Trip to Baltimore

Hi everyone!  How was your weekend?  (Good, I hope!)

This past weekend I left hubby and Chuck to fend for themselves (eek!).  I had a mini adventure and rode the bus to visit a friend in Baltimore.  We met there while we were both college students.  I guess our goofy personalities just clicked because we're still friends ten years later.  Here are some photos from our Baltimore adventure...

Fried green tomato, avocado, egg, bacon, and cheese on pumpernickel bread... yum!

Make your own glow in the dark chalk

A couple of weeks ago Chuck and I were perusing the Halloween aisles at Target (for the bajillionth time... what can I say?  It's my favorite holiday!) and I spotted a pack of glow in the dark chalk.

Then a light bulb went off in my head.  I could buy the chalk... but it'd be more fun to try making my own.  So after tinkering around for a bit.... I came up with this result. 

Ooh!  It glows!

What what?  Yup.  They glow after you "charge" them with light.  Just doodle a design at night, shine a light on them to "charge" them, and then turn off your light.  Your doodles should glow for a bit and then you'll need to charge them again.  

To make this novelty chalk, I simply modified this homemade chalk recipe.  Instead of tempera paint, I added 3 T of glow in the dark paint to the mixture.  Here's what my chalk looked like setting up:

Have a great weekend!

Make your own gummy candies

Did you know that you can make your own gummy candies?  I didn't know that it could be done so easily until I saw this fruit juice gummy candy recipe on Instructables. 

Last week I roped my sister into trying the recipe out.  Using just four ingredients, we made homemade gummy candies in a  little over an hour.  Here are our results:

Ingredients:

• 2 envelopes of Knox Original Unflavored Gelatine
• 1 tablespoon of sugar (or more if you want them sweeter)
• 1 C of juice
• Canola oil

Directions:
1.  Combine gelatine, sugar, and juice in a pot.  Let the mixture sit there for a minute.

2.  Lightly oil your mold.  (If you skip this part your gummy candies will break apart as they pop out of the molds.)

3.  Bring the mixture to a boil.  Let it boil for 10 minutes.  The liquid will become more viscous.

4.  Spoon the hot liquid it into your molds.
 Notes:

• I placed my mold on top of a plate before I did this to catch my spills.
• I had some extra liquid, so I lined a glass baking dish with saran wrap and then poured the liquid into that.  Once the liquid hardened, it was easy to pop out a very large gummy candy.  

  5.  Put your mold into the fridge until your candies harden.  (Mine took about 1 hour to solidify.)

6.  Pop your gummies out and enjoy!



Can you believe that the recipe worked?  I was super stoked because the resulting gummies had a great texture and easily slid out of their molds.  I also liked that they weren't too sweet.  Next time I'll probably try using fruit juice concentrate instead of juice (as recommended by the original recipe.)  That should give them a more intense flavor.... and maybe they'll taste more like the store bought ones.

Happy Wednesday!