Adventures in Paradise

Happy Birthday Shanti!

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday Dear Shanti!
Happy Birthday to you!



Shanti at age 6

I'm so lucky to be your Mommy!  And I get to do things like this. 

More Ship Pictures

It's Tuesday and thankfully tomorrow is (sort of) a day off, because I need one.  It's not totally a day off, because I have a 1:30 flight to San Diego with some of my staffers - we'll be visiting a bunch of different bases in Southern CA, but I enjoy their company well enough, and I do get to sleep in.  Which I need, because I missed my Saturday completely.

Not that I mind missing Saturday much, because it was my last ship ceremony as a relatively important person.  (Which meant invitations to the parties and really good seats, but that I was working the whole time.)  This one was special though - the commissioning of the USS New York (LPD 21), a ship built with 7.5 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center.

Pretty, isn't she?  And it's matched by the cake baked by a young Sailor...

The ceremony was cool - and very well attended, too.

Secretary Clinton gave the keynote speech...

Mayor Bloomberg and a crew member from the last USS New York (BB 34 - a WWII Battleship) directed the setting of the first watch...

And Mrs. Dottie England gave the direction to man the ship and bring her to life (which I didn't get pictures of because the platform rather blocked the view.)

All in all, it was a touching and wonderful ceremony.  In fact, I had a pretty magical weekend given a Friday afternoon that started with getting to meet Jon Stewart of The Daily Show,

And the evening ended with me skipping out on the pre-ceremony reception in favor of the Big Apple Circus' Gala Night with one of my DC trapeze friends.  Then after the commissioning ceremony, the sadly blogless Cathy and her husband Roy took me out for an amazing lunch and sent me on my way back home.  It can't get much better for a last hoorah!

(But I need a vacation from all that fun.)

Recipe

By popular demand, here is the recipe I use for marshmallows.  It can be found online here.   But, knowing me you all should understand that I use it more as a guide than a set of rules - molasses and honey have substituted all or part of the corn syrup, I have also completely omitted the corn syrup since as far as I can tell, it's just to help keep the sugar from crystallizing while you're cooking it.  I haven't made the chocolate variation on the website, but I love playing with flavored oils and extracts, which have worked out pretty well. 

You really want to have a stand mixer for this, because 10 minutes of beating increasingly stiff marshmallow would be very hard on your arms and hands.  Sometimes I follow the instructions here and make them in a cookie pan, as I did this time, but I've also used the great big ziplock bags, oiled lightly inside, which gives you a uniform shape to work with.  I've also poured them into the same oiled bags, snipped off a corner and piped the marshmallows into lines which then gives you a shape more like store bought.  

My comments are in italics:

*  4 envelopes gelatin  (I usually only use 3, but start with 4)

* 1/2 c puree (whatever kind – I like pure pumpkin puree instead of the “pie filling” sort; and other fruit purees would work, too,)

* 1-1/4 c water (1/2 cup for the gelatin; 3/4 for boiling the sugar)

* 3 c sugar

* 1-1/4 c light corn syrup (I do lots of substituting here…honey makes a subtle flavored marshmallow when joined with vanilla; molasses for the pumpkin ones and I think I’ll try agave nectar in the near future…for the pumpkin ones, I used about half and half of each.)

* 1/4 tsp salt

* powdered sugar and potato starch for dusting (for the pumpkin marshmallows I eliminate the potato starch and replace with powdered spices (pumpkin pie blend and some fresh grated nutmeg.)

 

Line a sheet pan with a 1"rim with aluminum foil, coat the foil with vegetable oil or non-stick spray. (I use parchment paper and instead of oiling it, I just dust with powdered sugar, potato starch and spices if I’m making pumpkin marshmallows) Fit the mixer with the whisk attachment.

 

Mix the puree and 1/2 cup of the water in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the gelatin over to soften.  (I add more of the pumpkin spice blend here, and mix it together to get all the gelatin incorporated.)

 

Put the sugar, corn syrup, remaining 3/4 cup water and salt in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook until it reaches the soft-ball stage (234-240 F). (I go all the way to 240, but those last couple of degrees can go fast – don’t use too high heat.)

 

With the mixer at full speed, pour all of the hot syrup slowly down the side of the bowl. Be careful as the mixture is very liquid and hot at this point and some may splash out of the bowl - use a splash guard if you have one. whip until the mixture is very fluffy and stiff, about 8-10 minutes. pour mixture into the foil-lined pan and smooth with an oiled offset spatula so that it's level with the top of the rim (it won't completely fill the pan). Allow the mixture to sit, uncovered at room temp for 10 to 12 hours.  (I find I can cut them at the 5-6 hour mark with no ill effects.)

 

Mix equal parts powdered sugar and potato starch and sift generously over the rested marshmallow slab. Turn it out onto a cutting board or counter, peel off foil and dust with more sugar/starch mixture. Slice with a thin-bladed oiled knife or oiled cookie cutters.  (Best marshmallow cutter ever is an oiled pizza cutter!)  Dip all cut edges in sugar/starch mixture and shake off excess. Marshmallows will keep several weeks at room temp in an air-tight container.

 

Variation - Vanilla Marshmallows:

Replace strawberry puree and initial 1/2 cup of water in mixing bowl with 3/4 cup water and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract or the seeds scraped from 2 vanilla beans.  (At Christmas I add some peppermint extract, then dip an end of the marshmallow in melted chocolate and roll the end in crushed peppermint candies.  It’s time consuming but makes a spectacular hostess gift.)

Mmmmmmarshmallows

I made pumpkin marshmallows as a hostess gift for last week's Halloween party - I sort of think they're expected now, between the pumpkin ones at Halloween and the peppermint ones at Christmas.  And I rarely have any leftover.  This time I decided to skimp on the corn syrup (mainly because I didn't have much) and used about 1/4 cup of molasses instead.  I was a little worried because molasses can be an overpowering flavor.  Turns out that against all the sugar, it mellows out and deepens the pumpkin and spice flavors. 

From now on, there will be molasses in my marshmallows...one of my trapeze friends tonight called them "a mouthful of pumpkin bliss".  The best part about that?  They ate the last of them tonight so I will no longer be tempted!

Possibilities

I'm really not doing a lot of making these days, work has sped up and won't slow down for a couple more weeks.  I'm almost exactly 60 days from transferring, so there's that issue, too.  But I have a thank you gift that I need to complete before Thanksgiving, so even though it's going to be a quick project (it's a version of the Japanese Knot Bag I made in September,) it's taking time because I am wavering a little on fabric choices.  

Since the gift is for one of my trapeze friends, this circus-y themed combo was in the running - colorful and happy.

But I really liked the feather texture here, and the gray is interesting.

But this much more simple combination is in the lead right now -

I couldn't get the color right, but the solid green is the same silk that I used in the other bag, and is nearly the same color as the green highlights on the elephants.

If it still makes me happy when I get back from New York City this weekend, I will start cutting and sewing.