Chocolate Pudding

My boyfriend has a friend. Yes, just the one friend. He's not the most outgoing. (just kidding honey!) This particular friend (of Brandon's many friends) happened to ask a rather silly question: Does Jana's house renovation have any projects that would require unbridled destruction? Why yes! Yes, it does.

Saturday afternoon the plan went into attack. We started pulling out everything in the room I begrudgingly refer to as my kitchen. Don't be fooled. It hasn't had a working stove or fridge in five months. Nevertheless, the last remaining vestiges of the kitchen needed to be removed with unbridled destruction. He and Brandon used a bit of that reckless abandon we love about them and swung a hammer at anything and everything.Craig, aka The Hulk, literally tore a cabinet in half. LITERALLY. With. His. Bare. Hands.

Swing. Crack. Rip.........huh. "Um, Jana, how big of a deal is it that I punched a hole through your tile....and wall???"

Ummmmmmmm.

The walls of my house are plaster. 87 year old plaster. If you'd ever met a plaster wall, you know that you don't really punch a hole in them....you more of less crack the shell and see the ribbing of your home. It's solid. No room for holes. Hearing that a hole had been punched in my wall confused me. It's just not possible! I scramble through the wreckage, climb up a few feet to survey the damage.

It's a fake wall! ....well, it's a real wall.....it's more of a wall with another wall inside of it. It's the inception wall. Our minds ran wild. There could be drugs, cash, jewels, or.....dead things.... inside of this fake wall! Nobody would put a wall on top of a wall for no amazing reason, RIGHT?!

cough. cough. sigh. wrong.

We tore the whole thing down and it was the medium for adding two electrical plugs into the kitchen. WHY DO THAT?! Gah. Frustrating. SO frustrating. I was truly hoping for cash. It would have paid for the remodel. On the plus side, I can't tell you how happy I am not to find anything dead. Such a bonus.

With the kitchen destroyed we moved onto the drop ceiling in my sun room. It's just like the ones you used to get pencils stuck in during junior high. They had installed them in every room of the first floor. I have taken them down, one at a time, each and every one with a small bit of calamity.  This one came down, with a small crash.....and a slight injury to my boyfriend....who I might have asked to stand underneath it. And he thinks I'm trying to kill him. Psht. Where would he get that idea? Okay, okay, so I asked him to help brace the ceiling from falling. but it still fell, pretty loudly, and sharply, and on his arm.

Well, as luck would have it, irony was with us that day. Because above the drop ceiling, was......dun duh duh DUUUUH: Another drop ceiling. Not kidding you. I have a kitchen you can peel like an onion and a sunroom with four ceilings.....one of which is made of asbestos. Score!

With my weekend over and my kitchen destroyed, I am left to sit back and contemplate just how useful a good contractor can be....but doing so while I'm at Brandon's house....using his working kitchen..... eating chocolate pudding....and breathing asbestos-free air.

Chocolate Pudding
From Smitten Kitchen, as adapted from John Scharffenberger, via Wednesday Chef
Serves 6

1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 cups whole milk
6 ounces 62% semisweet chocolate chopped or chocolate chips
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine the cornstarch, sugar and salt in the top of a double boiler. Slowly whisk in the milk, scraping the bottom and sides with a heatproof spatula to incorporate the dry ingredients. Place over gently simmering water and stir occasionally, scraping the bottom and sides. Use a whisk as necessary should lumps begin to form. After 15 to 20 minutes, when the mixture begins to thicken and coats the back of the spoon, add the chocolate. Continue stirring for about 2 to 4 minutes, or until the pudding is smooth and thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla.

Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into a serving bowl or into a large measuring cup with a spout and pour into individual serving dishes.

If you like pudding skin, pull plastic wrap over the top of the serving dish(es) before refrigerating. If you dislike pudding skin, place plastic wrap on top of the pudding and smooth it gently against the surface before refrigerating. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 days.

Butterscotch Pudding

Let's talk butterscotch. Can anything top it? Sugar, caramel, butter, scotch.........nope. That's just about as good as it gets. Technically, that picture is of butterbourbon, as a bottle of Knob Creek is what is sitting on my counter. We can debate the pros and cons and differences of American bourbon and Scotch scotch, but I find that with that much sugar, and so little alcohol, the difference between butterbourbon and butterscotch is not a big enough difference. Butterwhiskey however, no. Bourbon is as low as I'd go on that ladder.

After a few of the houses I saw today though, I'll take any rung on that whiskey-scotch ladder. I have been house hunting, as my tweeps know, and some of the houses I saw today were in my price range....and lacking roofs. *Sigh* I toured an "artsy" home that had lampshades stuck to the ceiling, paint cans forming pyramids lining the hall, eight bikes in no apparent order, and more broken antique chairs than I knew what to do with (or how to steal and refurbish). It all added up to the perfect set for a psycho killer clown playhouse film. Other houses I saw had similar problems: hallways you can't pass through unless you're under 180 pounds, floor you can't walk on if you're over 150 pounds, and the ever charming smells of moth balls, dampness, and of course, mustiness.  It was an interesting day. I got more brave about houses and dove right into some of them, lucky I didn't fall right into some of them. That was the occasional concern. I took a more observant friend along with me who has an eye for shoddy flooring like the nose on a bloodhound. He's also very good at pointing out slanted rooms, bad electrical wiring, poking at the ceiling to find the water drip, and other such things that tend not to cross my mind as I plan how to decorate the house. Yep, I'm great at that sort of thing. Details? No. I only noticed one of the eight bikes and no, I didn't notice the missing roof either. But hey, those decorating and design options I have down.

Suffice it to say, it was an interesting day. I did find a few gems to look at further, but, at the end of this, I want my cup of butterscotch, and maybe to pour some scotch on my hands as a disinfectant.

Cheers! 

Butterscotch Pudding

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 cups whole milk
4 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons Scotch/Bourbon
1/4 cup unsalted butter, in pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Stir sugar and water in heavy medium saucepan over low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat. Boil without stirring until syrup turns deep amber color. Brush down sides of pan with wet pastry brush to remove sugar crystals. Occasionally swirl the pan. Remove from heat. 

Add cream, being careful of the rapid bubbling that will occur. Stir until smooth and set aside.

Mix brown sugar, cornstarch, and salt in heavy medium saucepan. Gradually whisk in milk. Stir over medium-low heat until mixture thickens and boils, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat. Whisk in caramel sauce.

Whisk egg yolks in large bowl to blend. Gradually whisk a bit of the warm caramel pudding into the egg yolks to temper. Gradually whisk yolk mixture back into the pudding. Bring to simmer over medium heat. 

Add in butter, scotch, and vanilla.

Divide pudding among 8 containers. Chill until cold, at least 6 hours and up to 1 day.
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