We spent yesterday at the Iowa State Jazz contest for our High School, and what a fun day that was! The kids did a great job and they were able to get 6th place in the state and came home with a trophy. We went with a group of parents and by the time that we got home, we were all tired and ready to call it a night. If you’ve never been to the contests, it’s a long day for the kids and also the parents. We left at 7 am and got home at 10:30 pm, but it was worth it. Since this was our last contest with our kids, it’ll be weird not going there anymore. Daryl and I talked about that maybe next year we’ll go anyway – but that’s a whole year away and who knows what we’ll be up to by then.
Other things going on today was it was really cold this morning outside. Some people were saying that it got down to 27 degrees. Now I didn’t think too much of this until I saw that one of my mums by the house was half dead. So I started to wonder how the plants in the greenhouse were doing, and let me tell you that they are looking pretty sad right now. A bunch of them froze last night, and the rest of the tomatoes are thinking about giving it up. We’ll see what they’ll do, otherwise maybe this year we will have to buy tomato plants.
I made a candy tray for my sister today and was happy how it turned out. I wanted to try out a new recipe and am always glad when one of my family is willing to let me do it with their order. The candy that I wanted to try wasn’t too bad, but I’m not a big fan of the orange taste and this new recipe was orange chocolate meltaways. It had not only orange extract in it, but also orange jest – so you can about imagine how ‘orangey’ it was. My sister liked it, so I guess that’s all that matters. I also was thinking about making some caramel popcorn this morning, but didn’t know how I could put make it work with this tray. So after I added some pecans to the popcorn when I mixed in the caramel, and then after I baked it I thought a little chocolate couldn’t hurt could it? So I drizzled some of that over the top, I was really surprised on how just a small amount really changed the taste of it. I was happy how it looked in the bags and I think I’ll make that again. But on the orange meltaways – I’ll wait until someone requests them before I make them again.
Caramel pecan popcorn with drizzled chocolate
Snack tray
Daryl worked up the ground in the field tonight and was getting it ready for the Co-op to spread fertilizer on it. I was hoping that he would be able to go to a Ragbrai meeting with me, but I know that the field work is much more important right now. But I sure hope we can go for a bike ride soon! The Ragbrai bike ride is only a couple of months away.