Rules for making fudge

1. Learn what a soft ball test is BEFORE starting your recipe, so you don't have to put your sticky fingers on the keyboard to look it up.

2. Make sure your sauce pan is big enough to accommodate the expansion of your sugar, butter and milk when it boils. You don't want to have to clean that sugary mixture off of your stove.. grrr..

3. Use fluff instead of marshmallow cream. It tastes better and has less preservatives.

4. Use pure vanilla extract instead of vanilla flavoring. It's just better.

5. If you are diabetic, resist licking the bowl, or your blood sugar will be 370 and you will have to take a load of insulin...oops! :)


Easy Fudge


3 sticks butter
6 cups sugar
2 cans evaporated milk (5 oz cans)
2 packages (12 oz each) semisweet chocolate chips
1 jar marshmallow cream (13 oz)
2 teaspoons vanilla


Lightly grease 2 or 3 pans. Mix margarine, sugar, and milk in heavy 4-5 quart sauce pan. Bring to full rolling boil on medium heat, stirring constantly. Continue boiling 5 minutes on medium heat, stirring to prevent scorching (do the soft ball test). Remove from heat. Gradually stir in chips until melted. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into prepared pans. Cool at room temperature and cut into squares.

Christmas Spirit

Please take a minute and take the poll to the right. I'm curious to see how people celebrate the holiday season.

I guess you could say I'm officially in the Christmas spirit! I got a lot of my shopping done last night at the mall, and I know what I'm getting all but one person now. I'm going to try to get my Christmas cards out this week, but that's not a promise. Casey and I are decorating the tree after school on Friday. Jason will put it up before he leaves for work that day. We have to put an artificial one up because of my health, but I prefer them anyway. I don't like vacuuming needles the entire time my tree is up.

Jason and I bake pumpkin bread every year for our family and friends. I think this year we will also make some candy. Casey has never made candy before, and I thought it would be a good experience for her. She loves cooking. If any of you have good candy recipes, I'd LOVE to have them.

I do hope my friend Nicole makes her gingersnaps this year. They are to-die-for! Hint, hint Nicole! :)

I'm headed to Duke at 6 am tomorrow. I'll update when I get home.

Here is a picture of Casey that I sent out with my Christmas cards in 2004!



UPDATE: My friend Stacy just sent me this link. It has TONS of candy recipes. Thanks Stacy!

Turkey soup recipe

Here is what I did with my leftover turkey. It turned out great, but I did make a few changes that I think really added to it.. See them at the bottom.

This is from www.foodnetwork.com...

Turkey Soup with Egg Noodles and Vegetables

Ingredients
2 teaspoons olive or vegetable oil
2 leeks, cleaned and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 to 4 cups leftover cooked turkey, shredded or cubed
2 to 3 bay leaves
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
8 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
6 ounces uncooked egg noodles
1 cup frozen green peas
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Directions
Heat oil in a large stock pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add leeks, carrots, garlic, and celery and saute 4 minutes, until soft. Add turkey, bay leaves, thyme, salt, and black pepper and stir to mix well. Add chicken broth and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, partially cover and simmer 10 minutes.

Return mixture to a boil and add egg noodles. Cook 10 minutes, until egg noodles are just tender. Stir in peas and cook until peas are just heated through, about 1 minute.

Remove from heat, discard bay leaves and stir in parsley.

Now for my hints: Let this soup simmer for about 2 hours so that the flavors really get into the soup. The leeks really added to it. If you don't know how to cut up leeks, you chop about 1/2 inch off the white root/bottom part and about 6 inches of the green part, and then use the rest of it chopped up. The leeks are one reason I chose this recipe over others. When cooked, leeks give things a great flavor. I also added more celery, carrots and garlic than the recipe called for.

I used 10 cups of reduced-sodium chicken broth, because 8 made it too thick for me. I used fresh thyme instead of dried. I read where you might want to cut the amount of thyme in half if you use dried, because it can overpower the rest of the soup, but you can use 2 tsps. of chopped fresh thyme and it's great. Make sure you only use the thyme leaves and not the twig. I also added fresh cilantro to this recipe. It really enhanced the flavor. I didn't add it or the fresh thyme until the noodles were cooked though. I used medium egg noodles instead of the wide. The wide seem to soak up all the soup when I use them.

Enjoy!!

Tasty Tuesday

Oops I forgot a Tuesday. I think I slept last Tuesday away! 

This week's recipe is Slow-Cooker Parmesan-Sage Pork Loin and Watercress Salad with Sliced Pears, Goat Cheese and Toasted Pine Nuts. Pork loin is absolutely amazing when it is cooked in a slow-cooker for about 6 hours. You can't get much tenderer (is that a word?) than that. I am not crazy about pears, but Jason loves them. He is 100% sold on the salad. I probably would have preferred spinach with apples instead of watercress with pears, but it did have a very unique taste. I loved the toasted pine nuts, and the goat cheese was good too! I definitely wouldn't change anything about the way the pork and veggies were cooked, and if you have never tried watercress, it is worth giving it a try.

Tasty Tuesday

Every Tuesday, I will try and give a recipe review. The one for today is called  Pork Chops, Golden Apple and Raisin Sauce, Whole Wheat Pasta Mac-n-Cheddar by Rachael Ray. You can find the recipe by clicking here.

My husband and I made this a couple of weeks ago, but we did make a few changes. We used shells, brown raisins (because we didn't have golden), monterey jack cheese instead of cheddar, and we left out the maple syrup.

It was DELICIOUS!! Especially the apple and raisin sauce.  I am very glad we left off the syrup. It would have made it too sweet. It had the perfect sweetness without it.

It did take the chops a lot longer to cook than she said it would on her show. I would advise putting them on to cook before you start anything else.

I will definitely make this again. Jason and Casey both devoured it!!