The holidays are way off, but if you need to make caramels for a special occasion, these are incredible.  The recipe was shared by a family friend many years ago.  Trust me, you won’t be able to leave these alone, so give them away as soon as possible.

4 cups sugar
2 cups light corn syrup
½ teaspoon salt
1 can evaporated milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped nuts
1 quart whipping cream

Thoroughly grease a 10 ½” x 14 ½” pan with butter and set aside. (It’s easiest to remove the caramel if you use a pan that’s flexible, like a metal cookie sheet.)

Mix sugar, corn syrup, salt, and 2 cups of whipping cream in large saucepan, and bring to a boil on medium heat. As the mixture cooks, slowly add the rest of the cream, cooking down. Add evaporated milk slowly, and continue cooking to 232 degrees F. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and nuts. Pour into greased pan and let cool. Remove from pan and cut into squares.

Enjoy!

Download a PDF Version here.

I finished my sign a few weeks ago – there are a couple of photos on flickr.  Here’s a quick shot my friend took, which gets the general idea across.  It’s a little hard to read the chicken with the silver car behind it. It’s a heavy bugger between the weight of the 3/16″ steel plate that is the background and all of the nails.

I really enjoyed my welding class.  Denise made the class so enjoyable, and she’s always ready to teach you the next step when you feel ready.  It was intimidating at first, but once I got into my project, I could really lose myself.  I found it to be a good meditation, like running, knitting, and biking.  I liked it so much, I have signed up for her class in fall again.  There’s already a waiting list, but I think I’m high enough on the list that I should get in.  If I don’t for some reason, then I’ll look at taking a class at the Community College.

Our good friend’s girlfriend is a metal artist in the Columbia River Gorge, and I can’t wait to travel up there again and check out her shop.  I’m sure she can teach me a few things, if she’s up for it.  You can view her work at www.kellyphipps.com – she’s so talented!

Our office is participating in a very cool challenge going on right now in the state.

“The Clear the Air Challenge, issued by Governor Huntsman, Mayor Becker and Mayor Corroon, is a six-week competition starting June 1st that gives you the chance to reduce your vehicle emissions by choosing alternatives to driving alone using TravelWise strategies. By driving less and driving smarter, you will ultimately help improve air quality, reduce traffic congestion and conserve energy in Utah. You will also be eligible for weekly and grand prize drawings by meeting straightforward, achievable travel goals”.

You can get more information and register as an individual or team here: http://cleartheairchallenge.org/index.php.  Four of the people from our office (half of us) are participating, logging our trips and miles saved each day.  It’s been a good reminder to find ways to consolidate or eliminate trips, or to make a sincere effort to choose better ways of getting around.  I usually try to bike or ride the bus to work once a week, and since I only work four days a week, that is just 3 days of commuting.  I used to think that was doing a pretty good job, but I am going to try to do even better now.  This week I’m going to try biking 3 days (I have 2 under my belt already).  I love it because I get my workout in for the day (the trip is 9.1 miles each way), I get to interact with other people on the way to work, and I get to experience sights and smells like I just can’t in my car.  I am much more keenly aware of what is in bloom in a particular day, I get to smell everyone’s delicious dinners on the way home (inspiring me to ride faster and get home to eat sooner), and I get to see so much more detail than I can capture during a car ride.  Plus, I get to determine my pace – it isn’t set by the speed limit and enforced by someone tailgating me.

I doubt that we’ll win any prizes, but it has been a fun personal and group challenge for us.  I love the idea of it, and I hope more states are doing something similar.

I had the opportunity to catch an amazing live music show Monday night at Mestizo coffee house in Salt Lake City.   The Reverend John DeLore (no the music isn’t religious) is on a nationwide tour, doing 40 shows in 50 days, and is doing most of the traveling between shows via Amtrak.  My boyfriend met him on the train ride from Green River to Salt Lake on Sunday night and they hit it off.  So, we decided to catch his show the following night at the coffee house.  I was blown away.  You can hear some of his music on his myspace page http://www.myspace.com/reverendjohndelore, and visit his website at johndelore.com.

His debut album, Ode to an American Urn, is available on his website.  He writes his own music and lyrics, sometimes in partnership with friends, and the energy of his live performance speaks to the soul that underlies it all.  He also surprised us with an incredible acapella rendering of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, a beautiful piece I was not familiar with.

I started my welding class on April 1st, and we’re already down to the last two classes.  I decided to work on a sign for our chicken coop.  I came up with a design and put it into cad so I could scale it as I needed and make revisions easily.  After tracing the individual pieces of the chicken and nest onto 16 gauge steel, I cut them out using a plasma cutter.

Then I welded the wings to the body, the egg to the nest background, and then polished these pieces.  I needed to grind down some rough welds, so I figured it didn’t hurt to give a few of the pieces a different finish.

Next, I welded the pieces of the head together – a little challenging with some of the small sizes.

I built the legs using rebar scraps, and bent them using the pipe bender in the shop, and trimmed them to size using the chop saw.  I ground down the rough edges with a wheel grinder.

I used an oxyacetylene torch to give some coloration to body and wings, and love how the color turned out of the tail.  This was a very cool tool to use – I guess you can even cut using other attachments.

During last week’s class, I started bending rusty nails and welding them to the nest.  I tried to push out the welding wire a little longer than usual to get extra little pieces to stick in with the nails – intentionally sloppy.

Next week I need to cut the lettering out of the 3/16″ steel plate that will form the back of the sign using the plasma cutter, and cut it to size.  Then I just have to finish welding more nails onto the nest, and weld everything to the sign.

These biscuits are a family tradition for as long as I can remember.  I believe the recipe is from an old Relief Society cookbook.  They were an integral part of Saturday morning breakfasts growing up – best served with soft butter and homemade jam, alongside some bacon and eggs.

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup butter, softened
¾ cup milk
1 egg

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and spray pie tin or 8×8 baking dish with cooking spray. Combine dry ingredients and butter. Whisk milk and eggs, add to dry mixture. Knead with mixer two minutes. Roll onto floured surface to ½” – ¾” thickness. Cut with floured glass or cookie cutter, pat off extra flour by tossing each biscuit from hand to hand gently, and place in baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly golden brown on top.

Download a PDF version here.

Enjoy!

These enchiladas are amazing.  I did a web search many years ago, and found this on mediadrome.com.  I’ve never visited the site any other time than to print off this recipe.  You can use this pulled pork to make BBQ sandwiches as well – just add your own special BBQ sauce and serve up on a bun with a side of coleslaw and cornbread.  Be warned though… if you cook this pork overnight in the crock-pot, you’re bound to have weird dreams.  I always do when I cook this up, and so does my mom.  Cheers!

3-4 lbs. pork shoulder
8 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Water
2 whole heads garlic, cut in half
2 tbsp. chili powder
2 tbsp. chipotle chili powder
1 tbsp. black pepper
2 tbsp. salt

corn or flour tortillas
enchilada sauce
fresh cilantro
sour cream
cojita cheese (or pepper jack cheese), shredded

Place the pork roast in a slow cooker.  Add the stock and enough water to completely cover the pork.  Add the garlic and stir in the chili powders, black pepper, and salt.  Let the meat cook on low for 6 to 8 hours, or overnight.

Remove the pork from the liquid, and using two forks, “pull” the meat into strands, and place in a bowl.  Stir about ½ cup of enchilada sauce into the pork.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and spread a bit of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of a baking dish so the entire bottom is coated with sauce.   Pour some of the enchilada sauce into a wide, shallow bowl or plate, and coat each corn tortilla with sauce on both sides (if using flour tortillas, you can skip this step).

Add some of the pork to the tortilla and top with a little bit of cheese, then roll up and place it in the baking dish.   Sometimes the corn tortillas will crack as you try to roll them, but the enchilada will still taste great.  When the baking dish is full of rolled tortillas, sprinkle the top with a little more cheese and cover with aluminum foil.  Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until heated through and the cheese is melted.  Serve with cilantro, sour cream, and additional cheese.

Enjoy!

Download a PDF version here.