As a server working a 12 hour double, I usually get my satisfaction from a fat stack of cash. Tips are supposed to balance out my measly wage, but tonight I left with a wimpy wallet. Such situations encourage some to hit the bottle, but I would rather sneak into the kitchen cabinet for another substance: chocolate. Salivating for the sweet cocoa taste, I reached for a bag of chocolate chips. As I clutched my prize, I felt an unsettling squish. Melted chocolate – of course. Living in a un-air conditioned house had finally revealed its price.
Chocolate cravings were reaching urgent levels; I didn’t have much time. I gripped and ripped the bag of liquefied chocolate, and squeezed it into a saucepot along with a few spoonfuls of creamy peanut butter. Heating it at low, I stirred in several handfuls of the off-brand honey-nut cereal. Once all the cereal was evenly coated, I plopped spoonfuls onto the top of a Tupperware lid covered in tinfoil. Desperate times call for desperate measures, people. Then I stuck the Tupperware tray into the freezer and let the bars chill for about 15-20 minutes (I recommend you let them go longer, but I don’t have that kind of self-control when I’m having a chocolate craving attack).
So the next time the chocolate bug bites, know that you are only three ingredients and 20 minutes away from having a cold, crunchy, chocolaty, peanut butter bliss bar. *Sigh of relief*, “That was easy”.
Honey-Nut Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
Ingredients:
1 (12 oz) bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 T peanut butter
About 2-3 cups honey-nut cereal
Instructions:
1.Mix chocolate chips and peanut butter in saucepan over low heat until melted.
2.Add in cereal – make sure that all can be covered by chocolate sauce.
3.Place large spoonfuls on cookie sheet covered in tinfoil/parchment paper/etc., let chill in freezer for about 15-20 minutes.
4.Store in bags or Tupperware in fridge/freezer for as long as you can keep them.
Thoughts of breakfast are the reason I wake up in the morning. My starved stomach rouses me from slumber, ravenously awaiting a sunrise sacrifice. Whether its cereal, eggs, toast, oatmeal, bacon, sausage, scrapple, pancakes, doughnuts, pastries, or anything else, breakfast is a wonderful thing to wake up to. But after visiting Seattle’s Piroshky Piroshky, I have a whole new reason to enjoy traditional “breakfast food” all day long.
Not having a nose in Seattle would be an awful shame. Piroshky may be along the same busy strip of small specialty food shops like it, but wander down and soon enough you will be enticed by the heavenly, wafting smells of sweet dough. As their sinisterly saccharine and savory baked goods lure you in, you will not protest.
There seems to always be a line, but once you sit down and begin pulling apart your warm, sticky-sweet Apple Cinnamon Roll, or piroshky, all can be forgiven. Fighting the urge to devour the decadence in one bite, I decided this has to be on the menu for my last meal on Earth. The dough melts on your tongue into cinnamon sugary bliss; it’s the sensation of dissolving cotton candy in your mouth, except imagine a thicker, richer, more “adult-version”.
After trying one of these Russian piroshkys, you will be enlightened – that should be enough to clear up any of those grey, typical “Pacific Northwest” skies. And for those without a sweet tooth, they have savory potato, cheddar and onion rolls, as well as ones featuring salmon, beef, spinach, mushrooms, etc. But really, who doesn’t have a sweet tooth?
Price wise, it may seem a little high. But that’s all before you begin eating it. Afterwards you won’t want your money back; actually, you will probably feel like tipping. Overall, it’s a must if you are down in Pike’s Place Market in Seattle. Just make sure you can find someplace to sit and enjoy it’s royal deliciousness.
Orange juice comes from it.Lemonade, limeade, pineapple-banana-orange drinks do too.Chances are most people are familiar with the “from the concentrate” labels stamped on many favorite juices and drinks.You can even go deeper into the frozen section of your grocery store and find THE concentrate: the frozen, potent base to which you add water.So it brings us to the question of what the “concentrate” truly is and what it means. By definition, it is the just the base of flavor, sweeteners, basically anything besides the liquid you add once you make it. It can also be used as a burst of flavor in a dish or sauce without drastically increasing the amount of liquid.Yet, why is “concentrate” limited to just fruit juices?The term could surely be extended to other condensed products.
The homemade chocolate syrup I made last night was a decadent river of sweet chocolate that ran right into my cold glass of milk.With the twirl of my spoon I had rich and tasty chocolate milk, and the ingredients required to make this syrup were all found in my pantry.
This afternoon though, I wondered if I was limiting myself by considering this a syrup, and adding it exclusively to milk and ice cream.Thus, the experimenting began.Although I would eat the stuff straight, I assume that most would like to have options. First, I tried it in my vanilla yogurt.It turned out to be a nice sour twist on the super-sweet chocolate, and offered far more protein than if it were ice cream or frozen yogurt.Then I tried dipping apples in it: delicious, of course.Therefore, I’m sure strawberries, bananas, cookies or marshmallows would sing the same tune as well. It might even work as a coating if you were to freeze your chocolate covered treat; I have yet to try that once. I am still looking for more creative dipping or mixing ideas, but I think I might have over-binged on chocolate for the past day.
For now, I do consider this homemade recipe a chocolate concentrate, just because it is SO sweet and can act as a base flavoring for other things.I need only add about a spoonful to a glass of chocolate milk – and I like mine chocolatey! I urge you to expand your view towards chocolate syrup, and give it a go in other mildly flavored things.It surely will pump up the chocolate flavor.
Chocolate Concentrate
Ingredients:
½ c cocoa powder
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
1/8 tsp salt
½ tsp vanilla
Instructions:
1.In a medium size saucepan, add cocoa powder and water.Whisk until well mixed.
2.Whisk in sugar over medium heat.Heat to boiling, make sure that sugar is dissolved: 3 min. [BE CAREFUL – IT WILL BOIL OVER IF UNATTENDED]
3.Add in salt and vanilla.Take off heat.Let stand and cool.
4.Put in glass jar or container.
5.Will stay fresh a lot longer than it will survive in a house full of chocolate lovers.
Oh sweet enlightenment! I have been awakened; I have tasted the source.I know now for sure that chocolate does indeed have a soul.At first, I denied all possibility.Even when I read the inscription on that recipe blog post, I was skeptical of how it could change my view of chocolate forever.All prior knowledge told me that a better chocolate could not be made so simply. All those modern but false idols: instant pudding, boxes of cake mix, break and bake cookies, etc retained barely a glimmer of the real heart of chocolate.It was heresy to say that the true chocolate dessert would not require milk, eggs, flour or butter.Until now.The hardest part now is trying to not make batches and batches of this enlightened dessert.Let the source of chocolate be revealed…
This chocolate dessert is nearly incomparable to anything other one you’ve tried, and the weirdest thing is that it’s vegan.Like I said, I was skeptical at the beginning.But I found the taste to be pure chocolate bliss.Its consistency is heavier than a mousse, but richer than even old-fashioned pudding.The texture has the clean, cold feeling of ice cream, but is too smooth a finish to be considered frozen.So what shall we call this indescribably delectable chocolate treat?Soul Chocolate.
The recipe was one I got from the Voracious Vegan cooking blog.I adapted it a bit for my kitchen [using sugar instead of agave nectar, although my roommate happens to live off the stuff].The best part of this dessert is the richness, which makes it last longer than such a dessert usually would.
Soul Chocolate
Ingredients:
1 14 oz. can coconut milk [full fat]
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate [I used the baker’s brand]
3 T white sugar
½ t vanilla extract
Pinch of cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
Instructions:
1.In saucepan, heat coconut milk over medium-low heat to a gentle simmer.
2.Meanwhile, chop up chocolate into small pieces with large knife.
3.Put chocolate, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg into food processor.
4.Pour hot coconut milk over the ingredients in the food processor.Process until thoroughly mixed.
5.Put in container, cups, glasses [however you want to present it] and chill for at least 5 hours.
Powdery white bliss or a frozen headache, either way you tend to view snow I have come across one thing that may have you wishing for more snow days.It’s called “snowcream” and it’s exactly what it sounds like, ice cream made of snow.We got 8 inches of snow this past weekend; a real winter snowstorm!They are calling it this winter’s “Biggest Blizzard in the Southeast”.Didn’t really do us much good though – no snow days here in college, boo.But my friend did revolutionize the way I view snow.
Never saw shoveling snow as fun?Well, now you might reconsider getting a head start on collecting that “perfect snow”, as I call the untouched, still pure white snow that is out on your porch.For all intents and purposes, we should consider snow just finely grated ice.When you can make food out of your current weather condition, I consider it a win.This almost makes building Frosty the Snowman obsolete.Snowcream is a much tastier alternative that is easy to make and will still delight the inner kid in all of us.
Here is the basic recipe for our vanilla snowcream. Disclaimer: this is more of a list of suggestions.The actual amounts will vary and depend on how much you are making and what kind of snow you are working with that day.Also consider that it does melt quickly, so get a bunch of people together to eat it after you come in from sledding!
Vanilla Snowcream
Ingredients:
Large bowl of snow
Milk or cream
Sweetened condensed milk
Brown sugar
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Vanilla extract
Instructions:
Add all ingredients to snow.Mix until well blended and the consistency of ice cream.
***You can make an assortment of flavors by adding spices, other flavored extracts [coconut, almond, orange, etc], cocoa powder, jellies, syrup, etc.
Makes: a lot. NOMS: not traditional ice cream, but a delicious novelty
Another birthday come and gone, but I am still young and vivacious enough to regret that birthdays don’t happen more than once a year…especially because this year, I went all out. It was either go big or go home, and I’ll be honest, this classy feast extraordinaire nearly burst the budget, but hey, it’s my birthday!
Luckily, I only had a voice lesson to attend on Tuesday, so the rest of the day could be properly dedicated to meal preparation. Throughout day I got comments like, “Mmmm, whatcha making?”, “When are you eating?”, and my personal favorite: “So did you decide to drop out of classes and just cook?!” No, but that would be a dream come true.
Just to give you an outline of what was on the menu, here is what we were looking at:
Appetizer: Bruschetta with a Poached Egg, Wilted Arugula and Truffle Oil
Main Course: Blackened Beef Tenderloin Roast
Sides: Gratin Savoyard and Asparagus Wrapped in Prosciutto
Dessert:Chocolate Mousse with Orange Peel
10 AM Tuesday morning I was up and already whisking eggs and melting chocolate in my make-shift double boiler. The mousse needed time to set, so I had to start early. All the while, my mini fridge was bulging with ingredients: crisp asparagus, fresh parmesan cheese, beef tenderloin all staring me down, all teasing me before dinner. But I trudged on, determined to make this meal absolutely perfect.
*Side Note: Since there were so many recipes, I am going to just put two down now. If there is an interest for the others let me know!
The mousse was from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”, although I did substitute and change a few things. The internet mousse recipes warned against using raw eggs, but I warn you against NOT using them. [Yet another reason to not trust the internet!] They would have you using unflavored gelatin and whipping cream, but both of these are unnecessary to create the most decadent, rich chocolate mousse I have ever tasted [others agreed, as well]. Granted, I was a little disappointed at the consistency. It wasn’t light and fluffy by any means, but rest assured, that didn’t keep me from licking my plate clean. When you make this recipe, dish out small portions, for a small portion packs a powerful chocolate punch. Dress with a dollop of whipped cream topping, an orange slice and curled peel.
What I gained from making this was how to make unsweetened chocolate semi-sweet, create a double boiler and the dire importance of having an electric beater. I substituted vanilla extract for the coffee, but only put in 2 T, not 4 T; also put in orange juice for the orange liqueur, but would recommend the liqueur if you want to be able to taste the orange flavor at all. I was unsure of what “instant sugar” was, so I just used regular sugar, which could have had something to do with the odd consistency. It might also have been that I assumed beating with a whisk was pretty comparable to an electric beater – haha.
Here is the original recipe:
Chocolate Mousse
Ingredients:
4 egg yolks
¾ c instant sugar [very finely granulated]
¼ c orange liqueur
A pan of not-quite-simmering water
A basin [bowl, sink] of cold water
6 oz/ 6 squares semi-sweet baking chocolate
4 T strong coffee
6 oz/ 1-½ sticks of softened unsalted butter
4 egg whites
Pinch of salt
1 T granulated sugar
Instructions:
1.Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until mixture is thick, pale yellow, and falls back on itself forming a slowly dissolving ribbon.
2.Beat in orange liqueur.
3.Then set mixing bowl over the not-quite-simmering water and continue beating for 3-4 min until the mixture is foamy and too hot for your finger.
4.Then beat over cold water for 3-4 min until the mixture is cool and again forms the ribbon. It will have the consistency of mayonnaise.
5.Melt the chocolate with coffee over hot water in double boiler. *If you ever have to make baking chocolate sweeter just add 1 T sugar per every oz. or square of chocolate.
6.Remove from heat and beat in butter a bit at a time, make smooth cream.
7.Beat chocolate into egg yolks and sugar.
8.In separate bowl, beat egg whites and salt until soft peaks are formed; sprinkle on the sugar and beat until stiff peaks are formed.
9.Stir ¼ of egg whites into chocolate/egg mixture.
10.Fold in the rest. *A note on folding: do it slowly, the egg whites give the mousse volume. Add about ½ c at a time, use a spatula, cut down the middle of the bowl and scoop mixture from the bottom and fold over the top of the egg whites. Try not to break the egg whites up too much.
11.Chill for at least 2 hours, or overnight.
12.Then I added a dollop of whipped cream topping, a slice of orange and a curled orange peel just to dress things up!
Makes about 5 cups. NOMS: 10
This appetizer was adapted from a Food Network show. It was a perfectly light, yet filling appetizer. Since we got off to a late start for dinner that night, it was necessary to have something to occupy the stomach. This was just the thing! Poaching eggs is a very strange process. If you ask me, I would have called it “ghosting an egg” because as it sits in simmering water it takes on a ghost-like, wispy white sheet-looking appearance, as can be seen in the pictures. Liked a little child, I stood above it, poking and prodding it as it cooked, but beware – you can break it! Don’t be afraid of a runny yoke; that is what holds the excellent flavor in your egg. If it drips onto the plate, do not waste it! Just sop it up with your bread. Also, a note on truffle oil: it will be your newest culinary addiction. It makes all the difference to use truffle oil. But make sure when you are buying truffle oil you don’t buy oil just infused with truffle flavoring. Check the ingredients, ask a worker. Our guy had a little piece of floating mushroom in it as well, so we knew it was legit.
Bruschetta with a Poached Egg, Wilted Arugula and Truffle Oil
Ingredients:
½ loaf of French Bread, i.e. Baguette
4 T olive oil
2-3 cups arugula
1 clove garlic, minced
4-5 eggs
1 t vinegar
1 c parsley, chopped
1 lemon to make 1 T lemon zest and 2 T lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, minced
Truffle oil
Salt and pepper
Instructions:
1.Diagonally slice bread about ½ inch thick. Brush with olive oil [about 2 T]. Toast on frying pan or grill. Place slice on plate.
2.In skillet, heat olive oil. Add arugula, wilt for about 4 minutes. Take off heat. Arrange on bread.
3.In small bowl put chopped parsley and minced garlic. Add lemon zest and juice.
4.In large saucepan, heat about 1 quart of water. Add vinegar. Heat to simmering, but NOT boiling.
5.Break egg into small bowl. Dip bowl into water, allowing hot water to enter bowl. Then gently slide the egg into the simmering water. Let it simmer for about 5 min, until egg white is set and the yolk is encapsulated, and won’t run until bitten into. *This is the quick and dirty poaching process.
6.Remove egg with slotted spoon very gently, so not to break it.
7.Lay egg on bed of arugula and bread. Then add parsley mixture, drizzle truffle oil over the whole thing. Then light salt and pepper it.
8.So tasty!
Makes about 5 bruschettas. NOMS: 9.8
When the food was finally plated, it was nearly 9:30pm. Yes, this dinner was a bit time consuming, especially when sharing a kitchen, but the effort and the wait were worth it by dinnertime. My plate boasted two beautifully cooked, medium-rare pieces of meat, a heap of steaming gratin Savoyard [potatoes with Swiss cheese and beef broth] and a splash of green asparagus bundles wrapped in crispy prosciutto. It took epic proportions of strength and restraint to sit in front of this layout and take pictures before devouring it all. Be thankful for my sacrifice!
But when the hour came to eat, my taste buds blissfully welcomed an especially red bit of tenderloin into my mouth and rejoiced as it melted like butter on my tongue. Chewing was barely necessary, and seemed almost sacrilegious because the steak was so tender and juicy. A light layer of salt, pepper and cumin seasoning produced a full-on flavorful steak. The cheesy potatoes were a nice compliment to the steak, and the asparagus was regal enough of a vegetable to match the menu, and I was quite pleased with the harmonious turnout of tastes.
Oh man, talking about all this is making me hungry again! Let it suffice to say that this dinner left nothing to be desired, except that I want to have it at least once a month for the rest of my life. Haha, that should have been my birthday candle wish…
