I know I’m late to the party on this one, but Fany Gerson’s cookbook My Sweet Mexico is a total gem. I’m usually stumped as to how to end Mexican meals (I mean, a girl can only eat so much flan or Mexican chocolate ice cream). Well, that certainly won’t be a problem anymore- this cookbook is chock full of interesting and diverse recipes for sweet breads, candies, cookies, and frozen treats. Seriously, this book has it all. I currently have about a dozen recipes bookmarked with little page flags.
These creamy mocha coffee caramels actually morphed from Gerson’s milk fudge recipe. I swapped out some evaporated milk for coffee and ended up with these soft, creamy and chewy coffee caramels. I used café de olla, because I had some on hand, but feel free to use any kind of coffee.11/7/11 Update: I went back to make these again just to make sure they worked with regular coffee (they did) and to add some extra photos to illustrate the consistency you’re looking for when to pull them off of the heat. The photos above will result in caramels that actually don’t need any refrigeration.. they set up perfectly at Hawaii room temperature. If you stop just short of this, the caramels will require refrigeration, but I actually liked the texture of my earlier batch of refrigerated caramels better. In any case, you have some flexibility here.
When you’re stirring you should be able to coax the mixture into a mound; when you stop stirring it’ll creep back towards the edges. The photo on the right is after cocoa powder was added- at this point the mixture could be coaxed into a little ball. And while you don’t need a candy thermometer, you do need patience… a half batch simmered away for about an hour to get to the finished stage.
Creamy Mocha Coffee Caramels
2 (14-ounce) cans of sweetened condensed milk
1 cup evaporated milk
3/4 cup café de olla, or other kind of coffee
6 Tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
pinch salt
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
parchment paper or aluminum foil and waxed paper
Lightly grease a loaf pan (approximately 9-inch by 5-inch) and line with parchment paper or aluminum foil, leaving a little overhang on each side.
Combine the condensed milk, evaporated milk, café de olla or coffee, butter, vanilla, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon, until the mixture is very thick and pulls away from the sides of the pan.
Pour half of the mixture into the prepared loaf pan and spread evenly. Add the cocoa powder to the remaining mixture and stir to combine. Pour the mocha caramel over the coffee caramel and allow to come to room temperature. Place in the refrigerator until chilled. Remove and cut into bite-sized pieces. Wrap pieces in small squares of waxed paper.
Store in the refrigerator.
I can probably count the number of times I’ve eaten tofu in the past couple years on one hand. Sure, there are a lot of recipes that I love that use the stuff (like this one and 
This dish reminded me of the old math question: how many combinations can you make with __ numbers? Because with just chickpea flour, water and salt you could either end up with French Socca crepes, or this Burmese tofu. And probably plenty of other dishes currently unknown to me.
I was pretty much floored the first time I saw a friend of mine make egg drop soup. I mean, who knew that making the popular Chinese appetizer basically just involved heating up a lightly spiced broth and stirring in beaten eggs in a steady stream until they cook into delicate ribbons?
Most egg drop soups are far from filling, however, so in an attempt to make this into something of a one-dish meal I used more eggs than usual as well as a substantial amount of spinach. The spinach wilts down to far less than its original volume but still provides plenty of bulk and a nutritional boost.
Quick and Easy Spinach Egg Drop Soup
I did plenty of cooking for Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday week, but didn’t have time to take any photos. So I’m back, much sooner than I hoped or anticipated, with another kitchen renovation post. I’m hopeful that this post will help my fellow kitchen design fanatics who check Gardenweb forums and/or Houzz incessantly looking for photos of countertops.*
If any of you saw Something’s Gotta Give, then you might remember the kitchen above, which was, quite possibly, more popular than the movie itself. But after almost a decade (!!!), it seems like the tides are shifting from black to white countertops.
Marble might be a great choice for some people (those who like patina, those who don’t actually cook in their kitchens). But I don’t want to worry about guests accidentally spilling wine or tomato sauce on my kitchen counters.
I gathered as many light-colored and marble-look quartz samples that I could find and then threw in some Kashmir White granite and Corian Raincloud for good measure. Here’s the round-up.
And the LG Hausys Viatera in Cortina seems like it’s a pretty good match for the Cambria Torquay. They’re both creamy whites with grey and taupe swirls/veining.
Here are some photos of the large samples at a showroom that I visited. The Torquay looks much more natural while the Bianco River almost has a snow leopard print feel to it.
Most of the photos that I’ve seen of Cambria Torquay have been in bright, natural light, which always made the veining seem very subtle. This harsh, indoor lighting inside the Homeowner’s Design Center really seems to make the swirling/veining more pronounced.
And finally, here’s the display sample of the LG Cortina. I have several dozen other photo comparisons of the samples above. So if you are looking for more photos of one of the quartz varieties mentioned above, just let me know.
