Keeping Things Lively (325/366)

(326/366)

For some reason the night before a trip, I always feel the need to do a lot of extraneous, unnecessary things to keep me up late at night so that I am inevitably tired in the morning. (Good thing Andrew’s going to do the beginning of the drive! Nap time for me!)

Because I like to procrastinate, tonight I finally got around to making the dessert I told my mom I would bring for Thanksgiving. I had about four ideas and only managed to cobble together the ingredients for two of them. One of them I was short some maple syrup, and the other I was short two hours (or so I thought).

So when I got home tonight, first I finished my craft project, then I got to work on the dessert. When I went to get the ingredients for the pecan pie bars, I discovered I was out of chocolate chips! This is an actual travesty. It’s like being out of butter! Or eggs! I managed to find some fancy chocolate in the cupboard so I actually able to finish the pecan pie bars. Looks pretty good, eh?

Then, because I couldn’t leave well enough alone, I decided it was probably a good idea to make apple cider caramels. When Meri and I went to the Smitten Kitchen book signing last week, she said this was her favorite recipe. Which means I obviously had to try it. At 10:30 at night.

The recipe starts off by boiling apple cider for 40-45 minutes. I think I left mine on for 47 minutes. In that intervening two minutes, my beautiful apple cider syrup turned into a smokin pile of black charred sugar remains. In about two seconds, the entire downstairs of our house filled with smoke. But between me and Andrew we managed to open all the windows, turns on three fans, and wave a book in front of the smoke detector so it wasn’t wailing all night.

But, again, because I can’t be deterred when there’s an impending trip…I started over. Somehow, I managed to salvage my pot (looks pretty good if I do say so myself) and start up a new batch. As of right now, the caramels are setting in the fridge.

Recipe tomorrow…I need some sleep.