Pasta a la Boyfriend

I made it home from Buffalo very early yesterday morning.  My day went as follows...

3:00 am - Wake up and take a shower

3:30 am - Wake up parents and take puppies outside (romp romp romp, bite bite bite!)

3:45 am - Head to the airport (Ooo, it's dark out.  Hey, the bars aren't even closed yet.)

4:15 am - Welcome to the Buffalo Niagara Airport!  (It's pretty quiet here, oh, I'm on the first flight out of the airport)

5:23 am - Yes, that's what it said on my ticket, 5:23 am - Take-off in the Dash-8 (Ugh, hate the Dash-8)

6:55 am - Welcome home!  Kinda, welcome to LaGuardia airport!

7:10 am - Figure out how to get to Jamaica Station...  How about a bus?

7:35 am - Well that worked, now I'll hop this subway and get to Jamaica.

7:55 am - Phew, made it to Jamaica!  Ooo, I can catch my regular train to work!  Score!

8:45 am - 5:00 pm - Chemistry chemistry chemistry

5:00 pm - Heading home (So tired....  Fall asleep on the train...)

6:30 pm - Home!  Ooo, boyfriend is making dinner!  It looks delicious (It was).  He is even using all of my Foodbuzz Tastemaker goodies! 

So, not only did he manage to make a delicious meal, he completed some work that I needed to get done! 

As a member of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program, I was lucky enough to receive samples of Crisco's new Olive oils!  I was super excited when I received not one, but three different bottles!  For dinner last night, boyfriend used the traditional olive oil, I have big plans for the Extra Virgin (can anyone say Salad dressings?!!?). 

For someone who doesn't really cook (other than mac'n'cheese and cheesey chicken nibblers), he liked the Crisco olive oil, especially the lid.  It has a different  pour spout than I've seen in any other olive oil.  It allowed it to slowly come out of the bottle, without having to wait forever.  The flavor was light and was great to cook up the mini meatballs!

Ganduja & Caramel Candy Bars

Welcome to a new week everyone!  I hope that everyone is safe and sound from this weekends East Coast hurricane.  I am currently still in Buffalo, since my return flight to New York was cancelled yesterday.  That's okay though, it means I get to spend an extra day with my family and the puppies.  The crazy, lunatic puppies. 

They are currently running around the kitchen with me.  Busy romping around, playing with toys and biting each other.  Generally with one puppy you get used to keeping all of your precious things a few feet off of the ground.  This keeps them from geting little teeth marks all over them.  With two puppies, you have to keep up with the nibbling on things and a constant puppy fight.

These puppies are totally spoiled, with more toys than I had when I was little.  There are even doubles of all the toys, so that they can each have their own.  The problem?  You guessed it.  One puppy wants what the other one has.  They will even taunt each other with toys.  One puppy walking up to the other an waving her toy around until the second puppy leaps at it.  Then it's an all-out puppy war over the toy, then the toy is forgotten and they just bite each other.  Puppy war!

According to the vet, they're just like little kids.  Unless one of them comes to you bleeding, they're just fine.

Chocolate Taffy

Imagine my delight when I read this months Daring Baker's challenge.  Well, just read the blog checking lines...

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

Candy? Seriously? I was so excited, because it was like an extension of what I've been doing all year long! I've made so much candy this year (really, have a look under "Candy Challenge 2011" for all of my previous treats!) that I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to make for this challenge. I decided it was finally time to try again with the chocolate taffy. I also thought I would finally make a real candy bar, layers and all.

Today, I'm plying you with the chocolate taffy.  I tried to make this earlier in the year and neglected to read the part about "constantly stirring" the candy mixture.  This candy, unlike most of the others that I've made, requires constant stirring.  With most candies, you don't want to stir them while they are coming to temperature because this might cause crystallization.  This candy will burn if left to self-stir.  Get your arm muscles ready, you'll be stirring for quite some time!

Have fun stretching and pulling the taffy!  Just be sure to cut lots and lots of pieces of wax paper, this recipe makes about 100 pieces of taffy.  The flavor is something of a more chocolatey and rich Tootsie roll, delicious.