Snowy Saturday

Living in Pittsburgh the last few days has been more reminiscent of my New Hampshire winters.  Lots of cold, lots of snow.  The temps got up high enough yesterday (20's) for the boys to go out and shovel with Doug for awhile and then I sent them on a mission to scoop snow for a tasty experiment.  

Here's what the snow buddies brought in.  Isn't that snow gorgeous?  So pure and pretty!

So a few days ago I got a book entitled, Cold Snap, from the library as it seemed appropriate with the weather we are experiencing.  It's a funny little story about a town that goes through an intense cold spell like we are having.  At one point they use it to their advantage and use the frigid snow to make a special snack using pure maple syrup.  I remembered a similar treat back from my NH childhood when we would visit a maple syrup farm in the wintertime.  You are supposed to heat maple syrup to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, then pour it over cold snow and it is supposed to crystallize into a candy-like consistency.  I didn't have a thermometer, so I just had to guess on how hot the syrup was.  I don't think it was quite hot enough, but it still made for a delicious snack.  You can see what happened when I poured it in.  It pretty much made maple syrup ice cream.  It was delicious and brought me back to that visit to the maple syrup farm years ago.  It was intensely sweet unless you added more snow, so the boys and I could only eat a little bit before knowing it was enough, but it was still a fun experiment and special treat to enjoy on this snowy Saturday!