Return from Unannounced Hiatus

Well, that was a while I was gone there, huh? I have no good excuse, except that I finished my degree, went home and ate a lot of good food, got a lot of good presents, and then forged head-on into the wonderful world of job hunting.

It's not a wonderful world. Especially when the economy is down the crapper so no one is willing to hire anybody, least of all me. I have almost resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to find a low paying retail job just to get by for a few months until something picks up and I might be able to get a job I paid thousands of dollars to be qualified for.

In other news, my etsy shop is back up and kicking. I closed it down over the holidays, but all is alive and well again.

My favourite Christmas gift this year was my KitchenAid stand mixer. It's big and red and beautiful.



It makes wonderful cinnamon buns and cheese and pesto buns and french bread, and so on and so forth. I love it to pieces.

Today, I am going to make fudge. Peanut butter chocolate fudge. I've never made fudge before, so it will be an adventure.

Two days ago I started making haystacks with the recipe my family has always used since I was little. After I had melted all the butter and sugar and everything together, I reached up for the rolled oats, and I had...very few. Around one cup. I needed three. Now, this is an example of a lesson that I have learned before. Always, always, always make sure you have all the ingredients before you start. I have been known to drive to the store in the middle of a batch of cookies to get eggs. But this, you can't just leave haystacks. So, I started piling everything I could think of into the pot to make up 2 cups of volume. Graham cracker crumbs, almonds, walnuts, and crushed saltines. The mixture was still very runny, but I didn't have anything else to put in it. We're not big cereal eaters, so all we had was Honeycomb and I didn't think that would be the greatest match. Also, it's probably about 6 months old. So, I scooped out the gooey mess onto waxed paper, watched it run all over the place, and put the tray into the fridge, feeling rather dismayed. A few hours later, I gathered my courage and pried a "haystack" that looked rather much like a wet shiny chocolate cookie off the tray and took a bite.

It was delicious. The salt on the crackers totally worked with the chocolate, and the lack of oats really made it smooth and yummy. Andrew said they taste like chocolates you might buy in a box. I was proud of my flop.

I should have pictures for all of these things, but I do not. Maybe next time kids.