It's been too hot the past few days to do any baking, so I thought I would take today's (or yesterday's) opportune cool down to do some baking. (I also wanted to put the Pyrex baking set that Norman got for me for Christmas to good use.) I haven't tried any new recipes since the Fall, but I didn't want to do anything too difficult... I had no idea how simple creme brulee was! (French words just make everything sound more fancy and complicated.) All it consists of really is vanilla bean, heavy cream, sugar and egg yolks. I usually stick to drier baked goods like cookies, cakes, or bread, so I wasn't sure how this would turn out (last summer I tried to make a Lemon Meringue Pie and that was a TOTAL EPIC FAIL!), but if I may say so myself, it turned out quite yummy. The only thing I need to work on and perfect is how to caramelize the sugar on top. Here are two photos of the finished dessert:
This first one, I used a mini butane torch to heat the sugar, but that thing was WEAK! Still tasted good though.
For this one I used the broiler beneath my oven to "burn" the sugar. Didn't come out as pretty and I had to put it in an ice bath right out of the broiler, but it was more evenly heated and therefore crunchy.
Went in on Tuesday for my other eyelid. Here are some pictures:
With my patch. Arrrrrg!
My eyelid still semi- stuck together
Hard to open after keeping it shut for so long...
Bruised like last time, some leftover gunk.
It hurt a lot more this time because the cyst was in an awkward place right in the bottom outside corner of my eye. During the surgery, the doctor kept saying that this one was a lot bigger than the other and kept commenting "Whoa, wow, a lot of pus!" Heh heh. You'd be surprised. Well, it's over now. Hope they don't come back.
So, on Tuesday I went to the eye doctor to get some cysts (chalazions to be exact) removed from my eyelids. I've had one for about 6 months and the other for about 3. The doctor told me that if they're not gone after a month, they're usually there to stay and the only way to get rid of them is to have them cut and scraped out. I only got one done this week or else I'd have two swollen eyelids. I wasn't really scared about it beforehand knowing that there would be a knife extremely close to my eye, but then as I was sitting in that operating chair waiting for the doctor to arrive I started to get really nervous. The nurse kept going in and out of the room, giving me eye drops and also rubbing my whole eyelid area with alcohol, which made my eye feel like it was on FIRE! Finally the doctor arrived and pretty much went straight to getting rid of my cyst. First she gave me some analgesic shots in my eyelids to numb it, then proceeded with a clamp to flip my eyelid over. A puncture, then the release of what she told me was A LOT of pus. I think she scraped some gunk out too. Yeah, it was really weird because even though my eye was opened, I couldn't see anything that was happening. And yes, I was awake the whole time. It only took about 5 minutes. So, the lump is gone now, but my eyelid is still swollen. You can see pictures of the aftermath on my facebook. Got to go back in a week for the other one. Not looking forward to it again...it was really uncomfortable, but I do want to get rid of it. Haha, sorry if I grossed you out.
People tell me that I'm a good writer, but I personally hate almost everything I write. Nevertheless, I'm going to practice by writing a series of vignettes about my life, and I'll eventually post them up here. I've started on one and I hate it already. I'll try not to be so critical, so then you'll get a chance to read it instead of me changing my mind.
