and cheese could become a side dish or a snack for later.

John asked: "Do we have chicken?" We did. Then the words "spicy chicken" came out of his mouth and he just does what he does, which is make something truly amazing out of nowhere. He doesn't use a recipe, he doesn't measure, and I am pretty sure he doesn't know what the final result will be until he is halfway through cooking it. He definitely has mad kitchen skills.

Which allow this to happen:

Spicy curry chicken

John also took the sweet potato I was going to steam, diced and spiced it, and we had curried sweet potatoes on the side, all served over basmati rice. Take that mac and cheese leftovers!

My spontaneous curry plate

The flavour combinations were all amazing and John said: "I just wanted to have something that tasted really good." We definitely did and I get to have the leftovers for lunch today. Mmmmm...

Mid-January Christmas Fudge

Not sure what it's like at your place over the holidays, but here the house is constantly full of treats. I didn't even bake that much this year and it was still treat overload. We would just get through a tray of something and a new load of goodies would show up. It was amazing, but getting back on a schedule where I don't eat a baked good every 45 minutes is better for me, I think.

As there were too many goodies over the holidays, I waited until our recent gaming night to make some Christmas fudge. The main flavour is soft mint and boy did these go down smooth. The mint drowns out the sweet so it was really easy to eat a lot of this in a row. 

This recipe was adapted from white chocolate peppermint fudge recipes found at On Sugar Mountain and Alida's Kitchen.

Ingredients:
3 cups white chocolate chips (2 - 226g bags)
1 can of sweetened condensed milk (300 ml)
1/4 cup butter, cut into chunks
4 candy canes, crushed (makes about 1/3 cup)
1.5 tsp peppermint extract
green and red food colouring

Method (in photos):

Crush candy canes and set aside.

Combine white chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, and butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir until all is melted together. Remove from heat and add mint extract.

Quickly pour 1/3 of the fudge into prepared 8x8 pan, and divide remaining between two bowls. Colour the fudge in the bowls green and red. 

Pour green fudge over the white fudge in prepared pan and spread to cover. Add red fudge over green fudge and spread out evenly.

Sprinkle with crushed candy canes and press gently to adhere them to the fudge.

Chill for 24 hours and then take a number of art shots of your fudge!

These would make a great gift in about 11 months. For now that are just so lovely to snack on.

Just Like Knitting a Bike

So I forgot I loved knitting. But yesterday I remembered.

I want to knit myself a balaclava, but I thought I should make sure I still have knitting skills before I try out a new pattern. So I picked up the needles on a project I started THREE years ago. A winter hat for John. I guess he has just gone without all this time. It has been so long since I knit something that wasn't a dish cloth, that I actually had to look at my knitting book to make sure I was purling correctly. Thankfully I have retained my skills and knit pretty much all day yesterday.

I accompanied my day of knitting with bad fantasy movies. I started with the 2011 Conan the Barbarian (it was terrible), moved on to Krull, and ended with The Sword and the Sorcerer. None of them were the kind of movie you had to pay attention to, so I focused on knitting and had some fantastically terrible background noise.

I might actually complete John's winter hat this winter. I made some significant progress yesterday.

I also started knitting myself a 1st year Gryffindor scarf, because I've had the yarn for years and just never got around to making it. Now is the time!

Impulse Cake Balls

We've been stuck in the house due to a massive snowstorm, so I made some cupcakes to help us get through it. Made 24 cherry chip cupcakes with vanilla icing on Monday, and on Tuesday night we still had 18. I didn't want to spend the whole week eating cupcakes, so I decided to make a few into spontaneous cake balls.

I simply crumbled up a few iced cupcakes and formed them into cake ball dough.

They rolled into eight balls. I tossed them in freezer for about half and hour.

Then I melted some dark chocolate chips I had open and dipped the balls.

And added some sprinkles I had kicking around.

Back the freezer they went to set and then nom nom nom nom.

So we're still going to spend the week eating cupcakes, but now there is a little variety in the indulgence.