largely noncomittal

Alas (and this is for Heather,) on this particular afternoon I am feeling not musey but rather worn out. Yesterday saw a spectacular display of strife that has come to exemplify my day-job life. Had my LSAT class not had a test last night, (meaning that I didn’t have to be there), I’m not sure what I would have done. Cried, probably.

This week has been odd, in that it has both been excruciatingly long, and terrifyingly fast. I am glad for it to be over, and excited for the Farmer’s Market tomorrow morning, but I still feel extremely unprepared. The sporadic rain torrents this afternoon didn’t help ease my anxiety, and I actually called Tom over my lunch break to see if he could/would research canopies for me. The main problem here is justifying this immense expenditure before my business realizes any true profit. Perhaps we will make a fortune tomorrow morning, and use that to buy one.

Sometime between tonight and tomorrow at 7:00, I still need to make and package the following:

Strawberry Marshmallows
Some kind of Scone (Tom’s rooting for the classic cranberry orange, I am noncommittal)
Some kind of Muffin (most likely some variation of an oatmeal/wheat recipe I found while aimlessly reading food blogs at work this week. I wish I could find it again to link here, they looked wonderful)
Cookies (I’d like to make Baked Strawberry Meringues, another find this week, but I wonder if I’ll have the patience at five o’clock tomorrow morning)

I also need to figure out packaging. Because I don’t have my special event license yet (read: I haven’t even downloaded the form) I need to package everything at the deli ahead of time. The trick here is doing it in such a way that still showcases the lovely colors and shapes of whatever I do end up taking. And it cuts down on the don’t-those-smell-too-good-to-pass-up factor, which is the best marketing out there.

I have, however, spent the last several weeks working on amassing display devices, from baskets to a fabulous hurricane candle holder-thingy for a mere fifty cents. And some wonderful vintage card tablecloths, which are just faded enough for me to not be upset if something awful happens to them.

In a final update before I post this, I just got off the phone with one of the coffee shops that I visited last week and it looks like they may be interested in having me custom make some goodies for them. Not a call I should have picked up at work. Man, I’ve got to trust my instincts to let it roll to voice mail.

Marshmallow Success!

As many of you know, I have been trying for what seems like months now to make home-made marshmallows. Recipe after recipe, I was met with naught but disaster. Until now. Thanks to my ample food-blog-searching time at work, I have discovered www.slashfood.com, and with it, this lovely recipe.

Starting 19 May, folks in Greeley will be able to enjoy these lovely bits of heaven at the Farmers Market each Saturday morning. Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, you can try them yourself.

Here it is with my comments and what I changed:

Homemade Marshmallows – Success!

What you need:

| 3 envelopes of unflavored Knox gelatin | in some of my earlier adventures, I thought to myself, flavored marshmallows sound tastey, let’s use flavored jell-o. This would be a big mistake. You have to start with the flavorless kind. I finally found some at SuperTarget for about a buck for four envelopes

| 1/2 cup cold water |

| 2 cups granulated sugar |

| 2/3 cups light corn syrup | I have also tried making it with honey, and so far I haven’t gotten the adjustments quite right to make it work. I do wish I could, because corn is just so evil….

| 1/4 cup water |

| 1/4 teaspoon salt |

| 1 tablespoon vanilla extract or your flavoring |

Line a square pan (my 8x8 worked well) with plastic wrap and lightly oil it. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for about 10 minutes. There should be some sort of reaction where it looks like wrinkly skin. Seriously.

Meanwhile, combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a medium saucepan. Stir it a little so the sugar mostly dissolves. Then let it sit until it reaches a rapid boil. Boil it hard for 1 minute. This general direction actually worked much better than the other recipes I tried that required you to measure for temperature, hard ball or soft ball stage – really, I saw all three! I’m sure I left mine on for a little bit longer than 1 minute since I was trying to melt butter to grease the pan with at the time, but not to much longer or it will be bad!

Pour the boiling syrup into the soaked gelatin and turn on the mixer. The recipe calls for using the whisk attachment, but since I am forever in love with my crazy almost burnt out sunbeam from way before I was born, I used the only beaters I have (well, I guess I have dough hooks, so that’s not really fair), and they worked just marvelously. Work it up to high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes.

This is what will happen:

Step one: mostly liquid, hangs around the sides

Step two: pulls from sides and fills the middle

Step three: goes back out to sides, leaving you staring at the sad metal at the bottom of the middle of your bowl. Don’t stop mixing until it reaches step three.

Then add the vanilla extract, and keep mixing so it’s well incorporated. I think it might actually incorporate better if you add it somewhere during step two , I am going to try that next time.

Things to add instead of vanilla – strawberry extract from savory, orange flour water, peppermint or hazelnut extract, chocolate extract (also from savory), etc. I also have seen a version with ground red hots, but I think it would be best to add those at the corn syrup/sugar stage.

Cut an extra square of plastic wrap and set aside. Use some melted butter or something to grease your spatula before you try to dig the marshmallows out of the bowl. Scrape everything into the prepped pan and spread evenly. Take your extra square of plastic wrap and press lightly on the top of the marshmallows to create a seal.

Set it on the counter (anyplace but the fridge) for a few hours or overnight. It should cool completely and be able to be completely lifted out of the pan by pulling up the plastic wrap with no oozing or loss of shape.

When you’re ready, fill a bowl or dinner plate with equal parts corn starch and powdered sugar. I’ve also seen versions that coat with powdered sugar and rice flour, and even though I have some, I’m pretty sure most people don’t. If you’ve made a flavored version, crush up some hard candy with that flavor and add to the sugar/starch mix.

Remove the marshmallows from the pan, keeping them in the plastic wrap. There are several ways to get to the next step. If you’re using a dinner plate, remove the top layer of plastic wrap, invert on the coating mixture, and then remove the rest. At the deli, I combined my coating in a small bowl, and peeled the marshmallows from the plastic wrap, keeping the bottom section to rest them on while I worked.

Then cut them into beautiful squares with kitchen scissors. You can use a buttered knife, but it’s much harder. I’ve also seen people cutting them into beautiful shapes with cookie cutters, but it seems like so much more trouble than it’s worth.

Roll the cut marshmallows around in your coating concoction. Store in something airtight, or consume immediately.

I got just under forty marshmallows from this.

This sounds like a long and arduous process, but it is so much fun! If it sounds like too much work for you, come buy some from me at the farmers market!

rbb update

wow, two posts in a week! amazing! just wanted to give a quick update... yesterday morning I officially got my health license, which means I can legally sell stuff from the deli for the real. it's exciting, and one of the last steps. thank you everyone for your awesome support. I couldn't have come this far without you!
... also, if you're in town you can continue that awesome support by stopping by the Salvador Deli on the corner of 9th and 8th downtown. For now, you can enjoy fresh from the oven goodies monday, wednesday, and friday, and less fresh but still delicious things all the other days. huzzah!
you can also find good things to eat at the Autism Yard-sale Fundraiser, which will be next Saturday, 28 April, at The Beetle. Maybe even... pineapple flower cupcakes? maybe. we'll see.