Death!Jewel - 0, Rest of My Neighborhood - 3
Okay, so once I started thinking about making turtles I hit OMG WANT of turtles really, really badly.
So I figured I'd hike up to the Death!Jewel, get caramels, pecans and another bag of chocolate. So I put on shoes and hiked.
Found the chocolate (nothing on sale, no bags of milk chocolate at all, they suck), found the pecans ($6 for a cup and a half, are you KIDDING ME?). Couldn't find caramel. Looked in baking, looked in candy, even looked in produce by the apples and near the chocolate dipping sauces. Nada.
So I asked a guy. Who had to ask another guy, because he was pretty sure they didn't carry any. Second guy led us to a display of shelves so low it was too low for *my* eye-level. The containers of apple-dipping caramel that were there had at least a quarter inch of dust on them and two had exploded and no one had noticed and there was dust on the exploded caramel on the shelf.
Just ew. No.
So I put everything back and decided to try the Aldi's up the street. I actually kind of like our Aldi's. It's kind of a big surprise box... you never know what the hell you'll find on their shelves. I've gotten kick-ass European chocolates and cookies for REALLY cheap there before.
They didn't have milk chocolate either, but their semi-sweet (which I don't hate... I just prefer milk when I get the choice) was roughly half the price of Death!Jewel's. Yes, yes, I know quality of chocolate, but honestly, I'm making test batches right now, so I was getting generic anyway. If the Gheridelli or something special goes on serious sale between now and when I need them, I'll stock up, but for now, cheap chocolate is just fine.
They also had the same size bag of pecans. For $2.75 less!
No caramels, but they did have some sundae sauce that I figured I could use in a pinch. Again, test batches. I was going to attempt using corn starch or something on it to thicken it a tad when I salted it. So for $2.00 I grabbed a jar of that.
On the way home I passed the new Target. I figured that just *maybe* they'd have regular caramels in their candy area. On the way to the candy I passed baking and figured I'd at least price chocolate (roughly the same as the Death!Jewel, also with no milk - WTF Uptown???). But wait! What's this? A bag of Kraft caramels. This is a special bag of "We're little balls of caramel with no wrappers, because you may actualy, you know, want to make stuff with them!" GREAT YAY! They also had the little square ones in celophanes in the candy. So now I know where to go for this stuff. :)
So when the news comes on, and I'll have something interesting to watch in the kitchen, I'm going to break out the new silcone mold (made for 'brownie bites', but AWESOME size for the candies I'm making and I can do 24 at a time!), I'll go attempt to salt the caramels I bought ( I have Kosher salt... now I just have to figure out how much to use), and make myself a batch of turtle candies.
Go. Me.!
So I figured I'd hike up to the Death!Jewel, get caramels, pecans and another bag of chocolate. So I put on shoes and hiked.
Found the chocolate (nothing on sale, no bags of milk chocolate at all, they suck), found the pecans ($6 for a cup and a half, are you KIDDING ME?). Couldn't find caramel. Looked in baking, looked in candy, even looked in produce by the apples and near the chocolate dipping sauces. Nada.
So I asked a guy. Who had to ask another guy, because he was pretty sure they didn't carry any. Second guy led us to a display of shelves so low it was too low for *my* eye-level. The containers of apple-dipping caramel that were there had at least a quarter inch of dust on them and two had exploded and no one had noticed and there was dust on the exploded caramel on the shelf.
Just ew. No.
So I put everything back and decided to try the Aldi's up the street. I actually kind of like our Aldi's. It's kind of a big surprise box... you never know what the hell you'll find on their shelves. I've gotten kick-ass European chocolates and cookies for REALLY cheap there before.
They didn't have milk chocolate either, but their semi-sweet (which I don't hate... I just prefer milk when I get the choice) was roughly half the price of Death!Jewel's. Yes, yes, I know quality of chocolate, but honestly, I'm making test batches right now, so I was getting generic anyway. If the Gheridelli or something special goes on serious sale between now and when I need them, I'll stock up, but for now, cheap chocolate is just fine.
They also had the same size bag of pecans. For $2.75 less!
No caramels, but they did have some sundae sauce that I figured I could use in a pinch. Again, test batches. I was going to attempt using corn starch or something on it to thicken it a tad when I salted it. So for $2.00 I grabbed a jar of that.
On the way home I passed the new Target. I figured that just *maybe* they'd have regular caramels in their candy area. On the way to the candy I passed baking and figured I'd at least price chocolate (roughly the same as the Death!Jewel, also with no milk - WTF Uptown???). But wait! What's this? A bag of Kraft caramels. This is a special bag of "We're little balls of caramel with no wrappers, because you may actualy, you know, want to make stuff with them!" GREAT YAY! They also had the little square ones in celophanes in the candy. So now I know where to go for this stuff. :)
So when the news comes on, and I'll have something interesting to watch in the kitchen, I'm going to break out the new silcone mold (made for 'brownie bites', but AWESOME size for the candies I'm making and I can do 24 at a time!), I'll go attempt to salt the caramels I bought ( I have Kosher salt... now I just have to figure out how much to use), and make myself a batch of turtle candies.
Go. Me.!