Shake Up The Shake

After four days of lost appetites and minimal eating due to the stomach bug going around, Julia and I finally regained some semblance of hunger and decided we both had severe cravings for chocolate milkshakes. I don't think either of us has had or even thought of having a milkshake in a year or two, but some combination of eating about 500 total calories each per day for the last half week and the unseasonably warm weather made us both a little starry-eyed for a chocolate shake.

So we went out and got some chocolate ice cream and chocolate milk. I figured a couple scoops of chocolate ice cream and half a cup of chocolate milk into our mini blender would make for a lovely-textured and flavored shake after a good minute of blending. This would be just enough to quell this odd desire for a shake but not make us totally regret it.

But somewhere between this simple result and Julia cutely requesting chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream shakes (wide-eyed: “instead?”) at the store and us forgetting to buy chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, I decided to get a little more creative to accommodate the oversight. I wanted to take the same classic shake I mentioned above and make it taste like chocolate chip cookie dough instead of just chocolate. So I added the two ingredients that I associate most closely with chocolate chip cookies – vanilla extract and brown sugar. It didn't even take very much – maybe a solid teaspoon of each into the mix before blending – but oh what a difference it made. The potentially bland chocolate milkshake suddenly had that deep richness of a chocolate chip cookie.

I didn't even think it was actually going to work. I figured the flavors would either not show up or be too garish and ruin the taste. To my delight they took perfectly to the shake but were quite noticeable, making a very strong cookie element to the flavor. Personally I loved it, and so did Julia. It made this rare splurge all the more worthwhile, with a great flavor and fun new innovation making it all the better. Of course, that great silky, thick milkshake texture didn’t go anywhere as a result of these minor additions. And we didn't even need the added raw egg, butter or flour of real cookie dough to get that awesome cookie dough flavor. It made us happy and helped to finally make us feel better. Definitely worth it, this one time.

Sweet Trio Treat

Besides being sweet herself, Julia is always great at coming up with the perfect sweet little treat at the right times when they are needed most. Her latest was artful as well as luxurious, and above all, delicious. A trio of small chocolate shots, each with its own distinct character. You intrigued yet? I sure was.

The first was a plain dark chocolate, melted perfectly into that smooth consistency required of a drinking chocolate. Julia had melted it in the microwave to make it this time, but I have seen her do it on a double boiler as well. Given how well it came out in the microwave, with the perfect level of thickness and smoothness, I would personally never bother with the conventional method. To this first shot, no larger than a small bathroom cup, she added a generous dollop of whipped cream and a few chocolate sprinkles. This was the perfect addition to the chocolate, making it taste comforting and refined, like the fanciest shot of hot cocoa imaginable. Plus she knows I'm a sucker for whipped cream.

For the second of the three petite shots, she toasted up some coconut in a dry pan for several minutes until it was lightly browned and crispy. She used the same melting chocolate in each of the shots, but put a small heap of the crunchy coconut on this one instead of the whipped cream. This gave it a nuttier, earthier feel than the first, but was just as delish.

Finally, Julia went over the top to wow me with the third shot. Malted milk balls! She took a few malted milk balls and crushed them up to create the topping for the third shot. It was an ingenious decision because the bits of malted milk ball that went in the warm chocolate melted a little and allowed their soft, malty flavor to permeate throughout. But what's the milk ball without the crunch? Never fear, there was still a nice crunchy layer on top that had not melted. This sent me over the moon with love for the third shot as well as with the entirety of the treat.

Ten minutes by Julia in the kitchen, with a dollop of creativity and that all-important dollop of whipped cream made us pretty happy campers for the rest of the evening. Isn't that what a great treat is meant to accomplish? If not, then I might have to coin a new word for Julia's.

Pairing You Up

Four days, four very different dishes. That's what you've gotten if you've been reading this week. Asiago cheese puffs, feta leek stuffed tomatoes, chocolate tapioca pudding and mushroom mascarpone naan pizza. So what did I do with that extra Asiago cheese, those spare leeks, the excess wild mushrooms or the remaining chocolate? I made four other (and often simpler) dishes with those secret ingredients to maximize creative use of these ingredients. So after 4 recipes in 4 days, now you get 4 mini-recipes in 1 day!

Asiago, jalapeno scrambled eggs: I added some grated Asiago cheese, half of a finely diced jalapeño and a little chipotle powder to my scrambled eggs about three quarters through cooking them. What I got was a tangy, nutty and kicked-up version of ye good old scrambled eggs, and it certainly made for a delicious brunch with a little awesome whole wheat sourdough bread Julia bought from the Foggy Bottom farmer's market.

Truffle butter leek linguine: I accidentally cooked too many leeks when I made my stuffed tomatoes. I had just purchased a small container of black truffle butter, since I wanted to try something new, and at $6 thought it was worth it. So I put some fresh linguine in some boiling water for 2 minutes. In the mean time I just warmed up the leeks in a pan with just a couple teaspoons of the butter. I mixed the drained pasta with the leeks and butter so that everything was incorporated. That was all – simple as that. And despite its simplicity, it was a wonderfully tasty dish, thanks in large part to the richness and earthiness of the truffle butter.

Mexican drinking chocolate: Remember when I was melting chocolate for the Tapicocoa? Well I found it to be so fun and easy to melt chocolate in the double boiler that I did the exact thing a few days later. Almost. This time there was no pudding. When the chocolate got to thick drinking consistency, I added a few dashes each of cinnamon, and chipotle powder. After mixing it in, I poured it carefully into a few mugs and garnished with some optional coconut on top. Let me just say one word: luxuriouslydelicious!

Wild mushroom soup: With my extra wild mushrooms, I decided to make a lighter “cream” soup along with some diced white onion and some of the chopped and crisped bacon/facon. I heated three cups of low fat milk over medium heat, with dashes of salt, pepper, cumin, celery seed and sage mixed in. Okay, well more than just dashes of the salt and pepper. I needed a solid pinch of salt at least, since I wasn't working from a stock. When the stock was warm, I added my sautéed diced onions, my sautéed chopped mushrooms and my chopped crisped facon. I let all of the ingredients cook together for a good 10 minutes. At that point I tasted it to see if it needed more salt or more spice and adjusted slightly the seasonings and let it cook another 2 minutes. Now I folded in about a quarter cup of nonfat Greek yogurt and two tablespoons of mascarpone. These added just a little more richness and thickness at the end. I found the texture to be just fine at this point. I removed it from the heat and served it. The taste was very complete in my opinion, and I was very glad that I added the richness at the end, as it was really a noticeably nice additive to the taste profile. The soup was a very pleasant use of the mushrooms, and also allowed me to work on my soups.

So there you have it – 4 ingredients, 2 dishes each this week. That’s four pairs! And hopefully a diversely different smorgasbord of food covering your table and, more importantly, you palette.

Tapicocoa

The last time I summarized my recipes, I noticed the “desserts” section was a little thin. I wouldn't say that was intentional, but maybe subconscious, since most of my dessert techniques are pretty lacking. Especially compared to Julia who can bake from scratch, create and modify baking recipes to become amazing, make and dip truffles, write calligraphy in chocolate, make meringues and custards and even fresh marshmallows. Plus she makes the absolute best, most perfect chocolate chip cookies in the world. As attested by just about everyone who has ever tried one (or ten) of them. All these skills, and many more even, really dwarf the things I can do, so I often don't really bother. Who would?

Well that creates a little problem when I want to treat her to something sweet, something chocolate or something rich and creamy. But I can do a few things still – like melt chocolate in a double boiler and follow directions on a package – and I'm a conceptualizer at heart, so it was not a problem recently when I endeavored to make Julia a dessert that would impress even her.

So what can I make from a package? Brownies? Blah, too rich, too much fat, just too much. Chocolate pudding? Blah, too boring. Tapioca pudding! Now there's our winner! One of our personal favorite puddings can be easily made from a package (the one I found was Kraft brand), and super easily at that. It essentially involved boiling the tapioca mixture with low fat milk, a beaten egg, some sugar and vanilla and then letting it set. It's cool (pun intended) – the dry granules from the package actually become gelatinous and tapioca-like not during the boil but during the cool down.

But this tapioca pudding, albeit tasty and easy, was not a creation. It was simply a preparation. But who has ever had chocolate tapioca pudding? Now that would be a creation!

So I started simmering some water and set up a glass bowl on top of the simmering pot to create a standard double boiler. I took some milk chocolate chips and some dark chocolate chips and placed a mixture of the two into the double boiler along with half a cup of low fat milk. Then I stirred the chocolate until it was melted and kept adding milk a little bit at a time until it was the consistency of a thick liquid, perhaps like the consistency of butter milk or heavy cream (for reference).

Once my chocolate was melted and ready, I removed my tapioca from the fridge and carefully folded the chocolate into the pudding. This was not an exact science. I added in chocolate until the tapioca pudding was sufficiently chocolate-colored and yet still of the same tapioca pudding consistency. To be honest, I used most of the chocolate, which can NOT be a bad thing.

What we got was a deliciously rich-tasting, creamy chocolate tapioca pudding (read: awesome). Not something either of us had had before or heard of before, and it served the purpose of a wonderfully-pleasing dessert. So I guess in the face of adversity, this was a victory for me. Maybe I'll try dessert endeavors more often from now on. Or I'll just leave it to the pro.

Marzipan Joy!

There are a few things that make almost everybody happy. Paid time off. Puppies. Massages. Skipping a few (wink wink). And chocolate! Who doesn't love chocolate? Well it's okay if you don't, but it seems like ever since someone decided that dark chocolate and nuts are good for you, it's even OKAY to love chocolate!

Finding chocolate that is enjoyable, affordable and still “healthy” is often the difficult part with chocolate. I mean, lobster is even healthy, but it's not like we can afford to eat it all the time! Back to chocolate. Mass-produced chocolate like Hershey's and even nicer varieties are often waxy, lack great taste, plus are often loaded with more fat and sugar to make up for less real chocolate. On the other end of the spectrum, there is luxury chocolate like truffles from Godiva. Wonderfully rich and tasty, but also wonderfully expensive and not so healthy either. Dark chocolate has just enough sugar to make it enjoyable, but the antioxidants and even fiber are what has people buzzing about chocolate. But with nice chocolates, truffles and ganaches, there's often enough butter and cream to pretty much negate the chocolate benefit. I enjoy a handful of dark chocolate chips and almonds as a healthy and delicious snack or dessert sometimes.

But why not one-up it? Make a little more indulgent version of this snack that’s almost as healthy as straight dark chocolate and almonds but has the class and delight of Godiva and the ease and price of Hershey’s. Make your own marzipan – in just a couple minutes! I’m not talking about spray-painting little molded fruits for three hours. I am talking about making balls of canned marzipan and rolling them in some melted dark chocolate on the stove. Let them harden for a few minutes in the fridge on a plate or in mini cupcake wrappers like you see store-bought chocolates in. Believe me – they will look, and more importantly, taste, like a fancy marzipan truffle. Julia did the dipping of these quite artfully, but adequate dipping will not be that hard to get the hang of. And it will take you 5 minutes! They have a great, soft texture when just cooled, where the chocolate is hardened but not brittle. It literally is like biting into a soft, little puff of beautiful chocolate-almond joy!

If you are not familiar with the canned marzipan, it is exactly what it sounds like – amazing right? And the only ingredients in the can are almonds and sugar, so while it is a little sweeter than the classic snack, the fat still only comes from the natural fat of the almonds and cocoa. You can find the Love ‘N Bake can of marzipan in grocery, craft and specialty food stores and can make these beautiful (see picture) delights for a special little dessert.

There is no way that I’ll forget about these treats, and I’ll most likely be begging for them or making them (less prettily) myself quite frequently in the future. And you should too! It’s chocolate! It’s meant to make you happy, right?