Weekend fun

Took my first swing at holiday baking this weekend after seeing a great post by a friend on caramel making.

I used her recipe exactly, but my candy thermometer appears to have lied to me. Hers turned out soft and chewy, from what I can tell. But mine came out a bit like those old fashioned Sugar Daddy candies (which my mother always swore would crack your teeth in two).

But, the hard candy product did save me the challenge of attempting to wrap the little buggers. It also created the challenge of how to best break them down (as when I turned out the caramel, it was a solid, un-cuttable brick).

Best kitchen tool I own is my ice cream scooper:

Which I used as a hammer and chiseled with a kitchen knife until the aforementioned bite sized pieces were born.

Tonight, pitas were up again. Jake and I stopped for some late night shwarma the other night and ended up with far too much hummus.

The best solution, of course, being to bake lots and lots of pitas! These were fried up in skillets over medium heat (rather than the faux-grilling method used in the past). The resulting pita has a harder bottom (nice though, not unlike a large cracker) and still a soft top.

Still using my wine bottle ($6, Target) as a rolling pin for these guys

Mmm pitas. Tasty