Tuesday, February 16, 2010

candied apples, crock pots & Valentine's with my boys.

Ah Sunday. A Sunday that is also a holiday, Valentine's day and a Sunday before a Monday holiday, can you handle it. I knew Sunday would be great.

We all slept in a bit and thankfully so as I was a feeling a tiny bit yucky from the reception Saturday night and felt I could use a few more zzz. Although it was nothing a little coffee and aspirin couldn't cure. Espen & I headed out to the store to grab all the fixin's for candied apples and chicken & sweet potato stew.

The moment we got home I started on the Crock Pot, slicing up chicken, cutting up sweet potatoes, peeling carrots. Chicken & Sweet Potato Stew is one of my favorite Crock Pot recipes. Although the last time I made it I only used 14oz of stewed tomatoes and added some yellow curry powder to the mix. It was a little better that way, but no matter how I tweak it, it's always delicious.

Valentine's Day


While the crock pot was doing it's thing I began to prep the ingredients for our first attempt at candied apples.

Valentine's Day


Jeremy kept Espen occupied while I heated up the caramel, but really, by the time I got the apples out and ready for dipping I realized, involving a 3.5 year old was probably not the best idea. I let him watch, but I did the dipping...well, it was more like rolling and dragging and re-heating and scraping. I had know idea what I was in for and it was definitely a bit harder than I thought it would be. But, they turned out all right and besides, they were going to be covered in a few other layers of sugary goodness.

Valentine's Day


Valentine's Day


What sugary goodness am I talking about? The lemon flavored white chocolate and Nilla Wafer crumb kind and the milk chocolate and coconut and cookie crumb kind. I think they turned out alright. I scorched the first batch of white chocolate but after learning my lesson the second batch turned out next to perfect.

DSC00526


DSC00532


Espen could hardly contain himself and we all couldn't wait to eat them but we had to wait until after dinner which was SOOO good.

DSC00519


The stew was devoured in about a day and a half, I have never seen a crock pot meal disappear so quickly almost as quickly as the candied apples. I don't remember ever eating a candied apple before, they were amazing. I'm not sure which was better, the milk chocolate or lemon white chocolate. Between the stew and the apples, I think today's meals were a success.

Espen gave me his Valentine first thing in the morning and Jeremy & I both had to add finishing touches to add to ours so we held off on exchanging them, it wasn't until late at night that we remembered that it was Valentine's day. I had been so consumed with apple dipping and crock potting that I completely forgot. We decided we'd celebrate on Monday and with very full bellies we went to sleep.

DSC00538

1 comment:

Twins & Co. said...

YUM! That crockpot recipe looks divine!