Alizarine

Eddington's Peanut Butter Eggs

I'm obsessed with Reese's peanut butter eggs--everybody knows this. It is an established fact. People who love me are undoubtedly weary of my tiresome explanations of their appeal. I wrote about the RPBE's over two years ago and quoted my friend Melinda, who crystallized my thoughts perfectly:

Let's face it: the RPBE is sort of sloppy, really...There's something almost homemade about that aspect of the RPBE.

Homemade. YES. That is exactly it. They are lovingly crafted by someone who cares about them. They are the best thing in the Reese universe. I buy them (and their pumpkin and tree hybrids) all the time and mourn them during their Easter-to-Labor Day off season.

A couple of days ago I was looking around on Pinterest--apparently there's some kind of chicken and crescent roll casserole that's electrified this mighty nation. Yes, I'm on Pinterest because I am a girl and it's fun. You should totally check out my Greatness board and admire my exquisite taste in things that are great.

Somebody had pinned a recipe for homemade Reese's peanut butter eggs, I blacked out for a while, and the next thing I knew, I was making them and live-tweeting the process, a first for me. That picture up there is not an actual RPBE. I made it. It is an EPBE!

And what do you know: they're easy and fun to make. You probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen right now. I altered the recipe (from The Whimsical Princess) just a bit for greater RPBE accuracy and added a lot of my own italicized notes. What you see here is a half batch. It made 14 full-sized eggs for me, and unless you're having a party or something, you probably shouldn't be making 28 of these.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 3/4 cups creamy peanut butter <--we had store brand, very so-what peanut butter
  
• 2 tablespoons butter, soft or melted
  
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt <--original omitted the salt, but you've really got to have it because that is a huge part of the RPBE's appeal. Add it a little at a time to taste. You will know when you've added enough.
  
• 1 to 2 tablespoons milk <--depending on your powdered sugar dipping technique, you may need more
  
• 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips <--original called for semisweet, but I'm sorry, RPBEs are covered with milk chocolate
  
• 1/2 tablespoon shortening <--regular white Criso, not butter flavored, which I guess you could try in a pinch, but I didn't feel like screwing around with this.
  

DIRECTIONS

Mix together the powdered sugar, peanut butter, and butter. I used a stand mixer and was glad I did, but you could use a tough hand mixer, a spoon, or probably even your bare hands. Add the milk one tablespoon at a time until it becomes a nice workable dough. It will be just like Play-Doh, and it will be really easy to work with. Form the dough into egg shapes.

Some of your eggs might be a little on the dry, crumbly side. Those will create more accurate eggs, texture-wise (see note at the bottom of this post). But really, this dough should stick together and form eggs without a whole lot of effort on your part. I'd imagine that kids would totally get into this. Little surface cracks are okay (see photo below), but if the dough is falling apart as you work with it, you need to add more milk. I got 14 out of this batch and ate about a teaspoon of dough during the salt-tasting process.

Place in the freezer for about an hour. Do not skip that step.

Place the chocolate chips and shortening in a glass measuring cup.  Microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between until completely melted, about 90 seconds total.  (You can also use a double boiler if you prefer.) Adding the shortening is weird, I know, but it's just a tiny bit, and it seemed to make the chocolate silkier and maybe a little glossier.

Dip each egg in the melted chocolate and place on waxed paper until set.

Use a skewer or similar thin pointy thing if you have them. Stick it into the fat end of the egg until it feels stable, then dip! This is where the hour-long freeze starts to make sense. It's like the chocolate wants to be on that egg. I spread it around with a spoon for a few seconds, sort of scraping off most of the excess that wanted to collect on the egg's underside.

Once the eggs are on the waxed paper, remove the skewer with a slight unscrewing motion and gentle assistance from another skewer. You can then smooth over the hole with the egg's existing, wet chocolate or add more. Or you can leave the hole as is because (a) who cares and (b) it reminds you of your cat's ass and that's hilarious.

I apologize, Bun, and also to you, the reader.

Once they are set you can trim any excess chocolate off that may pool at the base with a knife to make them look pretty.  You could also decorate them with royal icing and make a really special Easter treat.

I had no pooling issues, and as far as decorating them further goes, I yell BLASPHEMY.

You will not be able to resist cutting into one a few minutes after they've all been dipped. Just give in. The chocolate will be a little melty, like a RPBE on a hot spring day or a RPBE in a warm car. I advise you to make these in the evening, have your too-soon egg, put the rest in a plastic container and store them at room temperature. Go to bed and dream about them--I did--then have one for breakfast!

Re: taste accuracy. Jeff and I shared the too-soon egg and proclaimed it 90+ percent accurate. Somehow, that rating jumped to 95 percent overnight. Our only issues:

1. The texture of the peanut butter was a tiny bit too solid. RPBEs are slightly more granular and airy. This is unavoidable, as you are forming the eggs with your hands and thereby compressing the peanut butter. Your less-fooled-around-with eggs will be crumblier inside but harder to dip.
2. The chocolate, according to Jeff, was somehow better than Reese's. I thought it was dead-on.

SO YEAH. Just about perfect, you guys. 14 RPBEs will cost around $11 if you buy them separately. 14 homemade EPBEs will cost around $4, and if you already have most of the stuff on hand, they're basically free.

If you're still reading, I urge get on board with this. And once again, please buy my prints!

The Graduates

I'd like to introduce you to my club! Meet Annabelle and Emily, a couple of former students of mine. When I made the decision to end my teaching career and become a full-time artist last year, these two missed me and took the initiative to form an independent art club. I'm calling them co-presidents. Co-queens!

We meet at Cafe Kopi, a local coffee shop, four times a year (at the start of each new season). At our meetings, I give my former students new projects to work on just for fun, and then we sit around talking about our current artistic endeavors and anything else that comes to mind. We also enjoy coffee drinks and homemade snacks. Like most clubs, this one started out kind of big and has since reduced in size to its hardcore, founding members.This little club has touched my heart, and I've enjoyed mentoring Annabelle and Emily.

I have a one-person show coming up at the end of March, and I wanted to add a new, big portrait to my collection, and...I can't remember what made me decide to paint the girls, other than obviously I needed to paint them. They're so beautiful. Annabelle reminds me of Natalie Portman here, and Emily's more like Nicole Kidman coloring-wise, so that contrast was wonderful to play with.

But in the end, this painting is actually a tribute to my favorite movie about teenage alienation, Ghost World. If you don't know what Ghost World is, here you go.

 

Annabelle is Rebecca, Emily is Enid, and I guess that must make me Seymour.

But back to the painting.

This is the painting after two days. The girls are gazing out a window in the coffee shop. Annabelle has a sort of dreamy expression, and Emily seems a little skeptical, maybe.

A couple of days later, I had started to add their surroundings. Painting portraits can be a little stressful, so I worked on their faces in the morning when I had fresh eyes and the background in the afternoon as fatigue set in.

The cafe has red doorways that were delicious to paint. Cadmium red light is a miracle color. A blurry man who reminds me of Paul Gauguin sits outside at a table beneath an awning decorated with colored lights.

I told Annabelle and Emily to wear something that would be challenging for me to paint, and they did not disappoint! Plaid and floral patterns are no joke but are so worth the time. You can see the beginning stages of Annabelle's buffalo check shirt on her rolled-up sleeve. This was no ordinary watercolor plaid shirt. The colors were such that I had to paint each square individually instead of layering glazes. In other words, it was hard. Emily's shirt would have been easier to paint had the print been bigger. The tiny roses were tedious!

I saved the table for last because I knew it would go quickly. The reflections involved a lot of wet-into-wet sections, and the damp paper did a lot of the work for me.

During my last days of painting, I told Jeff that the background reminded me of "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold" by Charles Demuth.

"You think in color," he said. I guess I do!

And I also have a big announcement.

In the past I've offered two of my paintings as giclee prints (Burano Glass and Poppies), which are exact digital copies of my paintings on watercolor paper. I'm excited to announce that I've branched out: now you can buy ALL of my paintings as prints.

All of them, including this one!

I've joined a site called Imagekind, as you can see on the sidebar to the right. I have an actual ad on here!

My galleries are at http://KellyEddington.imagekind.com .

Imagekind allows you the freedom to buy prints in a variety of sizes and formats. Maybe you want The Graduates to be iPad-sized. Maybe you want it to be a poster. Maybe you want it framed. Maybe you don't. Maybe you want it on expensive paper. Maybe you want something cheaper. Maybe you even want to see it on a canvas. You can do any of these things! A couple of my friends have purchased my prints from Imagekind, and they report that the process is fast and easy. Imagekind ships internationally, too!

Note: I'm not going to get rich off this venture, but every little bit helps. I'd like you to think of this ol' blog as your Watercolor 'n' Recipe NPR or your Watercolor 'n' Kitty PBS, and baby, this is my pledge drive! Have I given you a recipe that you use all the time now? Have I posted a painting you'd like to see on your wall if the original wasn't so freaking expensive? Would you like to help me buy Bun's high fiber food and expensive drugs that keep things moving along? Please consider buying one of my prints. You'll get something new you can hang on your wall and you can feed and drug my cat!

Double Note: If you buy a print for $20, please know that I will receive $10. I earn an additional 15% commission on any frames, so if a frame costs $100, I'll receive $15. It takes a while before I'll see the money (to give customers time for returns), and if you buy something I won't automatically know that you did it. So feel free to leave a comment here or talk to me on Twitter (@kellyeddington)!

Triple note: the settings that pop up automatically are the ones I'd personally suggest (Hahnemule Torchon paper is the most like watercolor paper, for example), but you can change them at will. Hate the frame I've selected? Want a different mat? Do what you like!

Quadruple note: the premise to the cartoon below is that the man was making cool donuts shaped like planes.

Please buy my doughplanes. Thanks in advance!

Pretzel Dogs

You know how much you love pretzels. You know how much you love hot dogs. Now consider the following idea:

Pretzels wrapped around hot dogs!

Look at them: pudgy, salty, golden brown grubs concealing a secret...

...the secret of hot dogs!

(Jeff was fond of the pretzel dog in the center, saying it looked like it was tipping its hat. "Top o' the morning to ye!" I enthused.)

Oh yeah, you'll get attached to these cuties during the baking process, even to the point where you assign some of them personality traits seconds before you dip them in ketchup and mustard and shove them into your face.

The recipe is from the always great Joy the Baker, who adapted it from Alton Brown, and I urge you to visit this link if you want to see Joy's excellent step-by-step photo instructions. I was on my own in the kitchen as I made them, and Jeff and Melissa (his daughter) were watching a 2-hour episode of Sherlock in the living room.

 

It's an awesome show.

During that time I was able to make the pretzel dough, let it rise for an hour while I made phone calls, cut the hot dogs in half, get a pan of water boiling, and divide the risen dough into 16 pieces. They finished their show just in time to help me with the fun stuff: wrapping, boiling, egg-washing, baking, and eating.

A note on the recipe: it is right on the money, but I halved the water and baking soda amounts.

A note on eating: they are delicious. You will groan.

(My notes are in italics.)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 ½ cups warm water (between 110 and 115 degrees F)
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 2 ¼ teaspoons (1 package) active dry yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour (about 4 1/2 cups) <--this amount was perfect, no more, no less
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• about 8 cups of water <--original recipe called for 14
• generous 1/3 cup baking soda <--original recipe called for a whole cup, which seemed excessive
• 1 large egg, beaten, with a splash of water
• salt and pepper for topping <--The only coarse salt we had in the house was some fleur de sel that I got for Christmas. Ain't we fancy?

DIRECTIONS

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine warm water and sugar.  Sprinkle the yeast on top of the water and set aside for 5 minutes.  The mixture will begin to foam and froth.  If it doesn’t, throw the mixture away and start again with new yeast.

Once the yeast and water is frothy, add the flour, salt, and melted butter.  Using the dough hook, mix on low speed until well combined.  Increase the speed to medium and knead the dough until it is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, creating a ball of dough around the dough hook.  Beat on medium speed for approximately 4 minutes.

Remove the dough from the bowl.  The dough will be soft, pliable, and just a bit sticky.  That’s perfect.  Scrape any residue out of the bowl and coat the bowl with a bit of vegetable oil.  Place the dough back in the bowl, sprinkle with flour, cover with plastic wrap, and store in a warm place to rise.  Allow dough to rise, until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Place baking racks in the center and upper third of the oven. (Jeff vetoed the idea of baking two pans at the same time, and while I didn't think two pans would be a problem, I gave him a "fair enough" shrug because who really cares? We used the upper-third rack and baked the pretzel dogs in two separate batches.) Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and lightly brush the paper with oil.  It’s important to brush the parchment paper or the pretzels will stick!

Combine water and baking soda in a large pan (8 quart is fine) and bring to a boil.

While the water comes to a boil, turn the dough out onto a clean, slightly oiled work surface.  Divide dough into 8 or 16 pieces, depending on how large you’d like your pretzel dogs.  8 pieces of dough for whole hot dogs.  16 pieces of dough if you’re going to slice the hot dogs in half. (We sliced them in half.)

Start with the fingers of both hands in the center of the dough, and roll, moving your hands outward as you roll.  Roll the dough along the oiled surface until you have about a 24-inch or 12-inch piece of rope (depending on how large your piece of dough was… the more dough the longer the rope).

Wrap pretzel around a hot dog, making sure to seal the ends.

When water has come to a boil, gently lower a couple of pretzel dogs into the boiling water.  Boil for 30 seconds.  Remove carefully, using a flat, slotted spatula.  Place on prepared baking sheet.  Brush boiled pretzels with beaten egg, and add coarse sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper (we just wanted salt).

Bake until deeply golden brown, about 12 to 14 minutes. (15 minutes resulted in the pretzels in my top photo. The second photo was more like 13 minutes.) Transfer to a cooling rack for a few minutes before serving warm.

Soft pretzels are best enjoyed the day they are made.

If you’re not going to enjoy all your pretzel dogs, double wrap them in plastic wrap and store in the freezer.  When ready to serve, transfer out of plastic and into a piece of foil.  Wrap well and bake in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes, or until heated through.

Taco and Shoe Field Trip!

Last weekend Jeff and I took a mini-mini-trip to Arcola and Tuscola, two small towns about thirty minutes south of Champaign. Mysteriously, both of their names employ the exotic "cola" suffix. Last year we read a stellar restaurant review of Arcola's El Taco Tako, and it had haunted us ever since, because it implied that the little shack was The Second Coming of Tacos:

"...the best tacos you will ever eat...every bite is perfect...culinary gold...the best goddamned taco joint in Illinois..."

"If we're ever down there, we need to try those tacos," we promised each other, and on Valentine's Day weekend, we did it.

The place was a tiny ten-seater, and we were the first lunch customers. As instructed by the review, we ordered a couple of plates of tacos (chicken and pork) from the cheerful owner who spoke about as much English as we speak Spanish. He left to fix them while we took in the kitchy beauty of the place and tried to hear each other speak over the television that was blasting a Spanish-language sports program. Jeff's looking up at it.

The walls were painted a brilliant, some would say gutsy turquoise that I just loved and liberally festooned with all manner of Mexicana.

Jeff got a kick out of the curtains in the window behind me. They were decorated with an incongruous John Deere motif. It was a cold, windy day, and I kept my coat on until the tacos arrived.

The wee tacos were indeed very, very good, and just looking at them makes me want some more. But. The amount of time that had elapsed between reading that amazing review and actually eating the food was too long. The glory of these tacos had been built up too much!

 

(ff to 7:35 or so)

"They're great tacos," concluded Jeff, "but in the end they're just tacos."

You know? It was kind of a three-note meal: the spicy meat, the interesting par-fried shell-within-a-shell, and the (fantastic) grilled onions. Plus we each had five of them, and a certain amount of taco fatigue had set in.

So we left feeling slightly non-plussed and bloated, and the tacos came back to say hi to us via a series of burps that lasted well into the afternoon, during which time we hunted for shoes for me.

 

Jeff and I will be visiting Paris in early April (hooray!!), and I've been trying to figure out what shoes and clothes to wear. It is not easy! I wanted some shoes that I could walk for miles in--but I also wanted to wear dresses with them and not look like a complete dork wearing big chubby American sneakers. My feet are huge, flat, and ducklike (wide at the toes, narrow in the heel). I can't wear high heels and walk for more than a few blocks without bitching. I can't wear cute shoes, period. I can wear boots, but I'm not sure if they're appropriate to wear in the early spring. When is it officially springtime in Paris, anyway? Can you wear boots all year? Would they be too hot? What about sandals? Would they be too cold?

So with those problems and more swirling in my mind, I set off to find the perfect dressy-but-comfortable shoe appropriate for the not-exactly-spring week of April 6. Jeff was patient as I tried on and rejected pair after pair through seven stores, most of which were located in an outlet mall in Tuscola. I found only one pair that met my comfort criteria, although style had to take a backseat. Have any of you ever heard of S.A.S. shoes?

I've worn their style-free sandals for years, especially when I was a teacher, because the foot pad was so incredibly comfortable. I believe the pads are made from a combination of Milky Way caramel, saltwater taffy, circus peanuts, marshmallow fluff, and miniature helium balloons. S.A.S. stands for San Antonio Shoes (made in S.A. Texas), and they refuse to sell their products online, so nice people like Joel, the knowledgeable man who helped me find the right size, can keep their jobs. It's adorably 19th Century. The shoes are plain but extremely well-made. I've heard the description "fug" bandied about. Some would call them Old People Shoes.

Actually they're Rich Old People Shoes--most styles cost in the neighborhood of $100-$150, and that was way more than we had planned to spend. As I tried on other, cheaper (cuter) shoes, I was frustrated because nothing came close to the comfort of the S.A.S. shoes. We thought we could try to find them online somehow, like on Ebay, but I've tried that before and failed. After we gave up, I may have admitted to Jeff that I was "slightly disappointed."

We rolled out of Tuscola and were about to get on the interstate when Jeff said, "Damn it! It's Valentine's Day!" and did a quick U-turn. It was downright cinematic. He drove us back to the S.A.S. store and bought me the shoes.

He was richly rewarded once we got home.

I mean, they're not that bad, right? They're so austere that they're actually kind of cool, right?

PS Please do not leave frustrating comments telling me that you have found better, cuter, cheaper, more comfortable, perfect shoes. My feet are freaks and will vary with your mileage, I can almost guarantee you. I've been wearing these in all week and am beginning to bond with them. Thank you for respecting our privacy during this beautiful time in our lives.

The List

A few weeks ago I wrote about how Jeff and I met and our Chicago trip a month later when Jeff said "not yet" to a taxi driver who asked if we were married. I didn't tell you about our jouney home on the train. That was when The List was born.

Amtrak trains run between Champaign and Chicago several times each day. During our three hour trip, Jeff and I were full of glee and goofiness. As I watched the snowy south side of Chicago whiz by, I decided that I would kiss Jeff whenever I saw an American flag. Because that's just fun. I eventually told him what I was up to and, to pass the time, we came up with other things we could spot and do. I had a pad of paper handy and wrote them down as we laughed our heads off, and eventually this list was typed out, laminated, and placed in the car's glove compartment for future reference. (Or do you prefer glove box? I was born into the glove compartment tradition. The more I think about it, the crazier "glove compartment" seems.)

This sixteen-item list included the following:

• Spot a cement mixer = high five
• Person wearing a do-rag = hug
• Amish or Amish-like or Amish transportation = first opportunity up-against-wall kiss
• Restaurant patron having a birthday = French kiss

Here are some other items on the list, but I'm not going to share the payoffs with you.

• Spot a representation of a leprechaun
• Restaurant sign with mascot promoting cannibalism
• "Tiny Dancer" plays in a store
• Water tower that resembles something else, e.g. a pineapple
• 4-legged animal with fewer than 4 legs
• Larger-than-life Jesus
• Someone pronounces Bono's name as "Bone-oh" or someone says the word "cockles"

...and so on. Later we added: spotter of semi/truck emblazoned with OVERSIZED LOAD gets to touch other person inappropriately upon spotting.

In the two and a half weeks between my birthday and Valentine's Day, I decided to collect as many of the items listed above as possible. Jeff had put together a little Indianapolis getaway that weekend, and I planned to roll the items out periodically. I was able to get my hands on a wee cement mixer, a little toy Amish guy, a leprechaun night light, a do-rag decorated with hamburgers and hot dogs, some cockle shells, a coaster with a three-legged dog on it, and a poster of a pineapple water tower. I put the Amish guy on the dashboard while Jeff gassed up the car before we took off. Jeff cracked up when he saw it and gave me an up-against-a-wall kiss.

Suffice it to say that this was the best Valentine's Day of my life, and we had a million laughs during the slow roll-out of Jeff's mini-gifts. On the drive back home, we even spotted an orange semi with JESUS written in towering block letters on each side. Larger-than-life Jesus!

Fun Valentine's Day idea: if you have not yet made a list with your loved one, I highly recommend it. After four years, our list is still alive and kicking!

Cheap Cioppino a.k.a. Cheappino!

A couple of years ago I posted a recipe for cioppino, a tomato-based seafood stew that was easy to make but a little expensive. It is pronounced like this. My recipe called for a pound of shrimp and a pound of scallops, and if you buy those around here they'll cost about $15 plus they'll be frozen and sometimes even a tiny bit funky when defrosted. I'm lookin' at you, scallops. Unacceptable.

But we still want cioppino all the time (and so does Bun).

So Jeff came up with a compromise: ditch the shrimp and scallops entirely and load up on the much cheaper tinned mussels. He became obsessed with mussels after he took a business trip to Belgium a few years ago, by the way. That country ruined french fries (frites) for him, too. We try mussels at every restaurant we can, and they've even inspired a painting.

The tinned mussels that we buy are a far cry from that kind of thing, but the red oil they're packed in really makes this dish great, and we found we don't miss the shrimp and scallops. We bought the mussels at Meijer, a Midwestern superstore similar to Wal-mart. The package looks like this, and we bought two of them for around $1.80 each:

Jeff says, "These are by no means the best mussels you can eat. But for the price, they impart a lot of flavor and have a good mouth-feel." Here's what one looks like (sorry about the blur):

Yesterday afternoon Jeff and I threw the cheappino together, let it mellow out on the stove, and ate it that evening with a baguette (Artisan Take & Bake French baguette, which was terrific).

I suggest you pair the cheappino with some cheap pinot.

 

Or not! I don't know anything about wine.

REVISED! INGREDIENTS

• 2 T olive oil
• 2 C chopped onion <-- this was one huge Vidalia onion, but it's more like one or two regular ones
• 1/4 t crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 medium stalks celery, finely chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 (8 oz.) bottle clam juice
• 1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
• 1/2 C chicken broth
• 1 T red wine vinegar
• 2 1/2 t Italian seasoning
• 1 t Old Bay seasoning <-- optional, I just felt like tossing some in
• 1/4 t sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 (10 oz or so) can baby clams, undrained
• 2 (small, sardine-like) tins of mussels in spicy red pepper oil
• 1/4 C chopped Italian parsley
• salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

Heat oil in a large dutch oven or similar soup pot.  Add the onion, red pepper flakes, celery, garlic, and a little salt and pepper.  Saute until the vegetables are soft.

Add the diced tomatoes, clam juice, tomato paste, chicken broth, red wine vinegar, Italian seasoning, Old Bay seasoning, sugar, and bay leaf and heat through.  You can let it simmer for a while if you've got other things going on.  The sauce will thicken a bit.

Add the clams, mussels, and parsley.  Let everything heat up and adjust salt and pepper, if necessary. 

You can eat this immediately or you can let the flavors marry for as long as you like on the stove.

Even without the shrimp and scallops, your big-eyed cat will still totally want you to share this with her.