Marshmallow Pepys

December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

From NPR The Writer’s Almanac:

On this day in 1666, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary:

25. Christmas day. Lay pretty long in bed. And then rise, leaving my wife desirous to sleep, having sat up till 4 this morning seeing her maids make mince-pies. I go to church, where our parson Mills made a good sermon. Then home, and dine well on some good ribs of beef roasted and mince pies; only my wife, brother, and Barker, and plenty of good wine of my own; and my heart full of true joy and thanks to God Almighty for the goodness of my condition at this day.

It’s raining on Christmas Day here in San Diego, but that doesn’t dampen our spirits–oh, no!

(actually, I hate the rain–especially driving in it).

We opened our presents–so many amazing books!Yay!

And office supplies from Ted’s mom (among many other wonderful gifts from her and Ted’s Aunt Susie– Ted gave me a coffee press for my office.

One of the gifts I gave Ted is this awesome Doodle Frame
get this– you can draw on the frame (it’s a pad of paper around the picture!)

Isn’t it fun?! (no that’s not me in the pic, but it kind of looks like me, right?).

Another gift I gave Ted is this Savitri Sukul Piggybank from the MOMA gift store.

This year I also made marshmallows. Yes, marshmallows. I tried making them last year but they turned out like Taffy– or rather, like caulking.

This time around I found a better recipe. It’s from About.com and in fact was pretty easy. Basically if you have sugar, corn syrup, water, vanilla, and knox gelatin around the house you can make these. Here‘s the recipe in case you’re interested.

And here are photos (for more go to my Flickr–> on the right sidebar).

note to self: one martini makes making marshmallows much more fun…

but they still turned out well

after your pour the MM into a pan you let it set for several hours and then wha-la, you have a slab o marshmallow

you then cut the slab-o-MM into squares and dust them with powdered sugar

I also made cocoa marshmallows (just add cocoa to the water and knox gelatin in the first step)

when you are done you can put them into nifty little mason jars and give them to friends and family.

Speaking of… We are off to The 3rd Annual Christmas game night with Eduardo, Jen, Dave et al.

…and to all a good night.

(coming in the next post: making soap)