Day 11 Of Rosie's Christmas Baking.

OK. Listen up, people. This post has taken me freakin' HOURS. And I finally bypassed the crap obstacles that BLOGGER (To the uninitiated, BLOGGER is my vehicle of posting my innermost thought here.) puts in my way - as in time constraints of uploading videos. But I figured out how to get around this, and upload my lengthy video to "video/blogger," then provide a link for the upload on BLOGGER, AND IT WORKED. All the time, my 65 second video was aimlessly trying to upload on blogger. Those of you who just read my blog and don't have to do the intricacies of BLOGGING, won't know what I'm talking about. But those of you who ACTUALLY BLOG, e-me. I can edumacate you. I am so proud of myself for figuring out HOW TO DO THIS! I'm still patting myself on the back. Because BLOGGING is a lot of hard work. >WHINE< All right, enough of that. Back to cooking.

OK, lets get back to Day 11 of my Christmas Baking. First up is my Dixie Peanut Brittle.

My ingredients: 2 cups sugar 1 cup light corn syrup 1/2 cup water 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 cups raw, shelled peanuts, skins on 2 tablespoons butter 2 teaspoons baking soda

Pour the corn syrup into a heavy pan.

Add in the sugar.

Pour in the water.

Add in the salt. Bring the sugar, syrup, water, and salt to a rolling boil.

Add in the peanuts. Reduce heat to medium and stir constantly.

Bring to hard crack stage - 300 - 310 degrees. Then add in butter, melt, then add in baking soda. Beat rapidly and pour onto a butter surface, spreading to 1/4 inch thickness. And I hope I can do the video here: Peanut Brittle.

Thusly.

When cool, break into pieces.

Close ups look pretty good. Next, I'm making my Nut and Berry Bark, one of the all-time favorites among my recipients. I enlisted Mr. Hawthorne's help for shelling pistachios.

Poor Mr. Hawthorne. He complained after shelling 3 cups of pistachios that his nails were TOTALLY RUINED. Oh, by the by, that's my mise en place. I doubled my recipe. Think KARMA here and wait and see what happened. Anyways, the ingredients, doubled, were: 3 cups shelled pistachios 3 cups dried cranberries 2 1/2 pounds white bars, finely chopped (And there's no such thing as WHITE CHOCOLATE.)

First, I brought a steamer basket to a boil, then poured in the cranberries, covered, and steamed for about 4 minutes.

I transferred the cranberries to paper towels and blotted to dry.

Next, I poured the pistachios into a baking pan, and baked for 10 minutes, in a 350-degree oven. In the meantime, (And I don't know why I didn't photograph this.) I melted 2 1/2 pounds of white bars in a double boiler, over low heat.

After the white bars melted, I poured the molten mixture into a bowl, then added the toasted pistachios.

Then added in the steamed cranberries.

Poured the mixture onto two foil-lined pans.

And spread it all out.

And here I have a double recipe of my delicious Nut and Berry Bark. And HERE, I have WTF!!

I started my cleanup. I took the pan that had the pistachios to the sink. Then I noticed ... GLASS CHARDS ON THE PAN!!!!! WHA????? I never saw them on the pan when I first poured out the pistachios. So I go up into the cabinet and find the Pyrex measuring cup which Mr. Hawthorne put the shelled pistachios into.

OH, Just CRAP. The Pyrex cup is cracked and shattered on the rim. And the GLASS SHARDS ARE IN MY NUT & BERRY BARK!

Sadly, I roll up my two pans of nut and berry bark.

And toss them in the trash, along with the fractured measuring cup. I freakin' hate waste. But I also hate killing people with my food. I'll go out tomorrow, buy more white chocolate, and Thank You, Sister Hawthorne, for the Pistachios you sent me for Christmas. They'll come in handy tomorrow, when I'll try to make another batch of Nut and Berry Bark that won't send people to the hospital with excruciating abdominal pains and possibly DEATH. Thank God, I found the shards. OMG, I just totally suck.