Showing posts with label Dulce de leche. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dulce de leche. Show all posts

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Dulce de wwwwwhhhatttt????

I have been working on neighbors gifts today. Making the dulce de leche I made yesterday look pretty. Making little tags for it to tell people what they can use it for. Getting a stomachache from eating too many of these addictive cheez-it ranch crackers.

It's been a good day!

The dulce de leche is something we see a lot of here in Arizona. It is a thick, very caramely mixture. So you can use it like caramel. Thin it a bit and pour it over ice cream. Use just as it is to frost cupcakes or cookies. It is fantastic swirled into your favorite brownie batter. You can use it to fill crepes or jelly roll. Or take a nice teaspoonful and stir it into some hot cocoa or hot coffee. If you swirl it into hot cocoa it is nice to put a little whipped cream on top and then add a tiny sprinkle of coarse sea salt.

It is just a delicious, smooth, sweet mouthful of caramely goodness.

Oh my.
I know I posted the recipe earlier for the addictive cheez-it snacks but here's a picture of all the stuff I use to make them and what they look like!
And now I am off to have more holiday merriment. Too many things to go to this weekend. I just want to lay on the couch and watch TV with the fire crackling merrily and the cheez-its going merrily into my mouth!

But since that's not gonna happen I need to go get a shower and start getting ready!

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Non-fluffy hair, making something yummy for the neighbors AND exposing a big lie about physics...

...Wow! Now you can officially never say that I don't cover a wide variety of subjects on my blog.

Well, actually, you can say it but then I can say "liar, liar pants on fire" in the mature way I have of dealing with things like this.

So...

Last night I went to Guy's show with UNFLUFFY HAIR and I got a great seat not surrounded by any gaseous people whatsoever! And I decided that lack-of-surrounding-flatulence or not I might have been too old and/or too tired to truly appreciate all the alcohol, fire, rock music and other shenanigans! (And if that word doesn't make me sound old and/or tired I don't know what would!) But it was interesting. And I will say that Guy really has the charisma...shenanigans or not!

And about the neighbors? I may or may not make the infamous cheez-it cracker snacks to giveaway but I wanted to try and make dulce de leche as a gift as well. I love dulce de leche. Do you know it means "milk candy"? And it definitely is milky-caramely-candy-like goodness.

And it is super, super, super easy. Especially if you have a pressure cooker. Or even if you only have a big pan.

I'm going to give you the recipe now so you might want to grab a pen cuz this stuff is seriously delicious.

OK, write this down.

Cans of sweetened condensed milk.

Got that?

Next, write this down...

Oh wait. There's nothing else to write down cuz that is the entire list of ingredients.

So...because I am momentarily channeling Pioneer Women here's how to do it...

The cast of characters...hee hee! I love this part. And now for the step by step instructions.

Rip off all the labels. Put the cans in the bottom of your pressure cooker and cover with water PLUS an additional extra inch or so over the top of the cans. Bring to a boil, put your pressure lid on and cook at low pressure for 30 minutes. Don't worry about that pan and whisk in the front of the pressure cooker. It is custard filling for a Boston cream pie I was making. Let pressure drop naturally. (If you don't have a pressure cooker you can put the cans into a big pot and cover with water the same way). Bring to a high boil, lower temp to slow boil and cook for 2 1/2 hours. Yes. 2 1/2 hours. But it will add moisture to your dry winter home while it cooks so it's really a two-fer.

After the cans cool, open one up to make sure it worked... And it did! Look at all this caramelly, dulce de leche yummy goodness! It tastes amazing.

Now all that's left is some pretty packaging...
and you are done!

Hey, I'm not channeling Martha tonight so this is the best packaging I could do for the moment.

Actually tomorrow I will put this yumminess into cute little jars and make them look a little more attractive.

Oh gosh, and as exposing the big law about physics? OK. I feel kind of bad I have to break this to you and all but I need to be honest here. Look at this picture for a moment...study it carefully. Did you see?

Could you see it?

Yes. I'm sorry to tell you but A WATCHED POT DOES ACTUALLY BOIL.

And with that incredibly stupid remark and picture I am slinking off in utter shame.

Sigh.