Good-bye 2011: Hello the end of the world

Hahahaha... so did that catch your attention?! I will not be commenting on my thoughts on the end being nye in the next twelve or so months, mostly because I haven't had the time to read all the huff and puff about it. Maybe one day when I have some time on my hands (2012 goal-to have more time on my hands), I will have a gander. But even in this last week off of work with no house projects left to complete (2011 goal tick- moved and settled into our house), I have found far more interest in looking at new shoes on Amazon :) And on the topic of ticking off the goals for 2011, here is what I have accomplished:

Finished up our house- well, the most of it. All main rooms are functioning, painted, and furnished- bar some wall decorations and a log-burner. As a home-owner there is always something to do, or so Craig keeps reminding me... like the garden, the flat roof, fixing the shower, the blah-de-blah this and the blah-de-blah that... and the list goes on and on. It looks like another goal for 2012 is: keep finishing the house, more specifically, I would like to finish decorating the dining room. Sounds easier than it is. I did manage to complete our Wall of Fame this past week and am really happy with the pics that we have: Flirts in the Tavern, Girls at the Cider Festival, Lucy and Craig, Corinne and me at Tower Bridge, Grad 2009, Richard in Craig's VW Beetle, Rob and Jackie canoeing on the river Wye, Paul's broken ankle off a grassboard in Wales, Greg and Kirsten and the Nowell Wedding, Si with shots for eyes, Edges at the foot of Robson, Edges and Abbotts' in Rhodes, Greece, Edges at Crescent Falls, Sisters in Jasper, Mr and Mr Edge on the top of Whistlers mountain in Jasper, Craig and my Dad and a handful of jackfish, and Nowells and Edges circa 1940.

Keep on camping: check 2011 and goal 2012. This year we ventured to one old-friendly and one new site in Devon. Thus, more specific goal for 2012: camp somewhere new... bonus points if I can have the trip organised for my birthday, and double bonus points if it involves some more trekking. More trekking because this was probably one of the highlights of the year: Snowdon in April and Three Peaks in June.

                                                                          Snowdon

                                                               A park in Torquay

Work nearer to home. Well, I can now confirm this goal is now finalised and I will be working literally down the road starting in Feb. Hurrah!!!!! Same company + different department= making delicious! Goal 2012: get a bike and cycle to work.

Completed two half marathons this year: one in the heat of the summer where I learned why you train for a half marathon (lost my mojo a bit this year, so hadn't ran the distance before the race). The reason why you train by running the distance is so you don't shock your quads by dousing them in lactic acid. I felt the burn and the burn lasted a week! Bonus marks, though for cutting 10 minutes off my time from the previous year. The second half I completed this year was in October and I cut my time again by another 6 minutes coming in at 1hr 57 min! Oh yea! Top tip here was the banana/choccie bar/ energy drink combo 30 minutes before starting. Goal 2012: join a running club to keep me motivated. Speed goal: run 10km in 50 minutes.

Got home to Canada this past year and it was lovely to see my family.
Host Christmas: didn't happen (can't win everything). Maybe next year? Don't know. Goal 2012: Host Thanksgiving on time.

And speaking of time: Complete blog entries on time: Missed out one month. booo... but doubled up this month to compensate.

So, what can I look forwards to achieving in the next year. Please feel free to join in when you can!
Have more time on my hands
Finish decorating the dining room
Camp somewhere new
Trek somewhere new
Holiday somewhere new and get a new stamp in my passport (from a new country)
Cycle to work
Join a running club
Run 10km in 50 minutes
Run a half-marathon in under 2 hours
Host Thanksgiving
Get driving (because I will have more time on my hands)
Get baking (ditto)
See my sisters
Relax!

Happy New Year!

Mid month macaron madness

As promised, some blogging about my mid month baking escapades... which mainly consists of making macarons. Mak-ah-RONs. NOT Mak-uh-roons.Posh little French delights; sort of like an almond-meringue sandwich. I will let you in on this little secret, and those of you in Canada should take this as a top tip (and cut me into your profits for providing you with such insight): Macarons are the new cupcake! They are elegant and poised petite desserts that can portray the poshest of flavour combinations. They have been popping up in England in the nouveau-lieu-d'etre: patisseries and boulangeries and people are paying stupid amounts for these delights.

I have wanted to try them forever and ever and finally bought them when we were at the Good Food Show in November: 5 quid for 4 macarons- that is as highway robbery as is paying more than 5 Euros for a bottle of plonk on the continent. Lavender and creme (purple), citrus and ginger (yellow and cream), green tea, and I don't remember the last one but I do remember it was pretty and yummy. Of course the next step is to attempt them myself.

Well, the ones I made were certainly not as dainty as the ones I see on the high street- I call them rustic; but they certainly packed the flavour that I anticipated. I certainly learned a few things whilst making them, as well.

Lesson 1: my large food processor is not designed for such elegant work. The recipe calls to  "sift icing sugar and almond flour into the bowl. If you have ground almonds, pulverise in the food processor until they are very fine". I dumped the almonds/icing sugar into the food processor, and in baking moment designed entirely for Lucille Ball, made a cloud of icing sugar/ground almonds in my face and in the kitchen. I realised this wasn't working, so waited for the cloud to settle and made a decision to skip to the next step.

Since I had ground almonds that looked like they were small enough to sift, I dumped all the almonds and equal part of icing sugar into my incy tincy hand sifter from Ikea (first time I used it... see, I bought it knowing that I would use it... even if it was a year later), tried to pull the lever, and nothing happened.

Lesson 1a: do not put more than 1/2 a cup of anything into your puny Ikea hand sifter. 40 minutes later, most of the material was sifted, apart from the larger almond nuggets. By this point, I now understood why macarons are 1.25GBP each and chucked the nuggets into the sifter mix.
Lesson 1b: next time, buy almond flour instead; however, when I tried to implement this lesson in the second round, I found that I actually can't find almond flour in any normal shops. Can some one please spare me a top tip here and tell me where I can find it?

I carried on to make the meringue and fold in my sifted ingredients. In attempts 1 and 2 (with pink food colouring) my meringue worked perfectly. Now I know I studied food science, but can someone please explain to me why meringue collapses when you add yellow food colouring? I haven't googled it yet, but would love to hear some speculation.

Lesson 2: when you want to make a yellow/orange meringue, follow the recipe that calls for cocoa powder and not yellow food colouring.

Once mixed, it was piping time:

Lesson 3: filling your piping bag with sticky goo takes a certain amount of patience and skill. I was instructed to pipe the meringue onto the baking sheet to the size of a walnut. Well, is that a walnut in the shell or out? How big is a walnut? I am allergic to walnuts, and I can't really remember what they look like. Whatever, I went on what I thought was the size of a walnut in its shell from what I remember my mom to have in the Christmas nut bowl.

Lesson 4: they actually meant the size of a cracked walnut, because if you see my picture, my macaron tops are far too fluffy to be considered elegant. They are more like the big fat gypsy wedding of the macaron world: all the pink, fluff, and sparkle- but mine are a step up in that they actually have taste! Now, I know I was just cursing the yellow food die for killing my meringue, but the flatter meringue did produce a smoother, flatter macaron. Top tip #2: don't gypsy your meringue, a soft tulle is better looking.

While they sit to set (apparently they develop a "characteristic skin") I made a ganache. While that set, I... doesn't matter. A few hours later...
Lesson 5: you need at least half a day to build macarons.

So over the course of 2 Saturdays, I concocted 65 assembled macarons- that's 130 halves +10% "broken" ones- you have to taste while you eat ;) plus 40 big fat ginger cookies and 40 chewy chocolate chip cookies, I finished the majority of my Christmas baking. I still have another batch of ginger cookies and macarons to make and it will all be over. Phew.

Merry Christmas!