Just Because...: Martha Stewart Need Not Be Worried...

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Martha Stewart Need Not Be Worried...

Like I said in a post earlier, I'm horrible to buy gifts for. One of the reasons I signed up with Kaboodle is to give friends and family an idea into what I'm coveting at the moment. I'm pretty good about keeping the list up to date and also the things on my list is what I'm planning on either purchasing or really thinking hard about before investing in. Basically, it's stuff I'd buy if I was going to buy it. Does that make sense?

Anyways - I also am fully cognizant of the fact that I am very blessed. I enjoy the giving more than the receiving, and while this year was a bit tight on the finances for moi, I decided to make a run for the role of Martha Stewart of Altamonte Springs and created little gift bags for my co-workers. They were filled with such goodies as Sarah's famous Cookies & Cream Truffles, Cooking Light's Zesty Spice Rub packaged in ceramic and glass jars, and Erin Cook's Orange Cranberry Dark Chocolate Cookies. Add in some fabu coffee from Fresh Market and I was off and running.

Now MAKING all of the above was a comedy of errors... Let's start with the truffles. I milled the Oreos to a fine powder, added in the cream cheese and whirrrrrrr - talk about stress relief. I had the brilliant idea to use the small cookie scoop to scoop out the truffles. Yeah ummm.. hello - three truffles might be too rich for Peg Bundy, they were that big. Rather than redo them, I figured I'd reduce the disbursement to two super truffles per person and started to swirl them in the chocolate. Now I, much like Sarah, got a bit risky and decided "who NEEDS a double boiler"... you know, because your gal doesn't HAVE one, but shhhh. Martha Stewart would flog me for not only that, but also for the fact that I don't have metal bowls to wisk. I know, I know. I'm workin' on it, I'm workin' on it. Remembering all that I learned from watching Ina Garten aka the Barefoot Contessa, I got the chocolate chips all melty, added in a teaspoon of vanilla and some brewed coffee and voila. But the fuggin' chocolate was TOO thick. GRRRRRRRR. So that needed to be thinned out. Once it was all the right texture, the truffles were in the pool of chocolate and it was a messy job. Not to mention the chocolate would cool quickly. So that was my first truffle experiment...

Well, onto the spice rub. Simple enough - measure out the spices, put them in a bowl and mix, mix, mix, - and do it again five times. Well - I can tell you that one helping of the Zesty Spice Rub by Cooking Light's measurements yielded more than one cup. As I'm pouring the rubs into the nice little glass and ceramic canisters, I got the brilliant idea to not spoon it anymore and pour it. Add a cat jostling around one's feet and a notsosteady hand and BOOM. Spice. Rub. Everywhere. My counter and floor were a brilliant shade of orange and that chili powder whaps a punch. Not to mention I had spice rub down the front of me. I smelled like Eau De Spice Rack.

Next were Erin's fabulous cookies which were, indeed, fabulous. As a matter of fact they were the hit of the goody bags. However, because you know there's always a however with moi. My oven is not as fabulous as Erin's and it took many trips of double checking the oven and making sure it was ON (because I turned it OFF during the pumpkin bread debacle, but let's forget about that shall we?) The first batch was "just right", the second batch - notsomuch. I left them in too long where they were a bit crisp, but still yummy nevertheless. Also, the dreaded cookie scoop made them too big but since I supersized the goody bags, it all worked out. Until I went to package them and chocolate began to melt all over the plastic gift bag. Oops - guess I forgot to let them cool. I leave them out to cool overnight and then I go to package them up at the crack of dawn and TWO ARE MISSING! I guess I also didn't get the memo that my kitchen has a cookie thief. Who, of course, will be dealt with accordingly when I locate 'em. I will be whipping up a new batch of cookies again for a soiree on Saturday by request.

After Saturday, I'm ordering takeout and my kitchen is taking a vacation, at least until next year.

Labels: Cooking

Posted by Lys :: 2:13 PM :: 2 comments

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Thursday, December 27, 2007