Soap

I made my first batch of soap a while ago. I used coconut oil, rice bran oil, olive oil, and some almond oil.

I used the stick blender and made the mistake of mixing too much to reach trace, so it was pretty thick.

The next day it firmed up.

I cut it out into blocks and shaped some to look like Mcdonald's chicken nuggets. One of my favorite shapes.

I want my next batch to be made out of animal fat. Won't be for a while though since I have so much soap to go through.

Caramels

I really liked the Henri Le Roux caramels in France. We brought some home with us and I rationed them, so it would last longer. Unfortunately, I would eventually eat through all of it, so I tried making some. My first attempt, I made a condensed milk type caramel and it was pretty soft. I wrapped it around parchment paper.  My second batch was salted butter caramels. I used a David Lebovitz caramel recipe, but had to replace some of the corn syrup with agave nectar. I was happy with both batches.

Something else we brought home was some caramel sauce. It was really good just eating it out of the jar, but I didn't want to eat the whole thing like that. 

I found this caramel butter sandwich cookie recipe. It was really good.

London - Day 35

We woke up at 4:30 to catch the first metro train to the Eurostar station. We carried two suitcases each and it was tiring lifting them up and down the stairs at the metro stations. My arms were so sore the following days. The train ride was 2 hours long.

When we got to London, we decided to eat breakfast at the station because we wanted to buy the cheaper off-peak hour metro tickets to our hotel and it would be around an hour or so till off-peak hours began.

We stayed at the Hilton Hotel at Paddington, $90 for a 4 star hotel, pretty good. We got to the hotel and took a nap. Then went to an Indian restaurant for lunch.

I was pretty tired. My feet weren't use to the constant walking even though it's been 5 weeks of walking. We went to the British museum. It was our last vacation day and we had to make the most of it even though I was dead tired.

 

Next, the British Library.

 Ate some sweets at their cafe.

A view from our hotel.

Our last meal, lasagna and chicken paella. It was an awesome trip.

Paris - Day 34

Last day in France. I wanted to make a last visit to Denise Acabo's store to get more candy, but first we had lunch at Chez Prune.

After lunch we walked past a store called Skunk Funk. I purchased a brown hobo bag for 65 euros.
I got more Henri La Roux caramel candies including caramel sauce. I also got another chocolate bar, a tin of candied pecans, and a roll of paper with riddle/jokes.

Our last dessert, Berthillon ice cream. They only except cash and we only had 10 euros, so we shared 3 scoops of gingerbread, caramel and nutmeg.

For dinner, we went to Le Bon Marche Gourmet and picked up some food for dinner. We got some monk fish liver that wasn't cheap and it was terrible. It was too bitter to consume. We packed all our things and set the alarm for 4:30 to catch the Eurostar to London.