fun with cameras

Look for me to actually begin using this again soon. Seriously, heh.

Life is weird, but good.

It’s taken some time, but i’d say i’m all moved in. There’s a few things left at my parents’ that i’ll need to retreive soon, but nothing super important. There’s still boxes everywhere here. As a friend pointed out, it’s not like i just moved into an empty, clean house. i moved into a house that already had stuff in it and was in dire need of a thorough cleaning. So, it’s taking a lot of time to really get finished.

It’s a busy week, i’m moving, so there won’t be a ton of pictures.

i do have some house pictures, though.

The coolest wine ever. i have no idea how it tastes, but the name alone made it worth trying.

Now that the room is a bit cleaner and more organized, Thorn has “his chair” back and seems quite pleased. (Though really, he thinks both chairs in here are “his chair”.)

Takeout box art by yours truly.

i’ve had a recipe for truffles printed and sitting around for awhile now. (Yet another thing i saw on Food Network.) A couple of weeks ago i bought the ingredients, but i’ve been in a bit of a funk lately and just didn’t feel like making them. Today seemed like the right time, with the house to myself. Quite a messy task, and not as simple as the recipe or the show made it seem - isn’t that always the case - but very tasty.

i started with a cup of heavy cream, a half a pound of semisweet choco, and half a pound of bittersweet choco, the latter two chopped up pretty small. i heated the cream until it just started to boil, then poured it through a sieve onto the chopped chocolate, and mixed until it was smoov to get this:

Lovely, shiny chocolate goo. i covered it with plastic to keep any curious pets out.
This is where i got impatient. It said to let the chocolate sit at room temperature for an hour or so to solidify so it could be molded into balls… After nearly two hours, the chocolate was still gooey, so i popped it into the fridge for a bit. Twenty minutes or so later, it was ready to be scooped.

Seriously. This was messy. But it was a delicious mess, because after i used the cookie scoop, i rolled it around in my hands to make a better looking shape. Mmm. Next came a bit more cooling, only about five minutes, because my hands heated up the chocolate and made them a bit gooey.

After shaping, i put the chocoballs on a tray, put toothpicks in, and rolled them around in a mix of cocoa and sugar - mostly cocoa.

The end result…

Now they sit in my refrigerator, covered with foil to keep curious tasters out.

Next time, i think i’m going to make them smaller. i also think it’d be fun to cover them with a chocolate shell (ganache!), and possibly try adding something else to the chocogoo before the initial cooling - orange liqueor is supposedly a good choice, but i was thinking maybe vanilla rum or something. We shall see. It was fairly easy to do, so i’ll definitely try it again, i’m sure.

i lost my spot on the bed.

i’d hoped to get a picture of him with his head on the frog pillow, but… no.

i hung a shelf.

It would appear a lot less cluttered if a) a sweater and hoodie weren’t tossed up there, and b) i didn’t have so much junk cluttering up the room in the first place.

But hey - i hung a shelf!

i think tomorrow i’ll re-arrange posters and “wall stuff”. Maybe.

No updates today either. i didn’t take any pictures this weekend. i also left my camera in the truck during our 4 mile hike in the woods, but i imagine carrying it would have been as annoying as not having any pictures from the trek.

LE STORE. It was too funny not to take a picture.

A delicious sushi spread from a few weeks ago. My phone quacks when i take a picture - yes, quacks - so i had to cough to cover the noise.

Me and Chesterpoof, earlier today.

Blood oranges have been very near the top of my “foods to try” list ever since i first heard of them. Unfortunately, i just hadn’t seen them in stores until recently, and the last time i thought i bought one to try, i’d actually picked up a navel orange that had been carelessly placed with the blood oranges. Today, i finally bought some - and correctly this time.

i’d say they certainly earn their name, eh?

They’re a bit less juicy than other oranges, but the flavor is a lot richer and stronger. And ya gotta love that deep blood red color, too, it’s lovely. Definitely worth the wait, but i sure wish i could find them more often, and not just as the expensive health food store.