And now for something completly different

So I have been thinking about adding a new post every week where I kinda let you guys know about some of my other favorites.  No I am not trying to be Oprah and I will not be giving everyone a new car.  However, I just want to share a top ten kind of list every week.  I also wanted to show you guys some of my other crafty skills that I am working on or have finished.  So with out further ado I give you my Top Ten Book Series I have read:

#1 A Song of Ice and Fire: George RR Martin.  This is the book series that Game of Thrones is based on and it is spectacular reading. By the way R+L=JS, that is who his parents are.  My geeky friends will understand that last sentence, the rest of you will just have to read the books or watch the show.

#2 The Lord of the Rings series: JRR Tolkien.  When I say this I also mean the Hobbit.  To think he created a whole language for this series.

#3 The Harry Potter series: JK Rowling.  This story has a lot of ups and downs but no real mystery, by that I mean you can guess the villain almost from the onset of the second chapter.

#4 The Mortal Instruments series: Cassandra Clare .  I feel so bad for what the studios did to her book.  The books are great and have tons of details, but the movie didn't even try to follow the story of the first book.

#5 The Eragon series: Christopher Paolini. Again another great book series on par with A song of Ice and Fire for rich detail.  However, the movie studios destroyed the movie it could have been.

#6 The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins.  Great book series that had one of the best twist endings that I never saw coming. She made you feel like you wanted to be in the arena fighting with them.

#7 The Divergent Series:Veronica Roth.  You have to include the book FOUR when you talk about this series.  It has an interesting take on utopian ideals and what one society will do to live in peace.

#8 The Smiley Versus Karla Series: John Le Carré.  If you haven't heard of this its because it is a set of three books with separate titles.  The most famous title in the series is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  If you love James Bonds adventures or cold war type spy movies you should read this series.

#9 The Robert Langdon Collection: Dan Brown.  This collection includes Angel and demons, The Da Vinci Code, Inferno, and The Lost symbol.  I took several classes in college in art history and found that art has hidden meaning in them.  Dan Brown's ability to recreate what you see in a location is amazing.

#10 The Percy Jackson series: Rick Riordan.  This is just a fun read for younger adults.  I enjoyed it again because I took a lot of history classes in college and there is crossover with the Greek gods.

 To go along with my top ten here are a couple book marks I made.  So a lot of you may or may not know that in my free time I love to cross stitch.  I find this a great way to relax and ease my mind of the daily frustrations (Simeon jumping on furniture, throwing marker caps, leaving dishes everywhere).  I tend to do projects that are going to be presents for close friends or relatives.  It just so happens though that lately I have been in a kick of making bookmarks.  Now I love all things nerdy and these two bookmarks are no exception.  The first bookmark I made was of the Dark Mark From the Harry potter book series It was super simple and only took me two days to do.  I had some great beige material that I found at a local thrift store.  By the way if you stick your nose up to thrift stores I will tell you that I have found some of the greatest deals going to them.  The stitching is all in black DMC floss.  The second bookmark I did is of Mister DNA from the Jurassic park movie.  This one comes from the ride scene in the beginning of the movie where Mister DNA is explaining how they found the dino DNA in amber.  If you don't remember this little guy go back and watch Jurassic Park again or wait for Jurassic World to come out.  It would be awesome to see a scene of him in the new movie. These are unfinished I have to clean up the edges and put felt on them (by the way if you have any projects or bookmarks you want let me know and we will talk about specifics).

Harry Potter Dark Mark

 

Jurassic Park Themed

A Feast For Canelé

So I know I have been slacking lately but it has been for good reason.  My beautiful wife and I are eating a more plant based diet due to her having a weight loss challenge at work.  So I am a trying to be a very supportive husband and trying to help her eat better.  I will also be posting some of the better juice recipes we have been enjoying.  We decided to change one of our meals with juice and it just works out that dinner is the best meal for us to change out for juice.  So on to this weeks recipe challenge for myself.  I am a fan of trying out my recipes on friends and family.  I had a great opportunity this week to do this.  I decided I wanted to make a dessert or should I say desserts.  I made two different french style desserts.  I don't know how many people I have told this to but if I had money now I would try starting my own bakery that offers desserts that I have not seen around the area.  A great example of what I would like to offer to the people of the Brillion, Chilton, and Appleton area are these little flavor packed cakes.

Canelé are a french pastry with a soft custard like interior and a exterior that reminds me of charred sugar on the out side of egg custards. I know the pictures look like the cakes are burnt however they are made to look this way.  These little cakes are flavor packed. I made my version of Canelé with really good Mexican Vanilla and Captain Morgans 1671.  The captain Morgan being a specialty bottle may affect my future representation of these cakes.   Several people at the party seem to pull a different flavor profile out of the same cake.  One person who enjoyed them said that she tasted banana when eating them. Another thought that it was more like vanilla custard.  I attribute this to the Captain Morgans imparting a flavor into the cake.  All of these were gone when we left the party.

By the way I am rereading some Song of Ice and Fire books and that is where my title came from.

Here is the recipe I used for canelé

2 cups of milk 

50 grams of butter 

3 tsps of vanilla extract ( I personally like the Posa brand out of mexico called pure vanilla because it is clear and doesn't change the color of my cookies and cakes)

100 grams of plain flour

250 grams of icing sugar(confectioners sugar)

1 tsp of salt

2 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup of rum.

So first thing is to add milk and butter to melt the butter and heat the milk.  I also added the vanilla at this point to concentrate its flavor.

In a separate bowl mix together the icing sugar salt and flour till it looks like this.

After mixing flour and sugar add the eggs at this point and mix then add the hot milk mixture and whisk but try not to mix vigorously otherwise you will make souffles.  When you finish mixing I put this through a fine mesh strainer to get rid of all the lumps out of my batter.  When cool add rum and refrigerate for 24-48 hours.  when you bake these you want to use a small silicone pan almost like a cupcake pan or a canelé pan if you can get one.  Preheat oven to 460 degrees F heat the silicone pan on a baking pan for 4 minutes then fill the molds (don't grease the pan or you won't get the rise you want). Bake for 15 minutes, then turn down the oven to 375 degrees then continue to bake for 1hour.  You are looking for a cake that almost looks to dark.  DON'T worry they may look to dark but they are delicious and crunchy outside creamy inside.

Once they come out of the oven remove from the pan. this is due to the high amount of sugar in the batter will cause the cakes to become stuck after they cool.  Trust me clean up is easier if you remove them right away.