My entire house smells of chocolate.

I’m visiting family tomorrow, so this evening I made homemade oreos (every time I’ve made these someone has requested the recipe) and chocolate chocolate chip cookies, from the The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book.

I used four different kids of chocolate between the two recipes; cocoa, dutch process cocoa, semi-sweet chocolate chips, bittersweet chocolate.

Because if you’re going to have dessert, then HAVE dessert and make it worth the calories.

And at some point I still need to make scones to put in the freezer to bake and have hot one weekend morning.

Yum.

As I’ve mentioned before, I work in the Health Science Center for WVU. I would say that a majority–if not a vast majority–of the employees have job where we have to work with people.

So why does the cafeteria serve so many dishes with garlic and onions and other stinky foods? Are they trying to up their income from mint sales at the vending machines? Or do they have it in for the patients who have to deal with these doctors and nurses and administrators for the rest of the day?

Last year I picked up the All American Dessert Cookbook, which has gorgeous pictures and interesting bits to go along with the recipes. But more importantly, it has some very delicious recipes. I’ve been trying recipes over the past couple months, and I have to say that everything I’ve tried has been good.

So, for my birthday I decided to try the Molten Chocolate Lava Souffle Cakes. I figured, the best way to get the kind of cake I wanted was to make it myself.

Wow. Words cannot describe how delicious they were.

And, they were relatively easy to make, and I could make them ahead of time, and then put them in the oven when we were ready for dessert.

The drawback was that the recipe called for 16 oz of bittersweet chocolate, 2 sticks of butter, five eggs and an additional egg yolk.

But they were totally worth it.

When you put your fork into one of the cakes, the gooey melted chocolate in the center oozed it, and with fresh whipped cream…

(contented sigh)

Plus, I made sugar cookies with strawberry icing, made from fresh strawberries.

After all, my birthday only comes once a year.

For obvious reasons, (like the fact that we had six visitors Saturday before the party) I haven’t started my Christmas baking. So tonight I made dough for cookies that needed to be refrigerated. That’s be rugelach, sugar cookies, and a new cookie–sour cream nutmeg cookie. I’ve also branched out and decided to try fresh nutmeg this year. Even bought myself a new Microplane grater. (Finer grating size than the one I already have.)

We’ll see how they turn out.

As far as the fine grater and the nutmeg, I have to say that it wasn’t really very difficult to grate the nutmeg–added maybe a minute onto the prep time. So as with the Microplane zester/grater I got, I definitely recommend this one. I’ll let you know whether grating nutmeg is really that much better.

I recognize that local food movements and other such similar ideas are very good idea, for a number of reasons. And in the fall I do try to buy local produce when it’s available (Giant Eagle almost always has corn from Preston County.)

Yet I appreciate the fact that I can go to the grocery store and get foods from all over–especially ones that aren’t in season right now, or that don’t grow locally. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with ramps and paw-paw, but variety is good.

Especially the variety of citrus fruits available at this time of year. Besides snow, one of the other reasons I love winter is because that’s when citrus fruits are their best. Navel oranges and blood oranges and lemons–this time of year almost makes me wish I liked grapefruit.

Went to the grocery store today and came back today with a box of clementines. I’ve already eaten two, and they were wonderful. Say what you like about the modern would, but I wouldn’t want to give up oranges and clementines and all the other fruits and spices that would never grow here.

And now I think I’ll go have another clementine. Because despite everything, they’re only here in the winter, so I should enjoy them while I can.

So the ridiculous shipping charges were for new kitchen toys, and I have to say that despite the insane prices I paid for shipping, I’m quite pleased with what I’ve received so far.

I broke down and ordered a French rolling pin, because I like to make pies, and the design is supposed to be the best for pie crust. I ordered the Vic Firth rolling pin, because Cook’s Illustrated (the Consumer Reports of cooking tools) recommended it as the best rolling pin from their tests.

I have to admit that the French rolling pin did make rolling out the pie crusts easier. Of course so did refrigerating the dough overnight before rolling. But those were definitely the three easiest pie crusts I’ve ever made. And I didn’t even have to use two sheets of Saran wrap–just a single sheet for the bottom–I made sure the top of the dough was well floured, so I had no problems with sticking. Lovely.

It’s also relatively light, and a good length for thwacking people who bother you while you’re baking.

Also recommended by Cook’s Illustrated was an apple peeler. I’d thought it a ridiculous expense, but peeling and coring and cutting apples for the apple pie I made for my grandmother’s birthday, I realized why I don’t make many apple dishes: I hate peeling and coring apples. So I figured that perhaps if I had an apple peeler, maybe I’d make more apple pies.

The peeler came just in time on Tuesday, and I wasted no time getting it set up to peel apples. Holy Cow. The thing was amazing. Instead of taking forever and wondering if I could get away without filling the crust, I zipped through six apples, and peeled a seventh, just for fun.

After my Kitchen Aid, this may be the Best. Tool. Ever.

In fact, when I made bread pudding last night, I added apples, just because I could.

So I have to admit that although I wasn’t pleased by the shipping charges, I was more than pleased by the new kitchen toys I got.

As we were getting ready for lunch today, I was thinking about food labels.

It seems to me that we would be far better off if, in addition to telling us how many calories per serving, we were also told the number of calories for the entire package.

For example, the guacamole I was eating says 45 calories per serving. However, far more useful is the information that I were to eat the entire container myself (assuming that Michael didn’t get a chip in when I wasn’t looking) I would have consumed 382.5 calories. Which, incidentally, made me feel a whole lot better. I mean, wouldn’t that be a great bit to add? “Even if you eat this entire container, you’d still be getting fewer calories than if you ate a Big Mac.”

Unfortunately, as Michael pointed out, if you are the entire container of guacamole AND the entire bag of tortilla chips AND the whole two liter of ginger ale, that would be more than 2000 calories, and you wouldn’t be able to eat anything else for the rest of the day.

As it’s now less than a month until Michael’s office closes, and he hasn’t yet gotten a single call about a job, I’m all about comfort food.

Just got done making lasagna, deviled chicken soup, and chicken pie, most of which will go in the freezer for later. These are some of my favorite foods when I’m down–especially the chicken pie. So I should be good for a few weeks.

Plus, I have leftover bread pudding with whiskey sauce to eat. The only thing missing is Bittersweet Brownies. Maybe some time during the week.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got chocolate and some of my favorite books calling me…

(more…)

(more…)

It’s Christmas Eve and I’ve had the entire week off from work. What have I been doing?

Baking.

Specifically:
Peanut butter kisses
M&M cookies
Rugelach
Thumbprints
Iced sugar cookies
Pumpkin spice cookies
Lemon wafers
Harvest Bars
Peanut butter fudge bars
Cranberry bars

Yum!

Bread Pudding
Leftover bread, cut into cubes (enough to more than fill a casserole dish)
2 cups milk/half-and-half (whatever you have on hand)
1/2 cup sugar
4 tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup shredded apple (I used Granny Smiths)
3 eggs

Heat oven to 350 F and then butter a medium sized casserole dish.
In a saucepan, heat milk, butter, sugar, and cinnamon until the butter melts. In a bowl, beat eggs. Remove milk mixture from heat, and then mix in eggs.
In a large bowl, mix everything together and then dump into casserole dish. Alternatively, put bread and apples into casserole dish and then pour milk and egg mixture over bread.
Bake at 350 F for 30-45 minutes, or until knife comes out clean.

(adapted from How to Cook Everything)

Whiskey Sauce
4 tbs butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp whiskey
1 tbsp water
1/8 tsp nutmeg
salt
1 small egg

Melt butter in saucepan. Add sugar, whiskey, water, nutmeg, and salt. Heat over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Beat egg and whisk into whiskey sauce. Raise heat to medium, and stir gently until sauce thickens. Remove from heat.

(from The Joy of Cooking)

Spoon hot bread pudding into bowl. Spoon hot whiskey sauce over bread pudding. Add scoop of vanilla ice cream. Eat.

I’m thankful for lots of things. Today, most of them are edible.

On an on-going basis, I’m thankful for my health, and my family, and my husband. Not necessarily in that order.

ADDENDUM the First:
Plus apple pie. I may explode.

8″ or 9″ pie crust
2 cups fresh pumpkin
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 eggs (2 is the pumpkin is liquidy)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp clove
Fresh whipped cream

Preheat oven to 400F. Mix all ingredients together in mixer. Pour into pie shell. Pie crust shields are your friends. Bake 50-60 minutes.

Warm before serving with fresh whipped cream.