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Archive for the ‘Chocolate’ Category

Neuroses, chocolate bunnies and tuna casserole

I will never be able to eat everything I want to eat. I will never be able to eat enough to make me “happy” (read: numb). I will never be able to eat enough to make me feel loved, appreciated, beautiful, fill in the blank (and this I mean literally — the hollow that is within me is like that of a chocolate bunny).

OK, having realized that, can I now move on with my life? Please? Millions of privileged, normal-weight people do that daily, hourly even. Look at a cupcake, the rest of the tortilla chips, whatever, and hear an internal voice that says, simply, “No, I can’t.” And that’s the end of it. There’s no tussle back and forth between the lean conscience and the chubby devils on the shoulders. Just: I can’t.

No problem for me with alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. Just the peanuts in the pantry, the ice cream in the freezer.

Years ago as a struggling single mother of two, I remember rushing home from work to a beer or two while I fixed supper. Then the moment that I realized how much I was looking forward to that beer or two and that I couldn’t drink alone and lonely. That was the end of it. Now, I’d like my Easter miracle, please, to be that this is my end of over-eating to make myself “feel better.” I do believe in fairies, I do, I do, or anything else that will help me take this huge step.

Except that nothing can help me. Only I can take it. Again and again. And again. The bunny never feels full, only complete or devoured. I’m aiming at my version of complete, which is the best I can be. Happy Palm Sunday.

And in a lurching segue (oxymoron alert!), this is the best tuna casserole I’ve ever tasted. The recipe says it makes 4 servings, but they are huge. Can easily be 6 or 8 with a huge serving of spring greens beside. And a blood orange is the perfect capper to make you forget you might “need” a cookie or two.  Use reduced-fat sour cream, mayonnaise and milk, and it still has a decadent mouth feel.

Tuna noodle supreme from Ellen Proctor of Great Barrington, MA, on allrecipes.com several years ago:

1-1/2 cups sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

4 cups cooked small pasta shells (I hate it when a recipe doesn’t give you the amount of UN-cooked pasta — I used 3 cups uncooked, and it made a little more than 4 cups of cooked small shells.)

2 cups broccoli florets

1 12-ounce can tuna, drained and flaked

1/2 cup chopped sweet red pepper

1/2 cup sliced green onions

Heat oven to 350º. In large bowl, combine sour cream, mayonnaise, milk, cheese, mustard, salt and pepper. Stir in cooked pasta, broccoli, tuna, red pepper and onions. Transfer to oil-sprayed 2-quart baking dish. Cover and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until hot and bubbly. If you like a little crunch around the edges of your pasta, finish with 5 minutes of uncovered baking time. Note: For either fresh or frozen broccoli florets, throw into pasta cooking water for last minute or two of pasta cooking time. Drain pasta and broccoli together and continue with recipe.

 

Category:

Casseroles, Chocolate, Fish, Food addiction, good food, healthy cooking, Self control, Stress eating, Weight loss, Why overweight?, Willpower

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Ye old spice shoppe, secret chocolate cake


The smells of seven continents make The Spice Shop a spa for the senses. OK, maybe not Antarctica -- six continents!

OMGsh, as our friend Marilyn writes so no one thinks she’s cussing. Waiting for supper last week with two other friends, I wandered into the Savory Spice Shop in Birkdale Village, just north of Charlotte. I’d been looking for vanilla beans that cost less than a sports car, and there they were, just inside the front door and at four different prices.

I nearly went berserk. I managed to control myself somewhat — skipping the lavender vanilla sugar but buying three vanilla beans, crushed red pepper flakes, a medium-hot chili powder and eight ounces of Black Onyx Cocoa Powder.

This cocoa looks more like coal dust than Hershey’s, and you use it for only one-quarter to one-half of the cocoa called for in a recipe. I just used it in my mother’s “Secret Cake” recipe and, I promise, the icing has aftertones of a dark and exotic jungle. I’m just sorry I put most of it on the cake!

To make the cake heat your oven to 400.° In a large saucepan melt together 1 stick butter, 1/4 cup vegetable shortening, 1 cup water and 3-

No one knows what the secret of the Secret Cake might be, unless it's that any one of us could eat it in a single and very large bite!

1/2 tablespoons cocoa (I used 1 tb. of the Black Onyx and 2-1/2 tb. Hershey’s). In bowl mix together 2 cups granulated sugar and 2 cups flour. Pour over the chocolate mixture and stir gently. In bowl beat together 1/2 cup buttermilk, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add to flour mixture and beat by hand, just until well-mixed. Pour into greased and floured 11-x16-x2-inch pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.

During the last few minutes of baking, boil in the saucepan (which you’ve washed) 1 stick butter, 3-1/2 tablespoons cocoa and 1/3 cup buttermilk. Remove from heat. Add 3 cups confectioner’s sugar and 1 cup chopped walnuts. Spread on warm cake. Cool cake (in pan) completely on rack.

I don’t know how many servings it’s supposed to be. I think I’ll make two!

The combination of the two types of cocoa gives a rich chocolate taste.

Category:

Cake, Chocolate, Desserts, Spices

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Hark, the chocolate angels sing

If I could catch the house cats, chances are I’d dip them in chocolate. It’s that time of year.

 And here I am, married to someone who only likes peanut butter cups because of the peanut butter. Before the December feeding frenzy finishes, he’ll have some sugar cookie cutouts, but for today: Mas chocolate. I’ll use the rest of yesterday’s truffle chocolate to dip dried apricots and then bake and freeze rocky road brownies. In the fridge already: The truffles. In the freezer: A chocolate-pecan-bourbon pie. The peanut butter cups — tucked away on a shelf where I can’t see them.

Because as you know if you cook, eat and gain weight, you must eventually blow the whistle on sugar consumption while going full speed ahead on cooking. And how did I do that yesterday? Protein at every meal: A turkey sandwich for breakfast, baked chicken for lunch and tuna for supper. I must do this every day during the holiday food fest because I feel better, snack not at all and go to bed and sleep.

I also ate one little truffle with lunch. I counted it as about 100 calories and wasn’t gnawed by feelings of deprivation all afternoon.

food & family magazine’s Oreo Truffles
1 8-ounce package full-fat cream cheese
1 package regular Oreos (1 pound, more or less)
2 boxes (8 ounces each) good-quality semisweet baking chocolate
 
Unwrap cream cheese into mixing bowl to soften at room temperature. Crumb

Store truffles, tightly covered, in refrigerator after chocolate loses its sheen and hardens.

Oreos in food processor, reserving 1 cup crumbs. Add remainder crumbs to cream cheese and blend until smooth. Melt chocolate in microwave, stirring every 30 seconds to avoid scorching.

 
Make the cream cheese-Oreo mixture into 48 balls. Dip in melted chocolate, set on waxed paper to dry and sprinkle crumbs over.

Category:

Candy, Chocolate, Desserts, Holiday cooking, Holiday eating

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Out of sight, out of feeble mind

Nobody, meaning me, can eat just one of these 93-calorie jokers.

This was not a good weekend, healthy eating-wise. Well, actually, lots of what I ate was healthy food with the key word here being “lots.” Lots and lots. Like Ray Milland finding the bottle in the overhead light, I made choco espresso gems, pumpkin pie bars and peanut butter cups and sampled them all.

The sound of my falling off the wagon was  likely heard from here to Santa’s Workshop. Ditto for my howls upon discovering the 1,000 calories in Red Lobster’s Warm Chocolate Chip Lava Cookie a la mode (we split it but still…)

The one smart thing I did was ask He Who Can Sleep and Forget Any Temptation to hide the Cape Cod potato chips or they, too, would be gone this morning. If I don’t see a food, I’m likely to forget about it. Leaving out any temptations means I’ll see them and lay waste unto them.

Which makes me the perfect target of television advertising. Suggest it to me, dance it across the screen with a snappy jingle and I’m in the kitchen looking for it. Some part of my resolve is evidently warm chocolate lava when it comes to snack foods at night or to just walking away (more effective than saying “No”).

So this morning it’s back out on the road to walk and think about the errors of my ways. And if I put the last of those darned peanut butter cups in my husband’s lunch box, I will have forgotten all about them by the time I’ve walked a few miles.

Here’s the quick and easy recipe. There is no simpler way to enjoy your chocolate unless you just take it in an IV.

Taste of Home’s homemade peanut butter cups

7 ounces milk or dark chocolate

1 tablespoon vegetable shortening

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Line 12 cups of mini muffin pan with gem papers. Melt chocolate, shortening and butter together in microwave, stirring every 30 seconds to keep chocolate from scorching. Put 1 tablespoon of this mixture in the bottom of each paper cup.

Melt peanut butter in microwave, stir and divide among 12 cups. Top with remainder of chocolate mixture. You can refrigerate to harden quickly or just leave on countertop if you’re not in any hurry to misbehave.

Category:

Candy, Chocolate, Desserts, Holiday cooking, Holiday eating, Simple foods

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