Chocolate-It's What's for Dinner

I've recently learned that Shepherd's Pie is made with lamb - well duh - now that makes sense. I guess I never really gave it much thought. Cottage pie is made with beef. I made this with ground chicken and threw a total curve ball and used sweet potatoes.  So I'm not entirely sure what this actually should be called? I think I'm still going to call it Cottage Pie. So I was getting all ready for Thanksgiving and I got carried away making the candied sweet potatoes. I had 3 extras sweet potatoes - what was I going to do with them? They were extra large too. So I thought they would make a nice topping for some ground chicken. Cottage Pie 2 large sweet potatoes, baked or steamed 1/2 milk, may need additional 2T butter 1 large onion, chopped 2 large carrots, cubed olive oil 1 t thyme 1/2 t sage 1 lb ground chicken 1 c chicken stock 1t Worcestershire sauce 2T flour - preferably Wondra salt/pepper 1t smokey paprika You can either bake or steam the swee...

Sometimes in the fall you just need something savory. This definitely fits the bill. Savory Bread Pudding 3/4 loaf sourdough bread, cut into cubes olive oil 1 onion, chopped 6 sprigs thyme 1 clove garlic, chopped 12 oz cremini mushrooms 3 sage leaves 1/2 c white wine 4 eggs 2 c milk salt/pepper 1 t smokey paprika 1 1/2 c fontina cheese, grated Grease a casserole dish. Place enough bread cubes to cover the bottom of the dish. Set aside. Saute onions and 2 sprigs of thyme in olive oil until caramelized (about 15-20 minutes). Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Spread onions over the bread cubes - discarding thyme sprigs. Return pan to heat and add additional olive oil and mushrooms, sage, and remaining thyme sprigs. Saute until mushrooms begin to give off liquid. Let liquid reabsorb and add wine. Cook until wine is evaporated. Spread over bread cubes and onions. In a bowl whisk eggs and milk, salt/pepper, and paprika. Spread about half the cheese over mushrooms and...

So are you all ready for next week? Did you make your stock yet for basting the turkey? You still have time to make your cranberry sauce over the weekend. Make sure you have enough vege to use as a " bed " to cook that guy up on Thursday. Lastly make sure you have some recipes for the leftovers . OK - you can proceed now. Vege waiting to go into the stock - sitting in the pasta strainer insert All stocked up!

This is one of my go-to cookies recipes when I'm Jones-ing for something chocolate. In about an hour from set up to clean up, you can have these beauties out of the oven.  I've made them so many times the cookbook opens automatically to their page - so you know this is a good recipe. Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies (Adapted from Nigella Express ) 4 oz bittersweet chocolate (or if you prefer semisweet) 1 c flour 1/4 cocoa, sifted 1 t baking soda 1 t instant espresso powder (optional) 1/2 t salt 1/2 c butter (1 stick) 1/2 c brown sugar 1/4 c sugar 1 t vanilla 1 t chocolate extract (optional) 1 egg - cold from the refrigerator 2 c chocolate chips Melt chocolate, set aside to cool a little. In a small bowl stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda, espresso, and salt.  In a mixer cream butter and sugars together. Add vanilla and chocolate extracts. Mix in egg. Mix in the dry ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips. Use an ice cream scoop (1/4 c) and place do...

I was going to title this Failure Friday and save it for a Friday posting but decided to post it today instead. It was a total failure. Some days are just not made to cook. This apparently was one of them. No matter how hard you try, everything you touch just goes wrong - terribly, terribly wrong. I wanted to lighten the recipe up a little because it called for a 1 1/2 c of heavy cream and I had some half and half hanging around - well that was mistake #1. They never set up properly. Mistake #2 was grabbing what I thought was chocolate extract but turned out to be cinnamon extract - quite a different thing when the other flavor is Chambord. BLEH! Needless to say this recipe was a waste of good chocolate overall. I will revisit this recipe again - hopefully when all the cooking planets and stars are properly aligned. I will use all heavy cream and make sure I grab the proper extract. So maybe I should call it Resurrection Wednesday? Renovation Wednesday? Maybe I have the day wrong -...

I hated the name of this recipe (originally Italian-Seasoned Roast Chicken Breasts) but the flavors sounded really good.  I really don't really associate Rosemary with Italian seasoning but whatevs. I had these bone-in chicken breasts and wanted to do something simple and quick with them. I had thought of stuffing them with some goat cheese but was short on time. Fennel Roasted Chicken Breasts (Adapted from Cooking Light ) 1 T Rosemary (chopped) 1 t lemon zest 2T lemon juice 2T olive oil 1T fennel seeds, crushed 3 cloves garlic, minced salt/pepper 4 bone-in chicken breasts* Combine all ingredients except the chicken breasts. Dry the chicken with paper towels. Loosen the skin by inserting fingers between meat and skin - gently. Rub mixture under the skin and on the top of the skin. Place chicken skin side up in a pan. Bake at 425 for 35 minutes or until done. They recommend spraying the pan and the top of the chicken with cooking spray. I did not find either necessa...

Light and fluffy Here I was thinking I was trying a new recipe and I looked and I had made it before . They came out beautiful again so I decided they would be a good candidate for Flash Back Friday. For sourdough rolls they really are light and airy. I usually associate sourdough rolls with a real crusty crust but this comes out soft. They worked really well as a side to soup that I made. What's with the one in the middle?

Did you ever start to make a recipe and just have things go sort of wrong but then turn out OK in the end. Well that's what happened with these. I wanted to bake something and had some bananas rotting um sitting around that needed using and found this recipe that I pulled out of a magazine from who knows when. It said that it made 18 cupcakes. I knew I was very low on paper liners but I counted out 17 and said I'm good to go.  I would just fill each one a little more. Well when I hit about 12 filled, I knew I was in trouble. Luckily I had these silicone liners that I had bought to make chocolate cups for mousse with. I don't like using them because they are difficult to clean - but desperate measures were called for here. Chocolate Banana Cupcakes (Adapted from some magazine??) 2 c flour 3/4 c sugar 1/2 c cocoa 1 t baking powder 1 t baking soda 1/2 t salt 1 c mashed banana (about 3) 1 1/4 c milk 2 eggs 2 T oil 1 t vanilla 1 c chocolate chips Combine flou...