Arianna Answers All

Archive for April, 2009

Hey! Hey! Hey! It’s Wednesday! Which means it’s time to get weird with Arianna! Thanks to April, last week’s winner, for this masterpiece. It’s weird, with a captital W! The routine’s the same. Post your caption in the comments. Tomorrow, I’ll pick a winner. Next week, that person gets to show just how weird they can get. Again, remember, it’s purly voluntary. You don’t have to give me a picture if you don’t want to. But really, who wouldn’t want to? It’s fun, after all.

So here’s my lame attempt:

“Gives new meaning to two-faced!”

Have fun, and happy captioning!

Arianna the Weird

Welcome to another installment of Fudge Filled Friday. Because spring is in full swing (at least somewhere in the world), I decided I wanted something zesty to post. Then I decided to ask my mom what sort of fudge she’d like to see featured. One of my mom’s alltime favorite desserts is key lime pie, so her answer was no surprise at all. And what says “zesty” better than limes? Imagine my delight to find this delicious treat. Thanks for the yummy suggestion, Mom!

Skaarup’s Kooky Key Lime Fudge

(Original recipe. © 1997 T.P. Skaarup. May be copied without modification. All rights reserved.)

Note: This recipe was develped by T.P. Skaarup. Skaarup studied ways to make better fudge and developed ways to prevent fudge failure.  You can find more information about him at http://www.skaarupfudge.com.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup evaporated milk (or small 5 ounce can)
10 to 12 ounces white chips
6 or 7 ounces Marshmallow Crème or Marshmallow Fluff (may substitute 2 cups mini-marshmallows)
1/3 cup Key lime juice
1/2 cup almonds or macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
1/4 teaspoon rum extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract

Directions

Line a 9-inch square pan with aluminum foil and set aside. Place white chips, extracts and nuts into Pyrex glass dish (or a 3-quart saucepan) and set aside. Set butter aside to warm.

Heat milk at medium setting until warm then add sugar. Bring to a rolling boil (medium-high) while stirring constantly with a hand mixer (or wooden spoon). Add Marshmallow Creme and butter and mix until creamy. And Key lime juice. Bring back to a boil for 5 full minutes (start timing once the boil resumes). The mixture will start to turn a little brown during the boil. If you get brown flakes in the mixture, then turn down the heat a little (e.g. down to medium from medium-high) and continue to stir.

Remove from heat and pour hot mixture over chips without scraping the sides of the hot saucepan. Mix until chips are melted then mix in nuts. Pour into prepared pan. Cool at room temperature. Remove from pan, remove foil, cut into squares.

NOTE: Key Lime juice is acidic and will cause the milk to curl. Even though it looks like cr*p, it should not affect the fudge’s ability to set.

Now doesn’t that sound yummy?

PS: Feel free to stop by Romantic Inks to read my post about when it seems there’s a always a black cloud hanging over your head.

Enjoy and Happy Fudge Filled Friday!
Arianna

Wow! I only had 3 comments! What’s up with that? Maybe everyone’s in Orlando having a blast at the RT Convention. Anyhow, out of those three (and believe me, it was hard to choose!), I’ve decided that April is the winner. Congratulations April! She get the opportunity to contribute to the weirdness that is this blog. Thanks to all that commented.  April, simply email me a weird picture by tuesday night, and I’ll get it posted. And remember, it is purely voluntary, so you don’t have to if you don’t want to.

Cheers!
Arianna

Today is Earth Day, so I thought what better way to show my support for all things green by presenting something that appears to have been recycled. So I present the somewhat interesting, if not uncomfortable, Silverware Chair.

Here’s my lame attempt:
“I feel the knife in my back”

I know you all can do better than that! Leave those captions in the comments. The one with the best caption will get the opportunity to contribute to my weirdness. Good luck and have FUN!

Happy Earth Day!
Arianna

Yep! You saw that correctly! I said BARFI! Today we’re heading to India to try Milk Pista Barfi. Basically it’s “Milk Pistachio Fudge,” and it will definitely not make you barf.

Milk Pista Barfi (Burfi)

(Yes! I like the barfi name better. LOL )

Ingredients:

1. 2 qt.  whole milk
2. 1 c. Sugar
3. 1/4 c. Ghee (Clarified Butter)
4. 1/2 tsp. ground cardamon seeds
5. 1 c. Blanched Pistachios (Powder the nuts in a food processor)
6. 1/4 c. crushed Pistachios

Directions:

Combine milk, sugar, ghee, and cardamon in a heavy saucepan. Bring the mixture to 180 ºF.  Let the mixture simmer the mixture for about 45 minutes, reducing it to about 60% volume. Using a a spatula to stir,  avoid scorching the bottom of the pan.

Stir in the powdered nuts. Continue cooking at about 180 ºF for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients and allow the mixture to cook until it looks like stiff bread dough.

Grease a cookie pan and transfer the mixture. Smooth the top surface with the spatula, making it into a ½” high rectangular slab. Let the barfi cool  to room temperature. With a sharp knife, cut it into 1″ squares or diamond shape. Store in the refrigerator.

Note: 180 ºF is a nice temperature whenever you want to reduce milk. This temperature causes minimum scorching on the bottom and avoid boil-over.

See! Don’t let the name fool you!

Enjoy!
Arianna

Thank you to everyone who stopped by and left your captions. After hours of deliberation, the winner has been chosen. Tanya! Gotta get those Hobbitsoles!

I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t wait to see what Tanya comes up with for next week.

Stop by tomorrow for some yummy fudge recipes!

Cheers!
Arianna

It’s Wednesday already, can you believe it? Which means it’s time for Wednesday Weirdness [insert evil maniacal laughter here]

Madison was gracious enough to provide this picture. I don’t think I could have done a better job, myself.

Here’s my lame attempt:

If you think these feet are ugly, wait until I take them off!

Again, here’s how it works: Look at the picture, leave a caption in the comments. I will read and pick out the one I like the best. In turn, the winner, if they want to, will get the opportunity to pick their own weird photo to be featured next week.

Also, feel free to stop by Romance Roundtable today. I’m blogging about inspiration of the “What-if” kind

Have fun, and happy captioning!

Well, here’s what I’ve been doing. Procrastinating as usual. I found these images on iStockPhoto and knew I had to use them. You may recognize the fairy on the cover of Wings of Desire. She’s on the Bookshelf page of my website. I wanted something sort of fun and flirty.

And Lucy was feeling neglected, so here I made one for Unleashing, too:

Here’s some for A Most Unlikely Match (AKA: Lord Andrew’s Match). I did them a few years back for a college Photoshop class I took. Most my projects were book covers. I’m sure the instructor thought I was a nutcase

Let me know what you think!

Cheers!
Arianna

This recipe isn’t classified as fudge, but it has a lot of fudge like qualities. I remember stuffing my face full of these when I was a kid. They are YUMMY!

Church Window Candy

Ingredients:

12 ounces chocolate chips
1/4 pound butter
1 cup walnuts
10 1/2 ounces colored mini marshmallows
1 cup flaked coconut

Directions:

Melt chocolate chips in butter and let cool for 5 minutes.  Add nuts and marshmallows and mix together. Sprinkle wax paper with coconut flakes and spoon chocolate mixture over coconut.  Roll up tightly to form two large 3-inch diameter logs.  Refrigerate until firm and cut into slices.

How easy is that???

Have a blessed Good Friday and a happy Easter!
Arianna

Congrats to Madison. Your caption for April 8th was the winner! Thanks to everyone for playing along. Let’s see what Maddy comes up with next week.

Arianna – The Wench of Weirdness