This is what happens when you put me in charge of the s'mores...

John and I and a group of friends planned a cook out for this last weekend; a bonfire on the beach with hot dogs and tin-foil wrapped potatoes smothered in the coals. And of course, s'mores. As far as I'm concerned, s'mores are essential to any fire-centered party being successful. Well, since I'm so adamant about marshmallows and chocolate melted between two slabs of sweet cinnamon-and-honey-crackery goodness, I found myself being placed in charge of the s'more round up.

I took my role very seriously. These would be the best danged s'mores of all time.

It started when I made marshmallows...

Last year I had learned to make the whipped sugary gelatin confections. They were scrum-diddly-umptious, bouncy and fluffy. More yummy than any store bought marshmallow could even imagine tasting. You don't even need corn syrup to make them.

 And the best part? You can flavour them. Any flavour you can imagine!!! ... Well, almost. I have a really vivid imagination when it comes to flavours and some pretty clever means of bringing them into existence...(though, I do say so myself. *cough*)

Of last year's production

Last year they were Earl Grey flavoured marshmallows. This year, inspired by pine edibilities, I made them...of course, Pine flavoured. But in case my very normal friends thought this to be too outrageous for their taste buds I made an alternate Vanilla Orange flavoured batch.

The result?
Oh heavenly goodness. How could such lovely perfection be wasted with nasty, grody, waxy, fake "chocolate" as those hershey "smore sized" bars? No no! I would have GOOD chocolate with my marshmallows and that was that.

But the prices. Oooohhhhhhhh the prices. A bar of silky, cocoa-y, marvelous Ghiradelli chocolate was ever so expensive. They were being priced at more than NINE DOLLARS A POUND. Even the yucky Hershey chocolate was more expensive than I imagined it could be.

So you know what I did?

I went to the BAKING section! Ah ha! Two 12oz bags of Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips for $5! That's under four dollars a pound! (I think...) Who needs Ghiradelli to put their chocolate in bar shaped slabs for an extra five bucks a pound? I could do that myself!

And while I was at it I would sprinkle sea salt on them babies.

Noms.

Now that's chocolate. Better than any sub-par Hershey chocolate could ever imagine tasting.

Well, that settled it. If I was going to go "cheap" and gourmet at the same time (funny how those two coincide more often than many people might imagine) I'd simply have to make my own graham crackers too.

Yeah, I've done that before too. And they were fantastic. More delicious than any stale store graham cracker could even imagine tasting. So I did it again and they were the perfect top and bottom to my marvelous marshmallow masterpieces and my clever chocolaty concoction.

The cookout was amazing. Fire + food + frisbees = forever fun.. (I'm fond of alliterating, you know.) How could it go wrong? Okay, well it was on a New Hampshire beach in April, so yeah, it was cold too. But that just added to the adventure.

 And the s'mores?

 Yeah, you know it.

Absolutely amazing. Better than any combination of jet-puffed marshmallow, waxy Hershey chocolate and Nabisco graham crackers could have ever even imagined tasting. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only way to have s'mores.

Wish I had a photo of the final product, but my camera is not beach friendly.

Even my normal taste-budded friends were impressed. Please excuse me while I go and be smug.

Summery Update

Summer is full of activity and adventure. It's hard to find time to stop all the fun and actually take time and record it all sometimes. I've been pretty bad with writing here and even my photo taking has been slack lately. With all my running around and picking berries, making sun tea, going to the beach and delving more into herbalism I just keep forgetting that I need to keep track of it all!

Yesterday, I picked a quart of wild black raspberries. I haven't yet made my mind up about what I want to do with them. I'll need another 3 quarts to make a gallon of wine (according to one recipe, at least) and I'm not sure if I want to put that kind of effort in. It's pretty hot out there, even in the morning! Maybe ice cream, hmm.... Got any ideas? I don't want to just eat them, after all that work!

We've spent some time at Plum Island at John's parents house. They're doing some remodeling including adding 2 decks (besides upgrading their first one). One is a roof top deck and the view is incredible!

Looking to the west south-west

East-northish

We went up to have a look before the actual deck was on, and the only way to get up is by ladders. Soon there will be actual decking and some spiral staircases. I'm really excited to see it done, it'll be some cool architecture.

Of course there's been sun tea:

 

And some very pretty flowers!

Lilies

Roses

Purple and White (Anyone know these?)

Echinacea

We went to Odiorn State Park for Independence Day

 Our group went geo-caching....

There was a tupper-ware in the crags of the rocks....

Which is really great for the pretty hikes you get to go on...

Path through arched trees

 

I crocheted my first hat! I felt inclined to go to my pastor's daughter's baby shower and thought it would make a pretty decent gift. Cheers for youtube.com tutorials!

Baby Beanie

John models the fab hat

And probably the dumbest activity of the summer thus far! *drum roll, please*.......
I made cupcakes!.......No trust me, it was a dumb idea. It was probably the warmest day of the year yet and so humid and muggy. Not only do you not want to be turning your oven on for 30 minutes, but you also don't want to be creaming sugar, beating eggs, whisking flour OR whipping whites and boiling sugar water for buttercream. At least the butter softened fast...

And they tasted good. Earl Grey cupcakes with chocolate orange butter cream.

Not to mention these fail cute hello kitty and flower decorations....

I got the recipe from Katiecakes, and made the buttercream from Joy of Cooking with lots of alterations. I kind of preferred them without the buttercream, though. The earl grey flavour was delicate but really good and the buttercream sort of stole the show. But they were still yummy. Also, the recipe is in metric, which really throws me, but you can use this handy calculator for translating it into American measurements.

We also went to Old Songs Fest, but that deserves its own post; coming soon!

A good trip to the Florida Keys

Well! I'm back as of Wednesday from my trip to to the Keys. It was lovely. I saw pretty much my entire family excepting one sister and for a family as large as ours, that's pretty good. (I have 6 sisters and two brothers.)

Palm Frond

John and I had a really good time. The big part of the trip was the Annual Swim Around Key West, which was really the main reason to take the trip at this time of year (because, seriously, who goes to Florida in the summer?) My dad is the head honcho for that event which is fitting since he's done the course the most of anyone in the world (I can only assume.) Unless someone else out there has swam around the island of Key West more than 52 times? Haha. Well, I kayaked for him the whole way around as his support boat and let me tell you....It was tough. I've kayaked this course many times, I'm thinking at least 20 times. This time was one of the hardest. The wind was strong and the waves were rough. Half the time I had to kayak backwards to keep from blowing away from my swimmer and the other half the time I was struggling to keep up with him.

I know a lot of the other kayakers had a hard time too and I'm sure it was tough for the swimmers as well. The outcome, all in all, was very good, though; 71 of the 73 solo swimmers who started the race that morning finished it. If you're interested in more details or just want to read more about crazy people who pay to swim 12.5 miles in choppy waters the website is here Swim Around Key West.

Ocean View from US1

The rest of the trip was tea parties and poetry contests about our silly pet cat The Jette. I'm proud to say I came in second place in that acclaimed and celebrated contest. We took walks and swam in my family's canal and took naps on the deck in the bright hot sun. My only regret is that I took very few photos. The trip felt like a bit of a whirlwind and I was too busy enjoying every moment to even think about picture taking, even though I pretty much had my camera with me all the time. So enjoy these few photographs for now and maybe next time I get a chance to visit the Florida Keys I'll actually take some pictures of my family and their beautiful surroundings!

Driving down from Miami

Sister, Julie

Sunset Clouds

Seven Mile Bridge

Big Pine Key has Key Deer

Pictures of people taking pictures

My sister and  her husband's purple house

And their colourful neighbourhood

The Swim Around Key West!

Me (in the bandana) Georgia, my sister (in the center) and my Dad (the guy with the white stuff) get ready for the Swim

Me in my kayaking gear

Julie looks cooler than me

My dad all zinc-ed and ready to go

My brother, Billy

My nephew Atticus

I'm in the blue kayak

What's a trip to the Keys without some key lime pie?

My sister Jane is a giant (Actually, the door was just really small...)

Some of my sister's pretty decor

Buoys and Seahorse

Billy

Molly

Georgia

Island off the coast

Atticus and Jane play near the tiny door

The trip was great, but it's good to be home. A New England summer will beat a Florida summer any day, and I have a feeling that this summer is holding great adventures for me....How about you? Any big summer plans?