Chocolate Dipped Beer Marshmallows?

Yep. That's right. I said chocolate dipped beer marshmallows.

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. I'm 80% done with my MBA and that's what's slowed the blogging down so much. The last year and a half has just been a blur. So here I sit with three finals in the next two weeks (Economics, Statistics and Business Info Systems) and a 10 page research paper due in a week. So what am I doing instead of studying for any of those tests or working on my paper? Making marshmallows from scratch and then blogging about it. Procrastination, thy name is Heather.

A friend, Sarah Thorowgood, had an awesome idea - Starbucks (yum), chocolate (oh hells yeah) and friends (why the h*ll didn't I think of this?). Now you all know I love me some Starbucks. And chocolate. It's almost as good a combination as you'll find - right up there with chocolate and peanut butter, dark chocolate and dry wine, good vodka and olive juice... Anyway, so we were all to bring something chocolate to share. So I wanted to bring something different, something unique.

I've read several times about homemade marshmallows and have been eager to try my hand at it. But... J doesn't like marshmallows. Even Easter Peeps. Isn't that weird? I know. I mean... how do you not like Easter Peeps? Everybody likes peeps. Or at least they should. It's un-American. It's just wrong.

Okay, back to my point - now I could make marshmallow and not have to eat it all myself. Not that that would be a big burden, but it would PROBABLY not be such a great idea. But I wanted to do more than just plain old chocolate coated marshmallows. So I did a little cruising around on the internet and found Truffle Truffle's beer & pretzel marshmallows - and then I found a few folks had already tried to recreate these intriguing treats. Yeah - not so much unique, huh? I copied a copycat. Whatever.

I decided to use Schlafly's Coffee Stout, and there are a couple of reasons for that. For one thing, I needed a dark beer so that it's flavor would come through in the marshmallow. But also because the coffee flavor would go well with chocolate. But mostly because I really really like it! So just a side note: if you like dark beer you'll like Schlafly's Coffee Stout. It's their Oatmeal Stout combined with Kaldi's French Roast coffee. Yummy and delicious combine to made amazing.

 Okay, side-tracked again. Back to my point. The beer marshmallow was my first task. I needed half a bottle of flat beer - so I had to drink half a bottle. Gosh darnit, the sacrifices I make for my friends. So I combined the flat beer and some gelatin and let it sit. Separately, I mixed more beer, corn syrup, sugar and a little salt and brought it to a boil.

Once it gets between 225 and 250 degrees Fahrenheit, just let it boil for another five minutes or so.

I know it seems like it's a very big pot for a relatively small amount of liquid - but it really wants to boil up pretty intensely. So the bigger the pot, the better it is.

And then you combine the two mixtures in the bowl of a mixer and use the whisk attachment and just whisk the living bejeezus out of it. I let it go for a good twenty minutes. It did get light and fluffy, but ended up kind of a creamy color.

Once it's whipped, this is some seriously sticky stuff. I mean seriously sticky. To quote a poster that commented on one of the recipes I looked at, I felt like a cartoon character stuck in a a glue factory. But I did manage to wrestle it into a well oiled silicone baking pan, then you just let it sit overnight to cure.

The next day I turned it out on to parchment paper and started cutting it into cubes. Still sticky, by the way. But if you rub some powdered sugar onto the surface it helps. Also, I took a paper towel and blotted away some of the cooking spray I'd used in the silicone baking pan - I was afraid the chocolate wouldn't stick to the marshmallow if there was too much cooking spray.

They looked pretty good once I'd cut them into cubes, but they definitely look homemade, don't they? I'm going to call it "rustic" rather than "amateurish". Just go with it.

Dipped each one in melted chocolate, and then topped with crushed pretzels.

They look pretty, don't they? Except for needing to let the marshmallow cure overnight, they didn't take too long to make - just a little effort. I can't wait to try a few new flavors and ideas.

And I totally want to make these again. But I would make a couple of changes. I thought the beer flavor would be subtle. Too subtle, in fact, to be detected if I coated the whole cube with perfect Ghiradelli chocolate and salty pretzels. But I was wrong - the flavor was perfect and stood up to the chocolate and pretzels. So next time I'll cover them completely in chocolate! More is more.

But now we come to the sad part of my day. Sigh. My stupid dishwasher died on me. And I realized it just as I started making my beer marshmallows. So not only did I spend all Saturday morning in Econ class, I then had to hand wash and entire dishwasher full of dishes that didn't get washed, plus all of the dishes I dirtied making my chocolate dipped beer marshmallows.

Stupid builder grade original dishwasher. And now I'm going to spend my Sunday afternoon shopping for new dishwasher. Argh.  

Snow Cream! We Made SNOW CREAM!!!

It wasn't until I was living on my own and well into my twenties when I realized that making Snow Cream wasn't a part of everyone's childhood. My friends in college had no idea what I was talking about when I asked if anyone knew how to make Snow Cream the first time it snowed our freshman year. (And considering that we were in Kirksville, MO - the weather armpit of the Midwest - that was probably sometime around Sept 1.) It snowed often - and a lot - when I was in college at Northeast Missouri State (now Truman State University), so I desperately wanted to make snow cream. Unfortunately, this was pre-internet/pre-Google (yes, I'm that old) and the idea never occured until late in the evening... and after a few drinks... so it was always to late to call and ask my parents how to make it.

I've mentioned it a few times to various people since college and not one single person knew about Snow Cream. So it faded into the dusty corners of my memory, along with the lyrics to Whitesnake's "Is This Love?", the Law of Constant Composition and the names of all of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Mostly because we went through a really long stretch here in the St. Louis area without a prolonged snowfall accumulation!

That all officially ended on Christmas Eve this year. J and I packed up the car and headed up to Mom and Dad's after work on the evening of December 23. When we woke up the morning of Christmas Eve it had already snowed enough to cover the ground. It snowed all day and all night - it was beautiful (as long as you weren't trying to get anywhere). Christmas Eve is usually just the four of us (Mom, Dad, J and I) and involves lots of lounging around, eating, drinking (yay Bourbon Slush!!!) and playing games. I love it.

This year (after a Bourbon Slush or two) Dad said the magic words, "Want to make some snow cream?", and it all came rushing back to me. Is this love that I'm feeling... Is this the love that I've been searching for... Is this love or am I dreaming... No, no, no - not the lyrics to "Is This Love", snow cream! J looked totally confused, but I hopped right up and grabbed my coat - we're gonna make SNOW CREAM!

We used to make snow cream whenever we had a big snow when I was growing up. I remember making it a lot during Christmases in Kentucky (did it snow more often in Kentucky when I was a kid or do I just keep remembering the same Christmas over and over?). Snow cream is made from snow (obviously) and has a much smoother consistency than ice cream and best of all, it only takes a few minutes to make.

So Mom found the biggest bowl she could find and Dad and I bundled up to head out into the cold wilderness... um, the driveway.

 You need lots of snow - as much as you can get in the biggest bowl you have.

 Don't pack it down - you need it to stay light and fluffy.

 This is why you can really only do it when there's some serious accumulation.



(Note the bottle of Knob Creek and the bottle of Makers Mark on the island. It was a good Christmas.)

 You need fresh, pure snow - you don't want to get any that has touched the ground - so you need to be able to scoop up a big bowlful without scraping or packing it down.

And here's the thing about making snow cream - there's no measuring involved.

You just have to do it until it's "right".

Until it looks and tastes right.

Turns out it's super easy, and if I'd put a little effort into it, even with my pickled twenty-year-old brain I could have figured it out.



Hey Dad... the Knob Creek is still there. Where did the bottle of Makers Mark go?



 Sweetened condensed milk and vanilla extract. That's it. Stir in sweetened condensed milk and add vanilla. Who knew?

You can add other flavor extracts to it too - but Dad and J are classic vanilla kind of guys, so vanilla it is.



Keep stirring until it's smooth and creamy.

While I was preparing to write this post I googled snow cream and found that even Paula Deen has a recipe (and it's the same one we use). Some recipes online heavy whipping cream and sugar rather than sweetened condensed milk. Whatever. According to Wikipedia, this was the precursor to ice cream. My grandmother always told me that they never knew what ice cream was, and that snow cream was a favorite and rare treat for her when she was a child growing up in rural Kentucky (imagine the theme to "Little House on the Prairie" playing in the background while you read that part).

So anyway, we had our yummy snow cream and J had his first snow cream experience. Taking the first bite...

Carefully savoring the first bite...

Yep - the verdict is in - he likes it!

(And nothing goes with snow cream like... beer?)...

 I was all nostalgic about it and Dad got a kick out of the whole thing.

So did Mom.

This was such a treat and so much fun to make too. For those of you with kids that have never done this with your kids - do it! Or call me and I'll come do it with them.

(Special note to Shaina: I have dibs on doing this with your kids!!!)

Since this is as close as I'm going to get to an Oscar, I'd like to thank... (also Christmas 2010 ROCKED!)

This is a totally true story. Two days ago I was sitting on the couch, clad in old navy sweatpants that are two sizes too big (but stay on thanks only to the drawstring waist), a white t-shirt stained with... um... something reddish and black flipflops that are so worn that there's probably only about an eighth of an inch of rubber between my feet and the ground. I was playing with my favorite new toy. (I know, my husband spoils me - it was a Christmas present from J). I was cruising Facebook and gorging on Fritos and creamy gorgonzola dip (shut UP - you know it sounds delicious, don't judge if you haven't tried them) when I saw that I'd been tagged in a post by my friend, Sarah - turns out she was bestowing me with the Stylish Blogger Award! I put down the greasy corn chips and stinky cheese and looked down at myself just to double check... Yup! I am one stylish biatch.

Honestly, I'm just so surprised to have won this award. I didn't prepare a speech or anything. It's an honor just to be nominated. I can't believe you like me... you REALLY like me! First and foremost, I want to thank the big guy upstairs - Jeremy's in the bathroom upstairs because what he's doing is too stinky to be allowed on the same floor I'm in. Thank you for that, Jeremy. Also, I want to thank my parents - without you I wouldn't be here. Literally. In addition, I want to thank myself. Without me, The View from a Broad wouldn't exist. So thank you, Heather - you're my everything. And finally, I want to thank Sarah for being such an incredibly insightful friend to realize my genuis should be awarded. Thank you Sarah.

Okay -I'll stop the smarty-pants act now. Honestly, go check out Sarah's blog. She's a truly dedicated mother (soon to be a mommy for the second time) who is in the midst of living her own American dream - beautiful family (1.9 kids, loving husband, two cats and two dogs), white picket fence, great home and a job she really enjoys. We should all be so lucky.

Now as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility. So I there are a few things I must do as a recipient of the Stylish Blogger Award. I must:
1. Thank the person that gave me the award. (Check.)
2. Share seven things about myself.
3. Pass the award on to other bloggers I follow who have inspired me.
4. Copy the award from Sarah's blog and display it on mine. (Check.)
5. Notify my selected recipients.

Okay... so... seven things about myself. So I'm thinking this should probably be seven things not everyone already knows about me. Which really narrows it down because I kind of share (okay, let's be honest, OVERshare) everything on here. But I'll give it my best shot.

1. I have a peepee dance. You know how parents can tell when their kid needs to go potty because they're doing the peepee dance? I still do it, when I'm too engrossed or obsessed with what I'm doing to really realize that I need to go potty really bad. My Mom still calls me on it ("Heather, do you have to go to the bathroom?" "Yes." "Go to the bathroom right now."). J has now learned to recognize it and calls me on it now too.
2. I have a stork bite birthmark on the back of my neck. It's right at the hairline and so usually hidden. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything but I'm really proud of it. For no reason whatsoever.

My first bath! The red arrow points to my stork bite birthmark. The black bar preserves my dignity.

3. My mother was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma weeks before I got married. This is what killed my paternal grandmother. It's scared the bejeesus out of me and I was ready to cancel the wedding and was in a serious panic. Thankfully Mom's was found early, hadn't metastasized and it was completely removed surgically. (She's six years cancer-free, which is considered "cured". Yay!) Since then I've had three basal cell carcinomas removed via Mohs surgery. My dermatologist tells me that since there is malignant melanoma on both sides of my immediate family it's not a matter of "if" I get it, but "when". That sucks.
4. I cannot burp on demand. Despite years of lessons from Dad at the dinner table - I never could get the hang of it. To his total disappointment.
5. On a related note, I desperately want to learn to fart on demand. My friend Juliet swears she can teach me how...

6. My first car was an electric blue 1979 Firebird. It was in cherry condition when I got it. Two weeks later it'd been through a barbed wire fence. It was a tank. I loved it. Dad sold it for scrap metal while I was away at college and may never get over that heartbreak.



Don't look at my hair. It was 1987. Leave me alone.



7. I'm scared to death of being alone/dying alone. Between our decision not to have kids and what just happened with Jeremy's heart - it's a paralyzing fear at times.

So - how's that for ending on a high note? Awk-ward...  At least you're not stuck nodding your head, looking around nervously and trying to find a way to change the subject. Good thing segues are so much easier in a blog than in real life, huh?

Moving on. My next duty is to pass the award on to other bloggers who have inspired me. That's easy - much easier than the 7 things thing. I'll start with The Tardy Princess written by my best friend, Mary Beth Neukomm. I love this woman - she is exactly the kind of mother I feel like I would have been. And she is also the funniest and most clever woman I think I've ever known. Including me! She hasn't updated the blog in a while (hint, HINT), but her subject matter is her daughter, Ryan. And I am Ryan's self-appointed Fairy Godmother. 

The Tardy Princess herself, Ryan Neukomm.


The second blogger I'll mention is a woman I've never met before in my life. But I found her first blog, French Laundry At Home, very shortly after she'd started a few years ago by accident and was quickly hooked. Carol Blymire is clearly an incredibly brilliant woman with a truly engaging "writing voice". I read every single post immediately after she posted it. And when she finished The French Laundry and started cooking her way through Alinea on Alinea at Home I moved on with her - and continue to enjoy this journey as well. Carol is the blogger that really inspired me to start blogging in the first place. As most of you know, she also inspired me to cook my way through Ad Hoc at Home (due to Jeremy's heart surgery I've taken an indefinate break from that blog - but do hope to get back to it one day). So thank you Carol!

My Favorite Christmas Memory... Circa 1981

Today at work some of my coworkers and I were talking about our favorite Christmas memories and it made me want to share mine with you.


My first Christmas at 4 months old. I still have that stocking... somewhere.



I love Christmas. I love the Christmas season and everything about it. I have always wanted to be a part of a huge family with lots of kids that get up on Christmas morning and race to the tree to see if Santa filled their stockings.



This was my favorite Christmas gift of all time - a tractor just like the one my grandfather drove. It was my "chair" for the rest of our Christmas visit. Well, mine and my new stuffed pet kitty's.



Since we don't have children that's not something I get to be a part of. But I love throwing Christmas parties and eggnog and putting up the tree and Christmas music.



God bless her, my grandmother gave me a doll for every freaking year. And I fake smiled and said "thank you" every freaking year. And then hated them - I was never much of a doll fan. Shrug.

I love mistletoe and picking out just the right gift and Christmas specials on TV. There's a lot to love about Christmas and I have a lot of wonderful Christmas memories, but there's one special memory that I want to share with everyone.

It was my ninth Christmas and my whole family had gathered at my grandparents' house in Kentucky as we did every year. It was bedtime (around 8:30 or so) on Christmas Eve and the meteorologist on the local news station claimed that Santa was getting pretty close. I'd been getting a little suspicious about the whole Santa thing over the last year, and was resisting going to bed. Extended family members had been visiting all day and all evening, the kitchen and living room were full of Christmas candy and cookies, and everybody was still having so much fun - it wasn't fair that I had to go to bed for "Santa" to come.

So I was in bed, but I wasn't asleep - and I was pretty vocal about my displeasure and being told to go to bed. Suddenly, Mom comes in and asks me if I hear bells... from outside. I listened and I heard them - are those... jingle bells? When I looked out the bedroom window and up toward the roof, I saw a red glow off the edge of the roof! OMG - Rudolph was peaking in my window to see if I was asleep! HOLY COW!!! RED ALERT! RED ALERT!!! SANTA IS HERE!

(This part will probably shock you - but I was a pretty loud and bossy kid, so their plan kind of backfired on them.) To Mom and Aunt Anita's surprise I hopped right out of bed and ran into the living room screaming "Santa's here! Everybody in bed! Santa's here! You have to go to bed! Rudolph just looked in my window! He can't leave me presents if you're still up! GO TO BED!" They tried to convice me that it was okay for adults to be up - but I wasn't buying it for one hot second. Everybody knows Santa only comes in if everyone's in bed. Duh. So I forced my entire family - grandparents, parents, aunt - to get into the pajamas and go to bed. At 8:30 on Christmas Eve. If I recall correctly we still had company visiting and I effectively kicked them out as well. Everybody made a big show of rushing into their pajamas and climbing into bed.

In all my excitement, what I didn't notice is that Dad was missing... poor guy was up on the roof with bells and a red light!

I don't know how long I lay in bed after that with my eyes squeezed shut as tightly as possible, adrenaline pumping through my little veins, desperately trying to fall asleep as fast as possible. But I finally did. I woke up Christmas morning to a stocking full of presents from Santa, half the cookies and milk I'd left out was gone and he'd left me a note. (I always left Santa a note and he always wrote one back.)

I don't remember what I received that year, but I do remember how special that memory makes me feel. My grandparents aren't with us anymore, but I remember how much they enjoyed that Christmas as well. We don't all gather in Kentucky for Christmas anymore and those traditions are gone, replaced with new and different traditions. But one thing that hasn't changed is that I have an amazing family that loves me very much.


Me, Mom, Dad and Anita on Christmas morning - the morning after Santa and Rudolph's special visit! (Shut up - pink footie pajamas were totally in style that year. If you wanna laugh at something check out Dad's sideburns!)



Especially my dad, who climbed up on the roof and froze his jingle bells off just to convince me that Santa was real for just one more year...

Merry Christmas everyone!





Snow Day Snowmen!

So when we got up Sunday morning and saw that we had a beautiful blanket of snow on the ground, we thought it was beautiful. We had a full day of errands and kids' bday parties and Broad Family Hannukah ahead of us so Jeremy started wrapping presents while I bundled up to go run some errands.

Pulled out onto Upper Bottom Road and decided the "beautiful blanket of snow" wasn't so beautiful. The road hadn't been touched.

 At least once I got to the highway, the road had been cleared - not that it mattered. There was patchy black ice underneath all that snow. Guess the guy in the green truck facing the wrong way against the median found that out the hard way...

 Saw an accident on Highway 70 west bound...

 Saw an accident at Page Extension and Upper Bottom...

 But the good news is - I got my Venti, no fat, no foam, no whip Gingerbread Latte! Was it worth it? Well, no doi it was worth it. Have you met me????

 Anyway - by the time I got home I told Jeremy I didn't think it was a good idea to get out on the roads and head out to Wentzville. We hated to miss the beautiful Miss Avah's Second birthday party, but we have to be at Jeremy's dad's for Channukah at 4 and it was just to iffy to drive out toWentzville and back and then into Chesterfield and back. So I suddenly had a free afternoon - and that NEVER happens.

So I decided to devote my day to Graduate Finance and the pursuit of higher learning. Now let's discuss Value at Risk and the effect it may or may not have had in the failure of the subprime market in 2007-2008. Dennis Weathestone, the former CEO of ... HA! Yeah right.

So I REALLY decided to spend the afternoon doing something fun for a change! I don't take the title of "Best Aunt on Earth" lightly, you know, so I made snowmen for the kids. We're still going to try to make it to Jay's tonight for the Hannukah gift exchange, so the kids will get an extra treat.

These snowmen are SUPER easy to make the kids just love them. They'd be fun to make with little ones as well. All you need are mini powdered donuts, candy corn, mini chocolate chips, popsicle sticks, toothpicks and black construction paper.

I made little pedastals to put them on with some white textured wrapping paper scraps I had left over from a wedding gift I'd wrapped. I just covered a square of cardboard,

 and then poked a hole in the center, put a little glue on a popsicle stick and put it in the hole.

 Stack three powdered donuts on your stick... (see Miss Gingerbread Latte in the back ground? I love her.)

 My snowman assembly line.

 Cut a length of yard to wrap around the neck as a scarf and push a piece of candy corn into the top donut for your snowman nose...

 Up close...

 Now use one of your popsicle sticks to poke little holes for the eyes and buttons - it makes exactly the right size hole for the mini chocolate chips. Then put the mini chips in pointed end first.

 To make the hats I just used black construction paper. I tried several edible options, but nothing looked quite right (which  means I have chocolate mallowcookies, chocolate wafers and black dots to eat... poor me). So I just cut 1 inch rounds, 2 in rounds and long strips to create the hats.

 Glue it all in place... had to find small weights to hold them together while the glue dries.

 Then poke a hole in the bottom of your had and pop it on top. Use a couple of toothpicks as arms and you're good to go!