09:44 – It was 44.4F (7C) when I took Colin out at 0640, partly cloudy and breezy. We had about 1.5″ (4 cm) of rain yesterday. Autumn weather is definitely arriving. For at least the next week or so, we’re to have lows in the 40’s (5 to 9 C) and highs in the low- to mid-60’s (16 to 19 C).
We’re expecting some effects from Hurricane Irma to arrive Monday evening through Tuesday, assuming the current forecast holds up. Irma is supposed to track up the coast along the Florida and Georgia coasts and make landfall as a Cat 1 hurricane. From that point, the center of the track passes through the Piedmont. Sparta is about dead center in the forecast track, although we’ll probably see only heavy winds and downpours.
Shortly after she got home from the gym yesterday, Barbara emailed me a recipe for easy fudge in the microwave, using only two ingredients. We had the chocolate chips, but no condensed milk.
We did have evaporated milk, so I converted that to sweetened condensed milk by adding 1.25 times its volume in granulated white sugar. A 14-ounce can of evaporated milk plus 17.5 ounces (by volume) of sugar.
The can of evaporated milk had a best-by date of September 14, 2014, so it wasn’t even three years past its best-by. Barbara opened the can. I had her sniff it, and she said it smelled like evaporated milk. Good enough.
We poured it into a microwave-safe plastic bowl, added the 2+ cups of white sugar, and microwaved it on high for one minute. Barbara stirred to make sure all the sugar had dissolved, after which we added three cups of chocolate chips, microwaved it on high for another minute, and then stirred it until it was a creamy consistency. We then added a teaspoon of vanilla extract, poured the batter into an 8X8-inch baking dish covered in oiled aluminum foil, and stuck it in the refrigerator to cool and set.
Just like the last time we tried making fudge, it didn’t really set up. Instead, we ended up with a goopy mass. Barbara isn’t a big fan of fudge anyway, but she taste-tested it. She thought it tasted okay, if a bit grainy. I thought it was okay, but in retrospect I’d either add a fourth cup of chocolate chips or cut down the amount of liquid. The recipe called for one 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk, which would probably have set up properly. But I used a 14-ounce can of evaporated milk plus the 17.5 fluid ounces of sugar, which totaled more than the amount of condensed milk the recipe called for.
We finished up DCI Banks and started watching Silk and the 2016 Victoria. The latter was unusual in that it didn’t disguise the fact that Victoria was German, not English, and that the Royals spoke German at home. Their Victoria speaks RP English rather than strongly German-accented English as the real Victoria did.
The real Victoria, of course, was also in-bred and stupid, which this series ignores. And she married Albert, who was literally a moron, and produced a large litter of moronic children.