Candied Lemon

In my last post I talked about making delicious lemonade. Doing so creates an excess of lemon peels. Normally I would simply add them to my compost bin, but before I did so something popped in my mind. The memory of delicious candied lemon peels. These are one of my favorite treats, and every time I am at a chocolatier shop without a doubt I get candied citrus peel (usually orange) dipped in dark chocolate. While I didn't have the chocolate, I thought candied lemon peels by their selves would be just as good.

Ingredients:

• 3 to 4 lemons washed
• 2 cups sugar 
• 1/2 cup sugar 

Directions:

1. Remove the peel from the lemon in vertical strips trying to leave off as much white pith as you can. 
2. In a small saucepan combine the peels with 2 cups of cold water and bring to a boil. 
3. Immediately drain and refill the pan with water. 
4. Repeat this process two more times to remove the bitterness from the peel. 
5. After the third dunking remove the peels from the pan. 
6. Measure two cups of sugar into the saucepan and add one cup of water. Set over medium high heat.
7. Bring to a boil and whisk until the sugar is dissolved. 
8. Drop in the peels, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer uncovered until the peels are tender and translucent. 
9. Drain and cool the peels. Keep the syrup for other uses. 
10. Place the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar in a large bowl and add the peels. Toss until peels are thoroughly coated. Take one peel out at a time shaking off excess sugar. 
11. Store in an airtight container. Keeps for several weeks in an airtight container. 
    
    
    

Making the lemon peels was a fun process that was easier than I thought it'd be. The only difference from the above recipe was using the water I'd boiled the lemon peels with. Because of that I used four cups of sugar. This resulted in two mason jars of lemon syrup. The peels were also wet, so I let them dry for a few days on my counter on parchment paper before putting them in the container. 

As of now I have not used this syrup, but I am excited to try it! The website I found the recipe suggests that I use them in iced tea, but I think they'd be delicious on vanilla ice cream. Any suggestions on what to use this on? The peels themselves are delicious, and maybe in the future I can try my hand at melting chocolate to make my own gourmet treats. 

Overall I give this recipe a 8.7 out of 10. 

Recipe source: https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/candied-lemon-peel?fbclid=IwAR0jzrDgWrO8kxXNIZcuf__tcjwWUAtdEi7fVHT4gEVJ7uDdKUPCcoDdMEw

Lost Lemonade

One thing that anyone who is close to me knows is that I love food. I not only love eating it, but I love watching people cook, researching recipes, and reading cookbooks. The other day I was going through my piles of cook books, deciding what to keep, what to get rid of, and looking for recipes, when I discovered a hand written one. My mother in law had been visiting, so I asked her if she recognized it. To her shock it was her own child cook book that had been missing for decades! Together we looked through it. Some recipes she still used to this day, some she'd stopped using long ago, and some she thought were lost to the ages. One of the latter was lemonade.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of water
• rinds of two lemons cut into pieces
• 1 cup lemon juice (5 to 6 lemons)
• 4 cups ice water

Directions: 

1. Combine first three ingredients in a sauce pan
2. stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. 
3. Boil 7 minutes.
4. Cool. 
5. Add lemon juice and ice water. 

Since we had all of the ingredients in the kitchen we decided to make it. The only difference was that we boiled the lemon juice with the first three ingredients. We made the lemonade, put it into my antique pitcher, and success! Everyone loved it and the drink was gone within moments. In fact we had to make a second pitcher to satisfy wanting mouths. 

Personally I've never truly enjoyed lemonade, but this was delicious! Tart yet refreshing and not too sweet. I found this perfectly wonderful, simple, and not to heavy on the pocket book. I plan on making this several times  in the future and recommend that others do as well, especially with their family. 

I give this recipe a 10 out of 10.

Gone with the Wind

Dearest readers I must apologize for having been so long absent! Life got crazy and time just slipped away from me, but I'm back and plan on doing blog posts more frequently!

Is there a better topic to start on than this literary classic? This is one of the reasons that I was so late in writing blog posts. This book was the longest I'd ever attempted to read, and as expected it took me quite a lot longer than other books, but finish it I did!

For the longest time I did not know what to think of this book. I'd first heard of it in high school from two teachers and two students. One student and one teacher said it was the best book they'd ever read and loved the movie while the other two insisted it was way too long a book and movie were dreadfully long with a boring plot. My grandmother loved this movie and watched it several times, but what finally sold me on it was my best friend. He was not a big reader, but he'd read this book in its entirety and had watched the movie several times. He watched it so much that he had three copies of it: a VHS copy, a copy on DVD, and the special collectors edition in a beautiful felt box.

After going to my favorite used book store I got myself a paper back copy, and after asking myself if I really wanted to do this I set out to read it. From the very first words I was hooked. I found that though the book was terribly long it was a delight to read. I grew invested in this girl, Scarlett O'Hara and enjoyed reading about her. In fact, when I did in fact finish the book I was surprised to find that I wanted more to read! 

The book could have been set up for an entire series. There are concrete sections of the book. Scarlett at home, Scarlett at the city, Scarlett back at home, Scarlett married, and then Scarlett married again are the sections of the book. My favorite of all of these sections is without a doubt the one where she is back at home at the war torn plantation. 

I think that out of every book I'd read Scarlett O'Hara is the heroine I respect and admire the most, which is funny considering that she's not exactly what you would call a good woman. Scarlett can be manipulative, conniving, and selfish, but despite these she possesses an inner strength and a desire to survive. She was smart and better at running a business than her second husband when it was shameful for a woman to be so, and yet despite society looking down at her she ran her own business and was successful at it, growing rich in the process. I admired her strength for not caring what others thought of her and being successful, but where her strength truly shines is her at home surviving at the plantation. 

Scarlett fled the city heading back home to Tara, the plantation. When she gets backs he finds it looted, all but destroyed, and all but the two most loyal slaves gone. Scarlett takes command and swallows her pride and does everything to survive. She picks cotton, forages for food, and takes leadership. While the others would have starved than done a field hand's work Scarlett doesn't question it and argues with them, forcing them to do what needs to be done. Without her dedication and commitment to surviving none of them would have made it. This section is the one that I remember the most fondly and think back on. 

Warning! Spoilers ahead.

The main plot of this movie is Scarlett pining over Ashley Wilkes. She does everything in her power to seduce and have the man for her own, but the true romance is with her and Rhett Butler. In the same way that Scarlett is not a good, moral woman Rhett Butler is not a good and moral man. This is what attracts him to her at first, and though he wishes for her to be his mistress he breaks his rule that he will never marry and asks for her to be his wife since that is the only way he can ever have her. Rhett adores Scarlett and spoils her giving her everything she wants. While to the reader it's clear he truly loves her, he never once seriously sat down and told her that. Scarlett is oblivious to his feelings thinking that since he never voiced them he didn't feel that way. This is why in the book I blame Rhett for their marriage failing. He should have been honest with her and told her the truth. Interestingly in enough the movie version adds this. There is an extra scene where Rhett sits down with Scarlett and asks that they start over. He declares his love for her and asks them to make their marriage better for the sake of their child, Bonnie. In the movie Scarlett turns away from him, something that I'm not sure the book Scarlett would have done. This is why in the movie I blame Scarlett for their marriage failing. Rhett was honest with himself and told her, but Scarlett did not take him seriously. I wanted their romance to work, and though it fails I find the ending satisfying and wish that Margaret Mitchell had written a sequel to bring the two together. For those who find the ending lacking there is in fact a sequel written, however the sequel is not written by Margaret Mitchell but is written by Alexandra Ripley; however, this book, Scarlett, is not one that I plan to read. I usually avoid sequels not written by the author. I will admit I was curious enough to look up the plot, but when I did I was not satisfied with the story and decided that I'd rather have Gone with the Wind alone without this story adding to it. 

After I finished the book I sat down to watch the movie. As with most movies based on books the plot suffers a bit. It feels like it's just skimming over the top, and with a book this long it is, despite the movie being almost four hours. Despite all this I did enjoy the movie and have watched it since a few times. The movie is a classic for good reason. The score is enchanting, the acting is fantastic, and the movie has scenes that are so beautifully shot that I remember them more clearly than perhaps any other movie.

Over all I give the movie 7.8 out of 10. If you are into epic stories, war movies not centering on soldiers, or cinema history I suggest you check it out. If you can get past the length of this gargantuan novel I highly suggest it and give the book a 9.0  out of 10.


Image source:
http://onlinestore.dcbooks.com/uploaded_files/books/bk_9781447237587.jpg
https://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2017/5/14/c/a/0/ca0f723c-4263-48d2-b04c-7af56925240e.jpg