Using up Chocolate April 19, 2009

Now you’d think this wouldn’t be that difficult. HOWEVER….

For Christmas we made homemade drinking chocolate and biscotti for gifts for co-workers and friends. In the process of stocking up on chocolate, we got more than we ended up using. I’ve had several bars of chocolate sitting around since, and not wanting them to go rancid started trying to think of a way to use them.

Jess likes pudding – well, I do too. But it’s a dangerous thing to have around – FAR to easy to grab a spoonful or 10. And I’ve never really made puddings. My luck with them seems to be hit and miss. In fact yesterday I made Tapioca, which just didn’t quite thicken up like it should have. But with not working the last couple of months, I’ve had time to experiment. And today’s experiment was going to be chocolate pudding.

I had seen a couple of recipes so went looking for them. One called for 6 egg yolks. Now aside from the fact that that is just way more cholesterol than I want to put in my food, my penny-pinching side really hates to throw away 6 whites. And we’re not much for meringue. I went looking again and found one that was really quite reasonable – or at least relatively reasonable – in terms of it’s healthfulness.

I started gathering my ingredients, and it reminded me of our Christmas chocolate project. We had made three different versions of the drinking chocolate – Dark Chocolate, Dark Chocolate with Heat, and Dark Chocolate with Citrus. And my brain started running. Wouldn’t some cinnamon be good in it? Why not some chili (I LOVE a little spice with my chocolate). And so was born Mexican Dark Chocolate Pudding.

This was a relatively simple recipe as far as pudding recipes go. It does have you add some of the ingredients part way through the cooking, so I chopped up the chocolate and cut up the butter and put them in a small bowl, then beat the egg in another bowl and added the brandy to the egg. When I went to add the egg/brandy to the pudding, it looked like it had curdled the egg, but the pudding still turned out fine, nice and smooth. It did turn out a little thick, more like a pie filling, so I think I would decrease the cornstarch to 2 1/2 TBS. next time.

This was not a particularly sweet pudding, partly because I inadvertently decreased the amount of sugar to 1/3 cup. I also used Hershey’s 100% Cacao Dark Special Cocoa Powder, 6 oz. Ghirardelli 60% Cacao bittersweet chocolate (1 bar) and 2 oz. Unsweetened Belgian Baking Chocolate to round out the 8 oz. the recipe called for.

I used cinnamon, cardamom, mace and chipotle chili powder. I used 1/2 tsp. of the chili powder, which gave the pudding a definite heat, more than I would have probably done on purpose. I probably wouldn’t do that again. I taste tested the spiciness with the dry ingredients and 1/4 tsp chili powder and couldn’t even notice the chili. So I added another 1/4 tsp, and it seemed just right. However, the spiciness seems to have intensified with each step of the process. It was about perfect while the pudding was warm, it’s a bit spicier than I’d pick now that it’s cooled. But, that means it’s going to pair perfectly with some nice cool, mild, fresh whipped cream – or that tapioca pudding…. Oh, and the amount will also vary by the type of chili powder that you use. I have some Ancho chili powder that is more mild and “regular” chili powder is even more mild.

Mexican Dark Chocolate Pudding

3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutched)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8-1/4 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp. mace

1 cup heavy cream
1½ cups whole milk (I used 1% and it worked fine)

1 egg, beaten (optional)
2 TBS. brandy (optional)
2 Tbsp. butter (optional)
8 oz. (about 1¼ cups) chopped semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips are fine)

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Put the cornstarch, sugar, cocoa powder, spices and salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Whisk the ingredients together thoroughly, making sure no cornstarch or cocoa-powder lumps remain. Whisk in the cream and milk, a little bit at a time until cocoa mixture is smoothly incorporated.
2. Heat over medium-low heat, whisking steadily and scraping the sides of the pan occasionally. When warm (but before the pudding comes to a boil), whisk in the egg, the brandy, the butter, and the chopped chocolate. Increase the heat to medium and continue cooking and stirring until the butter and chocolate have melted and dissolved into the mixture.
3. When the pudding has come to a low boil and begun to thicken, remove from the heat. Whisk in the vanilla extract and pour the pudding into dessert dishes or a single large bowl.
4. You can let the pudding cool slowly on the countertop and serve it soft and warm, if you like. If you prefer to serve it firm and chilled, cover the pudding with plastic wrap (stretched taut if you like skin on your pudding, or pressed gently into the surface of the pudding if you don’t) and refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes to an hour.
5. Serve garnished with freshly whipped cream and grated semisweet chocolate, if you like.

Living Well January 17, 2009

This is, primarily, a blog about food – fixing it, eating it, looking at it…

So if you’ve read the “About” you already know that I don’t consider myself a “foodie”.  To me that implies a certain level of snobbery that I refuse to attempt to attain.  However, it seems that a lot of my life revolves around food, whether it’s looking for new recipes and ideas, trying those recipes out, or digging through the refrigerator and pantry and trying to figure out how to use odds and ends or leftovers.

My daughter has been after me for some time to start blogging about it, and I always said “no, I don’t have enough interesting stuff to share”.  Well, it’s true that we don’t try something new for every meal, or even every day.  So, my commitment to you who read this is to have at least one new blog every week.  But be prepared, this may not always be a “lite” read!!!

Now, on to the important stuff – why the title of this blog, and for that matter, why the interest in food?

I grew up in a family that had some serious health issues.  My dad is a Type 1 diabetic, which means that he has to take a shot of insulin before every meal that he eats.  He is also what’s known as a “brittle” diabetic, he can go from being fine to being in a coma in a matter of a few hours – it happened in about 3 1/2 on my birthday once, but that’s a different story.

My sister was epileptic – there were periods where she would have as many as 35 seizures in a day.  This started when she was 4, and continued until she died at the age of 18.  Never during that time were the doctors able to figure out what was causing the seizures, or find any kind of treatment that did anything to alleviate them.

The result of this was that during my childhood –  and even up into my early 20’s – my parents tried a myriad different things that were “guaranteed” to cure all these ills.  Some of them were down right nasty – I’ll never forgive poor, probably innocent, fenugreek for the one meal that will always despoil my food memories – cooked brown rice, fresh spinach, liberal adage of fenugreek, and topped off with acidophilus.  Because of a rule in our family of finishing all your food, that meal followed me for almost 2 days…..

But I digress.  During this time, because of the massive amounts of time dedicated to caring for my sister, and 40 acres and all the attendant creatures, I started preparing family meals at the age of 10.  Our family had a repertoire of dishes and menus that we pretty much rotated, so I got a good foundation in fixing things in a consistent manner and understanding how variations would change the outcome.

I also spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents, sometimes a month at a time.  My grandmother was a wonderful cook, and from the old school of what I call “dump” cooking – you start with a basic list of ingredients, with basic ratios, and then modify as necessary to make the dish turn out the way you want.  This also frustrated me, because my grandmother had the BEST lemon meringue pie recipe, which I asked her for.  Her response was, “Well, I think it’s about a cup of this, and probably about a 1/3 cup of that…”.  I’ve never been able to get it to turn out right 😦

I credit these two influences for the foundation of my interest in, and way of cooking today.

So, back to the title and my interest – no, love – of food.  Living Well.  I’ve never been good at diets, when I was younger, I could just cut back on food for a week and lose 5 pounds.  Now that I’ve passed the 40 milestone, that doesn’t work anymore, and I’ve tried diets, and don’t lose the weight I want and then end up doing something stupid, like eating a bag of Cheetos.  So, over the past couple of years, my daughter and I have developed our “diet” – we eat what we “want”.   Now, to clarify “want”.  What I want now is different from what I wanted 2 years ago.  We have made a concerted effort to add more fresh food and whole grains to our diet.  However, we also have things like the Coconut-orange Pannatone French toast that I made for breakfast last Sunday (I’ll post the recipe in another blog, I promise!!)  While I don’t really lose any weight, I have finally “plateued” and am remaining fairly stable, aside from that “winter” weight when my consumption of fruit declines.

So what you will find in this blog is not about low calorie, or low fat, or no carbs…. (although I do try to mitigate those things as much as possible), it’s about trying to find a healthy balance   So, next week’s blog will be about the Red Pepper Curry Soup that we had for dinner last night – with lite coconut milk 🙂

Live well, this week.