Thursday, April 29, 2010

Puttering

We're having a lovely puttering kind of day today...must be the rain.  I've been using the time at home and inside to catch up on some things and also to make a treat.  I'm still working on using up items in our freezers and pantry and (yes, amazingly) I still have chocolate left to use up.  I like to melt it and mix it with an assortment of dried fruit, seeds and nuts and this time I decided to use currants (leftover from Christmas pudding making), raisins, hazelnuts (left from our old trees) and hemp seeds.
I usually drop them on the cookie sheet by the spoonful to make a chocolate blob but this time I thought I would try using these moulds instead.  We received some cookies in them as a gift and I thought they would be handy for something.
They worked out rather nicely.
I also found where I came across the idea for the scented vinegar.  It was at this gorgeous blog here.  I've started a jar of orange peel vinegar today with more peel to vinegar to see if I can't come up with a vinegar that E doesn't find offensive.

9 comments:

Stacy said...

That chocolate looks so good!

I really like the fruit-peel-in-vinegar idea. I have some lemons, a lime and an orange in the fridge - I think it's time to try it :)

Stacy

Lise said...

The scented vinegar idea is genius! Thanks for sharing it. And how clever to re-use the plastic tray as a mold!

Sarah Head said...

Would your son be able to pick out which herbal scents he enjoys such as lavender or honeysuckle and then actually help you make the infused vinegars?

sheila said...

Wow, it rains where you live? I didn't think it did. You must be getting all our rain - I've had to water the garden these past two weeks. WATER. In April. Weird.


ROMEN (in the gloamin)

Katherine said...

Mmmm... your chocolate treats look so tempting. I bet they won't last long!

Hey - great idea with the vinegar. My guys don't enjoy the smell either so I'm going to give this a try. If nothing else the peels in the jar look pretty! ;o)

Heather said...

Sarah, thank you, I love that idea. E would be into making his own scented vinegars because he loves making any kind of "concoction". I'll see if he wants to try lavender, he loves that scent.

Katherine - I've got the chocolate bars tucked in the freezer, that always helps to make them last longer. '-)

Stacy, I bet lemon and lime would be very nice and fresh smelling. I might have to try that too. It is quite tempting to make several different ones and then have a variety on hand.

Hi Lise, I have a hard time parting with any plastic containers (glass too, actually) because I always think they must be good for Something! ;-) And I don't like the thought of something being manufactured and then only used once before heading to recycle.

villagemama said...

I follow you from SD and have for a long while now... we live parallel lives! Something really nice that we use in our vinegar is pine needles. Then it smells like !Christmas!
~Kimberley
http://villagemama-akingslife.blogspot.com/

Mary-Sue said...

you are BRILLIANT re-using those cookie trays for choc bar makers!!! i made some today with currants, sesame seeds, hemp seeds and pecans. yum!

Greenie said...

I love how you were able to use the cookie trays. They really molded the chocolate into a perfect shape, didn't they?

I'm envious of your hazelnuts. They're my favorite!