Fallen Souffle

Chocolate = Love, in our house. The more chocolate the better. Neither my husband or I will ever turn away from chocolate. So when I was to come up with a seductive dessert for Sugar High Friday #16 I knew it had to include this amazing, decadent ingredient.

I was planning on making an elaborate chocolate torte with a silky ganache coating, but alas the bakery has taken my energy this week so I decided on something a bit less labor intensive. In fact this dessert took less time to make then clean up! It can be made in a matter of minutes. No, I’m not kidding. And the ingredients are probably already in your pantry or fridge, so your special someone can feel extra special at any time of the week.

I would describe this dessert as a stiffer mousse, it is silky and creamy but takes a minute to completely melt in your mouth. You must try it, I promise it will make you melt!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Decadent Chocolate Cups
from Rachael Ray

2/3 cup whole milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons sugar
Pinch salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons hazelnut liqueur or dark rum

whipped cream cream

1. Heat milk in a small pan over moderate heat until it comes to a boil.

2. In blender or food processor combine egg, sugar, a pinch of salt, semisweet chips, and liqueur. Run processor or turn on blender to low setting. Pour in boiling milk in a slow stream. The hot milk will cook egg and melt chocolate. Process or blend 1 minute, until smooth.

3. Spoon chocolate into 4 demitasse cups and chill. Top the chocolate cups with a dollop of cream and garnish each cup with mint sprigs or strawberries.

4. Place cups on saucers and serve with demitasse spoons. If you use teacups, this recipe will yield 2 cups, rather than 4. (make 4 cups from this recipe, it is so rich!)

Tagged with SHF #16

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I know you all have been on the edge of your seat waiting for this review. Well Evan finally got the pictures off of his camera so I am now able to enlighten you as to the goodies we had at our party.

We decided to keep things simple by having a “make your own sandwich bar” which proved to be quite popular. We got a variety of meats and cheeses as well as tomatoes, lettuce, bacon and some mustards and mayos. We also cleaned up our panini press so people could toast them. I thickly sliced some white and wheat bread from the bakery and let people create. Who knew something so simple could be so good!

I also made a potato salad, that was nothing too special but I did use my garlic mustard aioli from Trader Joe’s…yum! I think that and the use of real 100% fat mayo made the dressing awesome. I was going to add hard boiled eggs and bacon but got lazy and decided to keep it simple.

The night before I cooked up some soft pretzels. These were so easy to make and so darn good! It was actually a Sandra Lee “Semi-Homemade” recipe, the first of her recipes I have used because it didn’t involved any of her weird flavor combinations. They are amazing right out of the oven but they held up nicely for the party the next night by just popping them in the oven for a bit to toast up.

Soft Pretzels

1 loaf frozen white bread dough, thawed
Flour, for dusting surface
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup coarse salt

1. Divide dough into 14 pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll each piece of dough into a 16-inch rope, and then form into a pretzel shape. Transfer dough to the refrigerator until ready to boil.

2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

3. In a large pot, bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Add pretzels, 3 at a time, and cook until pretzels rise to the surface, about 2 minutes. Remove and drain on paper towels. Arrange pretzels 3 inches apart on buttered sheet pans. Brush with beaten egg. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until browned. Serve with a grainy mustard.

We had a great time hanging out with all of our friends and sampling all of the goodies everyone brought. I honestly didn’t watch too much of the game because I was too busy socializing, but the outcome of the game was good and Grey’s Anatomy was intense! (I love that show!)

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Oh…my…goodness! This is the best pasta salad I have ever made! Seriously! It has all of my favorite components; pasta, cheese, olives, tomatoes, garlic, and vinegar. It is sinful, but actually not too bad for you. There is some oil in it and olives are high in fat, but I used whole wheat pasta, and load of tomatoes. Trust me it is worth the splurge. Make this at the beginning of the week and you have lunch for a couple of days.

Mediterranean Pasta

1/2 pound whole wheat fusilli (spirals) pasta
Kosher salt
Olive oil
1 pound ripe tomatoes, medium-diced (or more!)
3/4 cup good black olives, such as kalamata, pitted and diced
1 pound fresh mozzarella, medium-diced

For the dressing:
5 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
6 tablespoons good olive oil
2 garlic cloves, diced
1 teaspoon capers, drained
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

1. Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water with a splash of oil to keep it from sticking together. Boil for 12 minutes, or according to the directions on the package. Drain well and allow to cool. Place the pasta in a bowl and add the tomatoes, olives, mozzarella, and chopped sun-dried tomatoes.

2. For the dressing, combine the sun-dried tomatoes, vinegar, olive oil, garlic, capers, salt, and pepper in a food processor until almost smooth.

3. Pour the dressing over the pasta, sprinkle with the Parmesan, and toss well.

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OK so I have been busy preparing for our annual “Jen and Ev’s Super Super Bowl Party” so I have neglected to update in a few days, but don’t worry I will have a complete round up of tonight’s events!

In the meantime here is my entry for Weekend Dog Blogging, which is usually hosted by Sweetnicks but is being conducted this weekend by my girl Alicat.

Sasha dominating a peanut butter jar:

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Ok so I have of these random things I want to talk about, so instead of individual posts I am just going to lump them together.

1. Announcement! Check out Very Good Things, conceived by the lovely Alicat. I am a contributor and this issue includes my first articles so check it out!

2. It was a crazy day at the bakery, the mixer blew up just before a group of kids were about to start their field trip of the bakery…there is nothing like large clouds of smoke to set the mood for an educational lesson on bread baking (what’s that burning smell?) Also, our electric bread slicer broke, which does not seem like a huge deal but these people are crazy about getting their bread sliced. Some won’t buy it unless we slice it, and some stared at us- mortified- like we told them their dog just died.

3. Speaking of dogs, I have started volunteering at the Wake County SPCA and I am so glad I started back. There is no better way to start off your day then by snuggling with cute dogs, especially puppies. Even better- I had 5 puppies in my section today- I was so excited. Four of them were siblings, Australian Shepherd and Chow Chow mixes, and they did not take kindly to the leash. So when I tried to take them out one by one, the others would gang up on my and start circling me and barking. It was quite a posse of 10 pound fluffballs- rather intimidating.

So this is my PSA to volunteer when you can. It doesn’t have to be dogs and it doesn’t have to be that often, but it sure does make a difference not only to those you are helping but it also gives you that indescribable fuzzy feeling inside. I also love it when volunteers bring their kids in because it really shows them that it is important to give back…something some kids are missing out on these days.

4. And ending on a food note, I make turkey tetrazzini tonight, it was a recipe from the show “Ham on the Street”. I love this show and had high hopes of the dish but was sadly mistaken. I was excited because all of the ingredients are cheap, something that is important to us these days, and I could whip it up in the morning and have Evan it bake at night.

I am posting the incidents below, I didn’t add the chicken stock because the sauce looked pretty thin to begin with and I didn’t want to make soup. Other than that it is the same…does anyone have any suggestions or a better recipe? I added some cheese when I ate it which made it a little better but it was still missing something. The complete recipe is here.

Turkey Tetrazzini

Vegetable oil cooking spray
1 pound short pasta, such as rotini or gemelli
Kosher salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 pounds ground turkey
Freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 quart whole milk
2 cups chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 small bunch fresh sage, leaves chopped (Ok I didn’t add this either- but would it make that much of a difference?)
Topping:
1 1/2 cups panko (Japanese) bread crumbs, or regular bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

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