One month later.....

Here I am nearly a month later. Honestly don't know how I was unable to post at all during that time when I was religiously and regularly posting in my other blogs.

I'm writing now and I still don't know what to write.

It's May now and April just flew by. The past month just seemed to be filled with activities, or you may call them chores :).

A few hours ago we just had our first bbq. Had a few friends over and had a wonderful day. The day turned out to be a bit breezy, but nothing like breezy like yesterday. I overate again, lamb skewers, kebab, steak, korean bbq-marinated chicken wings,grilled veggies, potato salad, etcetera etcetera.

Yesterday we were invited to Fundraiser for a choral group. A friend of ours is a member of the group, we saw their concert last month, and so he paid for the whole table and invited couple friends of theirs. When we got invited I asked what the dress code was and I was told it's Cinco de Mayo so anything Mexican. Idiot me, I borrowed my mom's Mayan traditional dress and wore it for the fundraiser. On the drive to the venue I was having second thoughts. I knew right then that I made a mistake of dressing up. But we were too far from home to turn back and change. Besides I thought no one knows me anyway.

Well I was right, no body dressed up in Mexican attire. Well there was one. Everyone else was wearing casual dress. Anyway, our friend said to me, "You were not kidding, you do have a Mexican dress!"

Since it was a fundraiser, there were both a silent auction and a loud (live) auction in addition to a raffle. One from our table won in the raffle, after she proclaims she never wins in raffle (that is aside from the one she won at our church fundraiser). The one item I bid on silent auction I won because no one else wanted it. It was a handmade earring. The hubby bid on several items, but won a set of bone china tea set made in India.

Well I guess this is all for now. I'm all too preoccupied with planning our fall travel. BTW when we mentioned about our plans for fall, a couple who were in the bbq with us seemed to be interested in joining us. I like the couple, so it should be fun.

Still here

Another week has gone by and no post.

The past week was busy. Our church's main annual fundraiser was last Saturday and you know that there wouldn't be any posting on Friday, or Saturday, or even Sunday for that matter. The event was big enough to be very exhausting. While I spent most of the Saturday prepping for the event and/or in the event working the tills, Sunday was devoted to Lifetime TV for Women and editing photographs. We don't have the official tally, but I'm not positive we made more money than last year, or even equaled last year's take. Still, we continue to learn as the years go by.

What was really inspiring with this year's fundraiser was how the parents of the kids from the Conservatory of Arts (Music) supported the event, from selling tickets and raffle tickets to helping out in the kitchen during the event. Their presence was big on the night of the event. It was wonderful to be working alongside the parents. Afterall, this fundraiser benefits both the church and the conservatory. With all the budget cuts in schools these days, money for music programs are difficult to come by and so we try to help out these kids as much as possible.

A graduate of the high school from last year's Conservatory of Arts attended the event and even played piano. While people mill about sampling one scrumptious chocolate confection to another, the kids from the music program play beautiful music from jazz to standards.

The weather cooperated somewhat. The days were hot leading to the event, but cooled down a bit, just a bit, for the event. We had fans in four corners of the room and the windows were all open to let the breeze in.

We were afraid the chocolates would melt with the heat, but they didn't, thank heavens!

And so one big job done. What's next?

In a month I'm going to hop on a plane to complete a personal project. I've been toying about blogging about it daily. I'll be gone for about 10 days minimum. I just hope I have free internet where I'm going.

In the meantime, this weekend, we have a date with another couple. Back to Napa we go with a wine tasting in the afternoon and an early dinner at my fave tapas place. Okay so I've only been to this restaurant once before, but I really like the ambiance and the food and the service. It's not the lack of interest that prevented me from coming back again and again to this restaurant, it's the budget that should be blamed. Eating out can make a big dent to one's household budget, so we try not to indulge too much in this activity we love so much - eating out.

Fundraiser Photos

Event poster


Tickets


Waiting


Underway


Silent Auction


Local high schools art/music program is beneficiary.

And some of the chocolate offerings:










First prize winner


My personal favorite









You already know what I entered in this fundraiser.

A Tale of Two Truffles

I've planned on drafting a post about the "winning" recipe from my church's fundraiser. However, with work and preparation for the coming trip - only 10 days to go - free time was difficult to come by. So I was happy that Princessa Musang also asked about them.

No big deal about these recipes. I entered two types of chocolate truffles at the fundraiser on its second year. One was crème de menthe cookie truffle, the recipe of which came from a blog that I follow. The other was from Nestle, almond truffle, who can go wrong with Nestle, right?

As I said before no big deal. But this is me. I don't cook. I don't bake. The kitchen and I are practically strangers. My mother told my husband right after we got married, "My daughter doesn't know where the kitchen is." Thankfully, my husband loves to cook and turn to cooking for relaxation and meditation. God knows what we need and supplies it/he, before we even know it for ourselves.

And so when a group of strangers, people who buy tickets to pig out on chocolates vote my creation as one of the best 4 out of the many chocolate offerings in a fundraiser billed as CHOCOLATE EXTRAVAGANZA, that is a big deal.

This "win" comes at the heels of very little preparation. The crème de menthe truffle didn't need any test run before the affair. I've made it before. In fact I gave it away as Christmas gifts to family. They seem to like it. Who doesn't like chocolates anyway.

The almond truffle however is a new find. I was cleaning out the boxes in the garage one day when I found these postcard recipes in one of my boxes labeled "personal items". It's perplexing how they got there. The box contained old resumes, certificates from classes I've attended, some antiquated job hunt paraphernalias and a handful of Nestle recipes. Can you believe that? I didn't even cook in those days, during my single lady days.

It must have been foresight on my part that made me tack these recipes on the side of refrigerator. They stood there for a few months before the planning of the event. When the church was soliciting people/members for chocolate offerings, I gladly signed me up for the crème de menthe truffle. Out of nowhere and without forethought, I found myself putting down almond truffle as well.

Now my work is cut out for me. I knew this was my project and whatever role my husband would play in these truffles would be as supporting parts. He would not be the main baker/cook or whatchamacallit.

Despite the tight schedule - was at the same time busy with physical preparations for the event + working full-time - I managed to test run the recipe. I followed the recipe to a T, without the mister's help. It turned out well.

Now listen to this, on the truffles that we offered at the fundraiser, we didn't follow the recipe to a T. We substituted half of the milk required with half and half, we thought it would make it more rich and dense (almond truffle). We also added a little bit of butter for that shiny texture (crème de menthe). In addition, we jazzed it up with a little cognac, which was what was available in the house that day (creme de menthe). I brought some left-overs to my co-workers the next day and one lady called me up - we work in 2 different buildings - and says she's all boozed up and happy because she tasted cognac. I was surprised she even tasted it, I couldn't. In fact no body mentioned they tasted the booze. Almond truffle also had some cayenne pepper that wasn't in the original recipe.

Here are the recipes:

CREME DE MENTHE TRUFFLE



Ingredients:
15 Oreo cookies
2-3 oz softened cream cheese
1 pkg Andes mint candies (unwrapped about 28 total)
1/4 cup white or semi sweet chocolate chips (I skipped this ingredient.)

Put cookies in food processor and pulse till you get very fine crumbs. Add creme cheese and process till dough forms. Using a small cookie scoop, form into small balls. Place on a pan lined with parchment paper.

Microwave the Andes candies, stirring every 15-30 seconds until melted. Cool slightly. Dip truffles in chocolate; place onto pan. Let stand 5 minutes or until the chocolate is set.

Microwave chocolate chips on HIGH 30-60 seconds until melted. Drizzle chocolate over truffles. Let stand 10 minutes or until chocolate is set. Store truffles in an airtight container in the fridge.

This made 24 truffles, depends on the size of the truffles you make.

....Please note the last ingredient we skipped because we thought there was enough chocolate presence without drizzling more chocolate.

ALMOND TRUFFLE



Ingredients:

1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 3/4 cup Nestle Toll House Milk Chocolate Morsels
1/2 to 1 tsp almond or vanilla extract
1 cup finely chopped almonds, toasted.

Combine evaporated milk and sugar in small heavy-duty saucepan. Bring to a full rolling boil over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Stir in morsels. Stir vigorously until mixture is smooth. Stir in almond extract. Refrigerate for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Shape into 1 inch balls. Cover. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

....Please see the tweaking we made on this recipe above. Likewise, I did not toast the almonds and I did not use milk chocolate morsels (chips), we used semi-sweet chips.

Enjoy!!!!