just a normal day...

Another gorgeous day in SLC, and unlike last week when Chay played soccer in the snow, today he played in perfect weather. His team played well and won the game and Blade played well on the playground equipment down the hill so I only had the opportunity to watch half the game.

I was impressed with Blade's initiative to learn as he played with some plastic turtles and water and then turned it into a game of "what floats and what doesn't float", apparently Fred does float. He was taking anything he could find and placing it in his bowl of water, luckily Dave caught him in time with some objects that definitely do not float and should NOT be in water.

Alana called today for the recipe for the chicken enchiladas that I make and asked if I had tried to make the miniature caramel apples (that we had talked about when Judy was visiting). I hadn't but I decided that since Nicole wanted more caramel apples, I would try to figure out how to do the miniature apples. I think I figured out a way to do it. The miniature caramel apples start out as a regular sized apple that is attacked with a melon scooper. I then dipped the "apple ball", with peel still on the top, into melted chocolate and let it cool. Then I flattened out cooled caramel and cut out circles with a biscuit cutter and folded the caramel around the chocolate covered apple ball by hand. And then to make the caramel melt together slightly to visually look better on the top, I used my blow dryer to heat up the caramel a little.

I know, it sounds like a lot of work. It was compared to just dipping the regular apples but they were cute. Because of the juice from the apple, caramel will not stick to it. In the original version seen in a Family Fun magazine, the apple ball was dipped in butterscotch(I think) chips, but that didn't sound as appetizing as a caramel apple. I read online that rice flour might absorb the juice so the caramel could stick but I didn't have that. And warmed caramel cannot be used for dipping the chocolate covered apple because the heat will melt the chocolate and it will just run off the apple.

This may be too much information for most but I felt I had to get the entire process out there.

Alana, I'm impressed with you trying out new recipes and not just cooking for one. I hope the chicken enchiladas turned out the way you expected. I hope to see a blog about it...