12.21.2011

Caramels and Christmas Gifts

Last week, we had Steve and Elizabeth {Adam's brother and sister-in-law} over for a pre-Christmas dinner, since we won't get to see them on Christmas Day this year. We served pork roast, green beans, garlic mashed potatoes and, of course, Christmas cookies for dessert.

Christmas Cookies

We boxed up {most of} the rest of the cookies for Adam's old roommates and the priests at the Newman Center. I even decided to be nice and give some to our often-rowdy upstairs neighbors. Just all the same goodies as last year, with the addition of caramels. They were surprisingly easy!

Caramels

{From Southern Living}

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
1. Combine butter, sugar, corn syrup, and half of the whipping cream in a large saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves. Cover and cook over medium heat for two minutes to wash sugar crystals from the sides of the pan.
2. Uncover, and still at medium heat, cook until candy thermometer registers 224 degrees. Keep stirring occasionally.
3. Add remaining whipping cream and continue to cook on medium until the thermometer reaches 248 degrees. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
4. Pour into a greased 8x8 pan. Cool at room temperature. Cut into small squares. {If the caramel is too hard to cut, microwave on defrost for a minute or so to soften it up.}

After Steve and Elizabeth left that night, Adam and I exchanged Christmas presents. I wanted Adam to have his gift {a computer game he'd been anxiously awaiting the release of} early because he was mostly done with exams and had plenty of time to put it to use.

Anthro Christmas Finds

I actually got my gift even earlier. On Black Friday, Anthropologie offered an additional 50% off their sale items, so Adam took me on a little shopping spree. He still insisted on wrapping everything up and putting the packages under the tree though, which was fine by me!

1 comment:

  1. that yellow dress is beautiful! feel free to send it my way for a visit.

    ReplyDelete

You are awesome.