My thoughts all stray

No matter how I try, I keep coming back to chocolate desserts. Subconsciously I must be trying to find the one that will make me love chocolate the way everyone else I know does. I've still yet to find it, although Thatboy doesn't mind the consent attempts. This one in fact, he requested I not send into work so he could enjoy it night after night. It's basically pudding in a pie shell, which could be why Thatboy enjoyed it so much. Can you think of anything that would bring back more nostalgia than chocolate pudding?

Chocolate Pudding Pie

• pie dough
  
  • 1 14-oz. can condensed milk
  • 2/3 cup water
  • 1 pkg. chocolate pudding mix
  • 1 oz. square unsweetened chocolate
  • 2 cups heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 450. Roll out pie dough and place in pie pan. Line pie crust with foil and bake for 8 minutes. Remove foil and bake 5 more minutes.
2. In large saucepan, combine condensed milk, water and pudding mix; mix well.
   
3. Add chocolate.
   
4. Over medium heat, cook and stir rapidly until chocolate melts and mixture thickens. Remove from heat; beat until smooth. Cool. Chill thoroughly; stir.
   
5. Whip cream with electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Fold into pudding mixture.
   
6. Pour into pie crust.
   
7. Chill 4 hours until set.

Serves 8.

Each serving has:

Calories		378.5
Total Fat		32.6 g
	Saturated Fat	18.7 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	1.6 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	10.5 g
Cholesterol		95.2 mg
Sodium		198.3 mg
Potassium		260.5 mg
Total Carbohydrate		18.0 g
	Dietary Fiber	0.9 g
	Sugars	8.4 g
Protein		5.9 g

It must be fun, lots of fun

When I was in Spain, I didn't really get to eat a lot of Spanish food. First there was the whole airline fiasco which had me running through the Shannon Airport with lovely Irish flight attendants, then there was the lost luggage, and finally there was the fact that the entire time we were in Spain, my traveling companions only wanted to eat pizza.

Nonetheless, I stuck to my guns and dragged the boys to a place where I could get one of my Spanish favorites. Paella. For me Spanish food begins and ends with paella. I'm not very creative or adventurous I guess. Or it could just be that I am truly madly deeply in love with paella. So much so that I even registered for a paella pan at my wedding (I'm still kinda bummed I never got it.)

But as usual, I digress. The point of this story is that when one of my friends went to a Tapas cooking class, she came back with this recipe for Tortilla Espanola. Tortilla Espanola is a quintessential Spanish dish comprised of egg, potato and onion and I'm kicking myself for not trying it when I was in Spain. One bite of this dish and I was begging for the recipe. It's meant for tapas, but works equally as well for brunches, showers, and light lunches.

Tortilla Espanola (from hipcooks)

10 Red Bliss potatoes, thinly-sliced
1 sweet yellow onion, thinly-sliced
1/4-cup olive oil
7 eggs, beaten
2 Tbs. parsley, chopped
kosher salt
1/2 lemon

Directions:

1. Par-boil the potatoes until just al dente (put them in water, bring them up to a boil and then drain them in plenty of cold water to stop the cooking process).
   
2. Sauté the onion in olive oil over a medium heat until it begins to turn translucent. Add the potatoes and stir.
   
3. Crack and beat 7 eggs, add a very generous pinch of salt and perhaps a handful of parsley, if you like something green, and a squeeze of lemon for lift.
   
4. Add to the pan, making sure the egg is well-distributed over and in between the potatoes. If you need more egg, add some!
   
5. Transfer to a 350 degrees F oven until fully set. Wait until it cools to room temperature before attempting to cut. Serve at room temperature.

Serves 8.
Each serving has:

Calories		95.4
Total Fat		4.5 g
Cholesterol		185.9 mg
Sodium		58.1 mg
Potassium		201.4 mg
Total Carbohydrate		7.3 g
Protein		6.4 g

Always true to you

I have this friend who is definitely my partner in crime. The first time we met she got me out of my comfort zone in multiple ways. Each time we got together it was another adventure. I'm still trying to figure out if I'm Lucy to her Ethel or if she's Ethel to my Lucy. Moving away from her was really hard, even though I now get to hang out with her bestfriend/sister in law who now lives around the corner from me. Everytime I'm in town, the first thing I do is call up Sweetcakes and see if she can get together. Last time we were in town, we met for breakfast and as we left she pulled me aside. "I brought you cupcakes." She brought me cupcakes? You can understand why I love her so much, right?

I was actually a little worried about the cupcakes, because breakfast with Sweetcakes wasn't the reason we were in town, we actually had quite a few people to see and parties to go to and those cupcakes were going to have to sit in the car all day. And yet, when we returned home at the end of the day, those cupcakes were in perfect shape. Not a whirl of the frosting was displaced. And they tasted fantastic. Not that I'm surprised, Sweetcakes , is the best baker I've ever met. She makes these fantastic cream pies........And the cupcakes? Cookies and Creme, with oreos actually set in the top.

And they gave me a great idea. You see, a couple weeks ago I noticed Trader Joes had a new product - vanilla marshmallows. I picked them up. But, I had no idea what to do with them. It's too hot for cocoa, and while normally we love to give Thatdog marshmallow and watch him try to figure out how to eat them for hours, but these were expensive and I didn't want to waste them on Thatdog, as funny as that scenario always is.

But marshmallow creme and chocolate pie? It's definitely something I could see Sweetcakes making. And so I melted the marshmallows, added chocolate, and poured it into a crust. Now I can pretend Sweetcakes is around even when she's not! (AND I just found out today I get to hang out with her again this weekend!...There may be serious trouble in store for the rest of this county.)

Cookies and Creme Pie

• 9 graham crackers
• 1/2 cup sweetened, flaked coconut, toasted
• 5 Tbsp butter , melted
• 2 pkg vanilla marshmallow (from Trader Joes)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 square unsweetened chocolate, grated

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine coconut and graham crackers in food processor until coarse crumbs form.
2. Combine crumbs and butter with fork. Press to bottom and side of 9-inch pie plate. Bake 10 minutes and cool on wire rack.
3. Heat marshmallows and milk in 3-qt. saucepan over low heat until smooth, stirring constantly. Remove saucepan from heat. Cool completely (30 minutes.)
4. In large bowl with mixer at medium speed, beat cream until stiff peaks form. Fold marshmallow mixture into whipped cream with grated chocolate. Spoon filling into cooled crust. Refrigerate pie at least 3 hours or overnight.

Serves 8.
Each serving has:

Calories		327.1
Total Fat		24.9 g
Total Carbohydrate		26.5 g
Protein		3.1 g

I'll care for you forever

When it comes to desserts I usually let Thatboy make the decisions. Mostly because I really don't do much dessert. I tend to eat my big meal at lunch...which I stretch throughout the day, so usually after dinner I'm pretty much done with food. It also helps that I don't have much of a sweet tooth. But Thatboy must have grown up with dessert, because he craves it daily. And lately, things have been so crazy that I've been using baking as stress relief. It's been good crazy though, and the benefits of such craziness is that there are always a ton of friends to share these desserts with. Thatboy and I were going to a hip hop happening kind of party and I wanted to bring a dessert, so I went with Thatboy's favorite combination - mint and chocolate. One of my bestest friends, Prez, knows how much Thatboy loves mint and chocolate and she passed along a recipe for her triple layer brownies which combine chocolate, mint, and then more chocolate. The only problem is that Prez didn't mention what size pan to use, so I figured I should just use my normal brownie pan. That wasn't my best idea since I ended up with triple layer cake instead of brownies. Take my word, these are probably supposed to be nice thin layer upon nice thin layer - so use a looong pan, maybe 11x13?

Although I heard no complaints about the size. Instead I got a million questions about what I used to make the middle mint layer. It's no secret, you can buy peppermint extract in just about any supermarket. And that glorious shade of green? Why it's straight from the food coloring bottle!

Prez's 3 Layer Mint Cake....er....Brownies
1st layer

• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 4 eggs
• 16 oz chocolate syrup

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Add eggs.
3. Add flour and syrup.
4. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes in a greased and floured pan.
5. Completely cool

2nd Layer

• 1 stick butter
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 4-5 Tbsp milk
• 7 drops green food coloring
• 2 tsp peppermint

1. Mix all.
2. Coat over cooked brownies.
3. Cool in fridge 20 minutes.

3rd Layer

• 1 stick butter
• 12 oz chocolate chips

1. melt and pour over 2nd layer.
2. Spread with a knife.
3. Put back in fridge 30-40 minutes then cut into squares.
4. Refrigerate again.

Originally I had this to serve 12, as pictured above, but it was just too much, so we ended up cutting each square in half.
Each serving (for 24 squares) had:

• Calories: 370.5
  
• Total Fat: 17g
• Total Carbs: 52.3g
• Protein: 2.9g

The song of songs

I place all the blame on Ruth Reichl. Prior to her New York Cheesecake I made cheesecake about once a year. But now.....it's far closer to once a week. It's disgusting. If it wasn't for the thankless souls at Thatboy and my work I don't know if we'd be able to handle it. And speaking of thankless souls - Thatboy's coworkers are just the absolute sweetest. They enjoyed this cheesecake so much that they send Thatboy home with a card and a gift to thank me for spoiling them. If only they knew what a favor they were doing by eating all our food so Thatboy doesn't become Thathouse.

This cheesecake is the recipe of one of my mom's friends, and it's chocolate. Chocolate cheesecake with a chocolate ganache. And let me tell you, I was thanking the heavens for this ganache by the end. See this was my first experience with cheesecake crack. I've never had this problem before, but sure enough as the cheesecake cooled it developed massive crater-like cracks that looked like someone had carved a starfish in the middle. It was ugly. But that beautiful amazing ganache filled in the cracks and created a mirror smooth surface. Personally I preferred the New York Cheesecake, which didn't really surprise me because of my non-love affair with chocolate. And I was equally unsurprised that Thatboy "I'll eat anything covered in chocolate" preferred this cheesecake. And his coworkers? Well they didn't get to weigh in. That last cheesecake was too good to share. It's still in the freezer.

Lynn's Bittersweet Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake

• 1 1/3 cup chocolate wafer crumbs
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 pkg cream cheese
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1/4 cup cold coffee
• 8 squares bittersweet chocolate, melted

1. Combine wafer crumbs and melted butter. Press into 9" Springform Pan.
2. Beat softened cream cheese with sugar until smooth.
3. Beat in eggs one at a time.
4. Blend in sour cream, coffee, and melted chocolate.
5. Pour into pan. Bake at 350, 40-50 minutes until center is set.
6. Cool completely on a wire rack and refrigerate overnight.
7. For the glaze simmer 1/2 cup whipping cream and add 4 squares of bittersweet chocolate. Stir until melted. Spoon over cake.

Serves 12.
Each serving has:

Calories		502.3
Total Fat		40.9 g
	Saturated Fat	24.6 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	2.0 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	12.2 g
Cholesterol		126.1 mg
Sodium		213.5 mg
Potassium		345.7 mg
Total Carbohydrate		35.8 g
	Dietary Fiber	5.1 g
	Sugars	20.5 g
Protein		9.4 g

So pathetic

Thatboy is ridiculously, unbelievably spoiled. Regardless of my personal opinions on his father's cooking/serving style Thatboy believes him to be a fantastic chef. We all know he lucked out in meeting me since I keep him knee deep in prepared meals. In fact, he mentioned just the other day that he doesn't know what's in the fridge because "if you haven't noticed, I only go into the fridge to get something to drink. For food, I just sit on the couch and wait for you to bring it to me."

And yet he still whines, begs, and cries for some of his mom's recipes. I have no desire to make her recipes since
a) she gave them to me and like the Actress didn't include vital information in the recipe
b) the woman's idea of seasoning pretty much begins and ends with lemon pepper. Chinese chicken salad? lemon pepper. Meatballs? lemon pepper. Soup? Lemon pepper. I grew up in a house without lemon pepper. We had lemons, we had pepper, but I didn't even know lemon pepper existed before meeting Thatboy. It's not my favorite seasoning.

But 2 years of begging wears a girl down. And so I pulled out her recipe for spaghetti. My issues with this recipe?
1) Lemon Pepper
2) Lack of ingredient amounts
3) The ingredients that do give amounts seem to be...off....
4) One of the ingredients is some local seasoning mix that is un-google-able. There is no indication as to what's in this seasoning mix and of course she's never given it to me. Nice. Makes it really easy to recreate the recipe.

When I made the recipe, surprise surprise, Thatboy thought it wasn't saucy enough. I tried to explain that it's because there was an inordinately small amount of tomato sauce in it but in the end I just shrugged and passed him some lemon pepper with his milk.

Thatinlaw's Spaghetti

• 2 cans of tomato sauce (16 oz)
• 1 lb lean hamburger
• 1/2 onion
• 1 cup slice mushrooms
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 4 Tbsp "Italian Secret" (I used a handful of fresh basil, chiffonade)
• lemon pepper (I used about 2 Tbsp)
• Garlic salt (I used about 1 Tbsp)

1. Saute Hamburger with garlic salt and lemon pepper.
2. In a larger pan saute chopped and mushrooms, garlic, and onions. (I removed the ground beef from the pan and cooked all of this in the same pan)
3. Add hamburger, tomato sauce and Italian secret and cook on low for 30 minutes.

Serves 4.
Each serving has:

Calories		417.9
Total Fat		24.1 g
Cholesterol		85.1 mg
Sodium		452.2 mg
Potassium		637.5 mg
Total Carbohydrate		25.5 g
Protein		25.4 g

Every moment of the year

This is dedicated to some good friends of mine who are always there for me. Like Tats and her husband who are the most fantastic dogsitters ever. They never say no. And Thatdog is madly in love with them. As soon as we pull into the drive he pulls to get out of the car, opens their gate with his nose and begins whining at the door. It's enough to make a person feel neglected.

Last time Tats watched Thatdog she invited us over for a barbeque when we came to pick him up. Watch our dog AND feed us? You couldn't ask for better friends. The only problem is, anyone who knows me knows I can't go anywhere empty handed. Since we had just returned from The Actress's wedding, I decided to give a recipe she had given me a whirl (see more good friends!). The only problem is, The Actress is not a cook. The Actress and her husband (holy crap, husband!) marveled at the fact we own a garlic press. So the recipe the Actress gave me, it had no amounts. PEOPLE if you're going to give someone a recipe could you do them a kindness and include important info like time, temperature, pan size, and amount of ingredients? I must have guestimated all right though, because the Mexican Lasagna went over really well, and Tats was overjoyed to have dinner already made for the next night.

In addition to the lasagna, I also decided to try out some Williams Sonoma Sprinkles Cupcake Mix. Seeing as how Tats is frequently the guinea pig for my baking experiments, I thought this would be the perfect thing to bring. I was skeptical of the mix, because I hadn't heard the greatest things about it, and having actually had Sprinkles I knew what I was comparing it to. Add to that the fact that until two weeks ago Thatboy's favorite cupcake in the world was Sprinkle's Red Velvet and I knew this mix had a lot to live up to. It lived up to all the hype. Thatboy declared this was even better than Sprinkles. When I gave him the bowl to lick (he gets all the hard jobs in this house) he made sure to tell me not to be stingy with the frosting. And it's true, this is the best cream cheese frosting recipe I've ever made (unlike the cake itself, the mix comes with a recipe for the frosting). I plan on using it exclusively from now on.

The Actress' Mexican Lasagna - my notes in parathenses

• pkg corn tortillas (I used 12)
• ground turkey (I used about 3/4 lb)
• pkg taco seasoning
• taco sauce
• can of corn
• can of black beans
• package of cheddar cheese (I used the Shredded Mexican cheese blend)

1. (Preheat oven to 375, cook ground turkey in large skillet over medium heat and mix with taco seasonings )
2. (Mix seasoned turkey with corn and black beans)
3. In a lasagna dish, layer corn tortillas all covering the body (I used 6 tortillas)
4. Then layer (half) cooked turkey mixed with corn and blackbeans
5. Layer (half) the cheese.
6. Then another layer of tortillas (I used the remaining 6)
7. Cover tortillas lightly with taco sauce (I used about 1/2 a cup) then start process over. (turkey/beans/corn/cheese)
8. Place in oven for 30 minutes, until cheese is melted.

Serves 8.
Each serving has:

Calories		391.1
Total Fat		17.6 g
Total Carbohydrate		34.2 g
Protein		25.2 g