9 days left...

[wiseheart]

... and I'm truly and verily dead on my feet. The day started with taking Mum to the dentist's who has her practice - where else? - on the other end of the city. There she got another tooth pulled, the poor thing; then I took her home, tossed her into the elevator and turned around to run to work.

The two colleagues by the name Katherine were very touched by their naming day prezzies, just as the two Elizabeths had been last week. Another small success in my private little campaign "Make someone happy every day". Yay!

In the afternoon my phone provider sent me a text message, telling me that the bank hasn't transferred the money for last month's bill. This is the third time they assume something like that; the first two times were the results of some stupid error on their end of the connection. Still, I'll have to go to my bank tomorrow and see if they had transferred the money or not, as they haven't sent me their monthly report or receipt or whatever else it's called in English. I'm royally pissed as tomorrow would have been the other long morning (today would have been the one) and I definitely had other plans for it. But you haven't got a chance when bureaucracy is on your trail. *sigh*

A colleague helped me laminate the recipes for the "Holiday of Cookie Wonder" booklet I made for the charity fair. Basically, it's a modest little envelope journal with Christmass-y pictures and my favourite cookie recipes. It does look neat but nothing extraordinary. Photos later, I promise.

Coming home, I felt daring enough to try making candied ginger for the recipe I got from spikesgirl58. Currently, the sugary little cubes are sitting in my oven, drying. I hope they'll be good; but just in case they won't work out, I bought a package of ready-made ones, too. I also made apple sauce for the same cookies. At least that turned out quite well. Still struggling with the US measures, even though I found a couple of very useful calculations into the metric system. We'll see.

No writing today, but in the light of the above that's hardly surprising, right?

Comments

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the cookies. I can't wait to see what you think of them. TBG adores them.

Wow, you are in the single digits now!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am. Ain't it great?

My candied ginger is currently soft and quite sticky... not to mention hot like hell. I might end up using the ready-made ones for baking, but I give it another day or two to dry up. We'll see.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

I'd let it cool and toss it with corn starch or sugar. That should help it. I'd never even consider making my own. My hat is off to you.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, someone in a comment to the recipes told me how to make them, so I thought I'd give them a try. Not sure I'll do it ever again, as I've discovered that they can be bought ready-made.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

It's just easier to buy them premade, but it is like making puff pastry. As our chef told us, you need to do it once just for the experience and then never again. I am completely on board with that.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Amen. I never made real puff pastry, just the yeast dough version of it, but that was enough for a lifetime. The same for candied ginger, although it has dried out just nicely after a day. TBH, I wouldn't have tried it for the first time, either, but by the time I found the premade ones I'd already bought two big, fresh pieces and didn't want to waste them. They weren't cheap!

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

We do a lot of Asian cooking, so we use ginger all the time. Here it's very cheap. At least you have had the experience now. :D

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Nothing is really cheap over here - except human life. But yeah, it was an interesting experience, and one that turned out much better than the one where I tried to make candied orange peels. They'd gone bad within the month, so I probably messed up something royally.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I've got a dirt easy recipe for candied orange peels.
Prep your peels and put them in a pan with enough water to cover.
Bring it to a boil, drain and repeat the process twice. Drain and set aside.
Then combine 192 grams of sugar with 171 grams of water .Pour the sugar water into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Let the mixture cook for 8-9 minutes at a constant simmer.
Add the peel and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour, OR just until the peels are translucent, adjusting heat as necessary to maintain the simmer.
Avoid stirring, as this will cause crystallation. If necessary, swirl the pan to make sure that all of the peels get covered with the syrup..
Drain any remaining syrup from the peels and set aside for other use (perhaps tea?!) There will probably be only a tablespoon or two of syrup left. Spread the peels out on a drying rack and leave to dry for 4-5 hours. Store in an airtight container.

You can also do the same thing in the microwave. You bring the water to a boil three times (about 3 minutes for ours), then on the last go around, you add the sugar/water mixture and boil it for five. We tend to store them with a little syrup, but we've kept them for months.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks, I'll definitely give it a try! No microwave in our flat (no room for it anywhere), but I'll try the simple oven version.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Good luck. We do the microwave one all the time. :D

[meathiel]

Sounds like a lot of running around the city ...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

And by steady rain at that...

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

What a hassle with the phone company! Banks send you statements.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks. Learned something again. :)