This recipe was originally posted in December 2009. I thought it needed an image makeover and the recipe is so amazing that I am re-posting it so that those of you who are new to the blog are aware of how important it is to make this. Immediately.

This aptly named dark chocolate mousse may be the death of you, but it’s oh, so worth it. I gave a dish to my mom yesterday to take home. She wrote me an email today asking me never to do that again. She takes one bite and then completely loses self control around this amazing dessert. And it’s no wonder. This recipe is from Cooks Illustrated – and boy do they know how to make a mean chocolate mousse.

Continue reading: death by chocolate mousse

Look at me, being amazing! See that beautiful new recipe format below? Yeah, that’s inspiration from my dear friend Nicole at Heat Oven to 350. Nicole regularly suggests what I should be doing to improve my blog. God bless her because clearly I’m clueless. This Ziplist thing is pretty cool! You can set up a ZipList account and then save any recipes that strike your fancy to your list. Certainly beats my I-clearly-grew-up-in-the-90s method of printing every single recipe that appeals to me and then sorting them into binders. One day I’ll grow up and get all techy. Until then, pen and paper for me!

Back to the recipe….. My husband’s favorite ice cream is mint chip. But he’s particular about his mint chip. It has to be mint chip with chocolate shavings. No chips or chunks or cookies or anything else for him. Shavings. Only shavings. You want to know who makes mint chocolate chip with shavings? Thrifty. Rite Aid. Drug stores. You want to know what else is true about their brand of ice cream? It’s weird. I mean that. It has a weird color and the ice cream itself has a very distinctly cheap-drug-store taste. (Kind of like how I feel about their make up…) I don’t know if I have words to describe how their ice cream is weird. I just know that I don’t like it. I could see that if Brant and I were going to agree about ice cream and ensure our wedded bliss, we were going to need to find a happy medium. And here’s that medium: I make the ice cream at home and sometimes put shavings in it. Other times I put chunks in it. After all, if I have to choose between shaving a bar of chocolate into mounds of chocolate bits and just melting a bar of chocolate and drizzling it into the batter, you can bet which one I am going to choose 9 times out of 10. Drizzle it is!

Note the type of mint you’re using. Unless you already own a prolific mint plant, go with the peppermint oil to ensure that your ice cream turns out as you had expected! If you do so, you may want to add some green food coloring if you believe that mint ice cream should be green!

cherry custard pie
from the book Pie, by Ken Haedrich
1 single pie crust
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
large pinch salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups pitted cherries

Partially pre-bake your pie crust following these instructions.

Lower the oven temperature to 350F. While your pie crust is cooling, combine eggs, yolk, salt, and sugar in a mixer and whip together until airy. Add half-and-half, whipping cream, and vanilla and mix until blended. Pour over pie crust and drop in cherries in an even layer.

Bake pie at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, turning the pie 180 degrees after 20 minutes. If the top is browning too much, loosely tent the pie with foil for the last 5 minutes of baking. The pie is fully cooked when the custard in the middle jiggles only slightly when the pie is gently rocked. If the custard moves in waves, it is not cooked.

Cool on a wire rack for 1 hour and then transfer to fridge and chill for at least 3 hours or overnight.

King Arthur, thank you very much for  making mom’s 50th birthday extra special. And for saving me $40.

best ever bread pudding (with whiskey cream sauce)
a slightly healthier variation of the recipe on www.thepioneerwoman.com

bread pudding

4 1/2 cups sourdough or other artisan bread, cubed into bite sized pieces
3 eggs
1 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups milk
pinch salt
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

whiskey cream sauce*

1/2 cup sugar
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup cream
2 tbsp whiskey

Preheat the oven to 325 and place your baking rack in the center of the oven. Layer the bread cubes in an 8×8 inch baking dish.

In a batter bowl, mix together all the remaining bread pudding ingredients except for the pecans. Pour over the bread cubes and sprinkle the pecans on top.

Bake the bread pudding for 1 hour, or until the custard is set and the bread cubes have browned.

While the bread pudding is cooling a bit, combine the ingredients for the whiskey cream sauce in a saucepan over low heat until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. Ladle the sauce over individual servings of bread pudding.

scalloped potatoes
slightly adapted from Cook’s Illustrated The New Best Recipe

2 tbsp unsalted butter (or 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp bacon grease)
1 medium onion, minced (about 1 cup)
2 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
1  tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
2 1/2 lb russet potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/8-inch thick*
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup half-and-half or whole milk
2 bay leaves
4 oz cubed ham (optional)
2 oz roasted chili peppers (optional – my parents prefer these potatoes with roasted Anaheim peppers, but I’m a spice-pansy and omit them)
4 oz cheddar cheese, shredded (about 1 cup)
2 tbsp panko (Japanese bread crumbs) or regular bread crumbs

*You will never slice potatoes this thinly by hand. Instead use a mandolin or food processor fit with a slicing attachment. You can read more about this on my other scalloped potato recipe.

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 425 degrees.

Melt the butter over medium high heat in an oven-proof dutch oven or 12-inch cast iron skillet. When the foaming subsides, add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, thyme, salt and pepper and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add the potatoes, broth, cream, half-and-half or whole milk, and bay leaves and bring to a simmer. Add in ham and roasted peppers, if using. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the potatoes are almost tender (a paring knife can be slipped into and out of a potato slice with some resistance), about ten minutes. Discard the bay leaves.

Combine the cheese and the panko. Sprinkle the potatoes evenly with the cheese mixture. Transfer the mixture to the oven. Bake until the cream is bubbling around the edges and the top is golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Cool 10 minutes before serving.

If you read my post about Rome, you already know that we fell in love with a restaurant called Dar Poeta that served the best brick fired pizzas that I probably will ever taste. When the server offered dessert, I was a bit wary. Can a place excel in both dinner and dessert? The answer is a resounding YES! On our last visit to Dar Poeta we ordered Crema Poeta (a fancy way of saying vanilla pudding) and oh, my gosh. This was amazing. I don’t know why I never thought to make homemade vanilla pudding at home. (This probably has something to do with the fact that desserts that have no chocolate get immediately shoved to the bottom of the recipe stack.) Now we make crema poeta regularly in our home and serve it with vanilla wafers. Easy and delicious – it doesn’t get much better than that!

Before you get any ideas about buying your vanilla beans at the grocery store, allow me to spare you the sticker shock: at the grocery store, vanilla beans cost $1-$2 each. But there is an economical solution! We buy vanilla beans in bulk on Amazon for about $.50 a piece (ahhh… Amazon… my favorite place to shop!). You can store unused beans in a freezer bag in your freezer. And later, if you’re interested, I’ll teach you how to make homemade vanilla extract (surprising fact: it’s just two ingredients!).

crema poeta (vanilla pudding)
recipe adapted from www.pickycook.com

2 tbsp unsalted butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbsps cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean (seeds scraped out)
4 large egg yolks
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Place the butter in a large bowl and lay a fine mesh strainer across the top of the bowl.

In a saucepan, off of the heat, mix together the sugar, corn starch, and salt. Gradually add the milk until well blended. Turn the heat to medium and heat until milk is very warm, but not boiling. Whisk in the vanilla bean seeds and egg yolks until blended. Using a spatula, stir constantly until the mixture thickly coats the spatula. Keep an eye on this or your yolks will cook, resulting in scrambled egg bits!

Remove the mixture from the heat and pour through the strainer. (The idea here is to catch any eggs that happened to cook so that they don’t ruin the consistency of your pudding.) Mix well until butter is well blended into the pudding. Cover and refrigerate until chilled. Serve with vanilla wafers (optional).

jasmine tea creme brulee
www.citrusandcandy.com

1/2 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 bags of jasmine tea (adjust depending on how strong you like it)
6 eggs, separated
2.5 oz superfine sugar (a little more than 1/4 cup)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp brown sugar

Preheat oven to 300F and start boiling a pot of water. In another pot, gently bring the milk, cream and tea bags to a boil and allow to brew about 10 minutes (shorter if using stronger tea). Meanwhile separate the eggs and whisk the superfine sugar into the yolks until combined.

Remove the tea bags from the milk mixture and add the vanilla. Pour in a slow and steady stream into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly to prevent it from cooking.

Divide the mixture into 4 ramekins and place in a baking tray. Pour the freshly boiled water into your baking tray slowly until the water comes halfway up the ramekins. Bake for 25 minutes. The middle should have the slightest of quiver when it’s ready.

Remove the ramekins from the water bath and cool for at least 20 minutes. Refrigerate if you’re not serving these immediately.

When ready to serve, combine the white and brown sugars in a small bowl. Sprinkle a light, even layer of sugar on each ramekin and use a blow torch until you have a gorgeous, toffee-colored coating. If you don’t have a brulee torch, adjust the oven rack to the upper middle position and place the ramekins under the broiler. Watch carefully as the sugar will burn quickly!

I just finished the book Omnivore’s Dilemma and believe me, you’ll be hearing about that over the next couple of months. It’s forever changed the way I eat. And drink.

I started drinking organic milk a couple of years ago when a friend suggested it might help improve my digestion. Going from $3.29 a gallon to $3.29 for a half gallon was a huge financial jump for me, and not one that I was excited to make. However, I was so glad that I made the jump knowing that my dairy cows were happily providing me with the best milk there was to buy.

Or were they?

I have since learned that “organic”  has little meaning in the way of buying meat and dairy products. I have always envisioned that cute little farm where my dairy cows were out milling around, munching on grass, enjoying their lives. It turns out that sometimes that isn’t the case. While most organic dairy producers do give their animals access to pasture and a better quality life, the surge in demand for organic dairy products has attracted the eyes of agribusiness – those companies that would love to take a good thing and turn it into a factory. This has resulted in diminished quality and compromised standards in nearly 20% of the organic milk that is currently on supermarket shelves.

Enter Strauss Family Creamery.

If you live in the East Bay area of California, you have access to Strauss Family Creamery milk. Strauss is a small farm and unique in that it allows tours of their facility. Transparency leads to integrity, especially in the commercial food business, so this says a lot about their practices.

Strauss Family Creamery milk is available at Harvest House and select other locations in the East Bay Area. (Harvest House is located across from Costco – you can shop there for spices, rice, oatmeal, flour, sugars, nutritional supplements, and, of course, this milk. If you are a Costco member, show them your card on Thursdays and you get 10% off your entire bill!).

If you subscribe to the Contra Costa Times, on the first Tuesday of the month Harvest House has a coupon for 15% off your entire grocery bill. If you use that, your milk will be $3.40, only 11 cents more than the cost of Trader Joe’s organic milk.

Cheers to happy cows with that are allowed to graze on pasture and other organic goodies.

wild rice chicken supreme

1 6-oz package Uncle Ben’s Original Long Grain Wild Rice
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
dash black pepper
1 cup half and half
1 cup chicken broth
2 cups cubed chicken (or turkey, post holidays!)
1/3 cup diced roasted red peppers
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup chopped slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 400.

Cook the wild rice according to the directions on the package.

While the rice is cooking, prep your ingredients. The rest of the cooking process goes so much more smoothly if you do!

While rice is cooking, melt butter in a large sauce pan. Add onion and cook over low heat until tender. Stir in flour, salt and pepper (it’ll be really clumpy).

Add the half and half a little bit at a time, forming a roux (a paste). If you add all the liquids at once, they’ll never get absorbed. The trick is to add a little bit, stir until absorbed, and add more and stir more. Then add the chicken broth, using the same “add a bit, stir a bit” process.

Add the wild rice to the roux and mix well. Now add the parsley, chicken, peppers, and almonds. Mix well.Pour into your greased casserole dish and bake for 40 minutes.

If you have cooked yours for 40 minutes and it’s still not brown along the edges, put it on broil for a couple minutes. Watch it closely, though, because you don’t want it to burn!

Serve hot!