Culinary disasters and successes

I decided to head to my parents' house in New Jersey for my days off this week, and a few days before, I found a recipe online for Peach Chipotle Gummy Candies.  After turning the idea over and over in my head, I decided that I really wanted to make my own, grown-up gummy candies. I had visions of strawberry balsamic, merlot, white grape and basil... chardonnay.... there were lots of ideas.  So I came home, hit the grocery store for ingredients, invited My cousins Kate and Potter over for dinner to taste the spoils, and got to work. 

Because there was no peach jello at the store, I improvised by making a peach juice reduction, and adding the chipotles. I set them up, and left them in the fridge to cool, and when they were done, tasted them. They were.... not good.  all I could taste was the overwhelming flavor of gelatin. (not tasty)  so round 2, was just straight peach juice.  Those didn't taste like anything at all (until you got to the piece of chipotle, and then it just tasted like... chipotle. 

Frustrated, I tried the strawberry balsamic. While they were tastier (I used an actual Jell-o packet) the balsamic did not set in the gelatin as well as I had hoped, which my aunt pointed out, may have something to do with the levels of acid in the vinegar. 

Sigh. 

It was a good thing I was making dinner too, because I needed some culinary redemption.  We started out with my latest favorite thing to make: 

 photo credit: Walt Hewitt

It is toasted Tuscan bread, with a Greek feta salad dressing, and topped with thinly sliced Persian cucumbers.  So. good.

 photo credit: Walt Hewitt

Then I made a lot of kabobs. (this is actually about half of the ones I made) They are mushroom, orange and red bell peppers, chicken, red onion, pineapples and squash. I marinated them for a few hours in a jarred marinade from Trader Joe's (the Island Soyaki- it's really good)

This is what they looked like all cooked:

 photo credit: Walt Hewitt

And because I believe that no meal is complete without starch, I made my roasted potato salad.

 photo credit: Walt Hewitt

I drowned my gummy candy sorrows in a few glasses of wine, good dinner, and amusing conversation.  My mom reminded me about how when I was little, we had to have a "no jokes" rule at the dinner table because I would laugh so hard I would feel sick. (this was after I was laughing for a significant amount of time over a "that's what she said" setup that Potter did that was perfection. You just can't pass those opportunities up.)

It was great to be home.