{"id":3650,"date":"2014-10-14T23:55:57","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T06:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/?p=3650"},"modified":"2014-10-14T23:56:23","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T06:56:23","slug":"this-one-is-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=3650","title":{"rendered":"This One is for You"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"carmel<\/a>Tonight we made caramel apples.\u00a0 Well let’s just say it was the FIRST caramel apple event of the season and if truth be told the FIRST time I’ve ever made caramel apples.\u00a0 Nonetheless we’ve all been planning for this for a couple weeks.\u00a0 Anticipating cooler weather, thinking about what toppings we wanted, shopping (groceries online) for just the right crisp tart apple for our big night.\u00a0 I even bought some\u00a0real<\/em> apple sticks because I noticed the look on the rednecks face when I went out to the garage to get the box of (old and dusty) pop-cycle craft sticks that I’ve had for more years that I care to admit. Apparently 1000 popcycle sticks lasts for a very long time.\u00a0 The new sticks were official apple dipping wooden dowels with pointed ends that were perfect for our purpose.<\/p>\n

We bought three bags of Kraft caramel, one bag each of dark, milk and white chocolate.\u00a0 We had chopped walnuts, peanut bits and almond slivers.\u00a0 And enough granny smiths to make granny proud.\u00a0 My son even offered to unwrap all of the candy early in the day so we would have everything ready for our apple dipping event tonight.\u00a0 The double boiler was on the stove top, we even found the MELT CHOCOLATE pre-set on the microwave for our morsels.\u00a0 What could go wrong?<\/p>\n

I’ll be the first to admit, I added too much water to the caramel.\u00a0 I didn’t even know you added water to melt caramel .. but I trusted Kraft and the package said to add 2 TBL water for each bag.\u00a0 I may have guessed on the high side when I added the water … and certainly by the time I added MORE water to the pot when my son asked me if I added any water.<\/p>\n

There were six of us around the dinner table waiting and watching the caramel cool down in an ice bath as we hoped it would solidify enough to STICK to an apple.\u00a0 Eventually we opted to EAT dinner first and see how the caramel hardened up later that night.<\/p>\n

As for dinner … I had plans to make my grandmother’s lasagna.\u00a0 I always make my grandmother’s lasagna … unless of course (as my college girl reminded me) I am making one of those “weird” concoctions that involved garbanzo beans, spinach or purreed eggplant.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, sometimes its true I do like to experiment even with family tradition.\u00a0 But my Grandma Pauline’s lasagna was always my tried and true go to holiday meal be it Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patricia or Ferrel Cat Day<\/a>\u00a0 (which by the way is October 16th this year, there is STILL time to buy that aloof someone who could care less if you lived or died as long as you left a bowl of kibble outside your doorstep.)<\/p>\n

And though I like to stray from recipes more than … well you get where I’m going with my last faux paw … I tend to keep to the same way my grandmother made her Italian casserole.\u00a0 Except that I do make my own home made ricotta and on this occasion, as i sat on the floor contemplating my meal plan for the day, I considered how I might accommodate my boyfriend who was at the moment avoiding tomatoes as he suspected a connection to heart burn.\u00a0 And as I settled on making TWO separate dishes … one traditional lasagna and one lasagna in a smaller square pan that did not have tomato sauce … I smiled and a tear came to my eye.\u00a0 THAT WAS EXACTLY what Grandma Pauline use to do.\u00a0 In that moment I remembered that my Grandpa Jerry didn’t eat lasagna with tomato sauce on it and she would prepare a separate pasta dish for him that wasn’t slathered in a jar of Ragu.\u00a0 Today .. I really WAS making my grandmother’s signature dish and it touched my heart.<\/p>\n

Funny thing about Grandpa Jerry and those sauce-less noodles … it wasn’t that he was adverse to tomatoes, it was that when he had his heart attacks or diabetes, the Doctor told him to limit his intake of rich foods and gravies.\u00a0 Because of course in the physician’s frame of reference, gravy meant butter laden meat stock rich sauce that you bathed your pot roast in.\u00a0 But in our family of origin we referred to pasta sauce as GRAVY.\u00a0 So from that day forward, my grandfather gave up marinara.\u00a0 Of course by the time I figured this quark out as a teenager and proudly explained<\/em> the misunderstanding to my grandparents they were already set in their ways and the thought of only making ONE pan of lasagna seemed if not impractical then certainly impertinent so of course Grandma continued to make a special dish for her man, which was something I only NOW can appreciate and honor with all my heart and soul.<\/p>\n

And yes, the redneck loved his special dish … I added a bit of our ginger dressing on the noodle layers to spice it up.\u00a0 And of course as any good fairytale ends, the caramel hardened up just as we hoped while we enjoyed our main course and we were able to make amazing works of art with our caramel apple buffet.\u00a0\u00a0 Okay … my life has never been a fairytale, but we always find a way to laugh and enjoy the moment and savor all of our family dinner memories.<\/p>\n