Trying my hand at a few things

While Kelly was visiting, I decided to take advantage of her cooking skills to help me try out some new recipes. Debbie and Jerry gave me part of my Christmas present early, and I was so thrilled with the bakeware and baking tools they gave me. (Debbie knew I would probably want to use them before Christmas to make some Christmas goodies.)

The first thing we decided to try was a hard candy. I received a great candy thermometer and was excited to give it a go. It actually didn't turn out that bad, although I dumped half of the peppermint oil into the liquid on accident. We added red food coloring, poured it onto a baking sheet, and broke the pieces once it cooled. It was actually a neat experiment, just seeing how it all works. We learned a few lessons though, so next time it should go smoother.

The red peppermint candy all pretty in a jar

Wish I could take credit for all three of these candies, but only the middle was our creation. Still, it looks pretty up on my shelf.

The other recipe I wanted to try was a lemony lemon bar. (It really is called that.) Because of the recent freeze, I was worried my lemons were going to dry out soon, so I picked the 6 lemons off of my little dwarf Meyer lemon tree and went at it. Kelly really ended up doing more of the lemon bars, as I had to leave halfway for a short school event, but I'm the one who got to keep and enjoy them. They turned out delicious - so bright and refreshing.

I was able to use about 1/2 of the things Debbie gave me, so I'll have to do some more baking to try out the rest.