While enjoying a cup of coffee and a bowl of cherries one day with her son, a young woman (OK, not sooo young woman) STUMBLED upon a recipe that quite took her fancy. If your were a reader from the start you may already know about the woman's penchant for a certain dark chocolate, caramel, sea salt creation from a trendy store that's all the rage, I'm sure you've heard of it. That Trader Joe's. Well anyway, the recipe she found reminded her of those very chocolates. She thought perhaps even more extraordinary. Out the door she ran, fur flying. She nearly took off the dog's tail with the door in her haste to get to the store!
OK, so really she waited for her mother-in-law to arrive, checked and double checked to make sure the baby had what he needed, put the dog outside (tail safe, intact, and still a dangerous weapon), and slowly backed down the driveway, hoping that she had remembered to put everything on her grocery list. The chocolate, almonds, and sea salt especially!!! (Read to the end of recipe for the end of the story)
8 oz 53% Cacao Dark Chocolate Baking Bar
(I couldn't find this so I bought a 10 oz bag of 62% and used the whole thing)
1/2 cup smoked almonds coarsely chopped
(save a few to sprinkle on top)
1 tsp sea salt
2 hours and $175 dollars worth of groceries (for just one week!) later, the lady was back home and ready to tackle her latest desert.
Dark Chocolate, Smoked Almond, & Sea Salt Bark
It became clear very shortly that this beauty would take mere minutes. A major plus for a mommy with a 4 month old.
Melt the chocolate in a glass microwave safe bowl for 40 seconds. Stir. Replace in microwave, cooking in 10 second intervals, stirring between, until chocolate is almost but not completely melted. A little bit more melted than in the picture. The more you stir the chocolate the more it will melt. If you heat it too much the chocolate will seize up and you will have to start over with new chocolate. (I don't personally know how to save seized chocolate, or if there even is a way.)
Stir in the almonds. (I added a handful of raisins to half of my chocolate mixture because I began to think that maybe something a little sweeter might break the monotony of all that salt and dark chocolate. Totally up to you.)
Spread the chocolate over a sheet pan covered with wax paper. Tap the pan to spread out the chocolate. (My pan was too big and its an 8 in) Sprinkle with the reserved almonds and the salt. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
When the woman removed the bark from her Frigidaire later that evening, broke the bark into pieces, and tasted her latest treat, she fainted right there on the floor, in the kitchen, and that is where her husband found her when he got home. With dark chocolate all over her face and a stupid grin from ear to ear.
This recipe does not come out tasting like coconut one bit. Its just as good if not better than store bought dairy ice cream. My ice cream maker is pretty small so if yours is a big one double this recipe. Also, if you leave out the egg, which is totally fine, this recipe is vegetarian.
INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup sugar 3/4 cup water 1 egg yolk 1 13-15 oz can of coconut milk 1/2 cup or more strong coffee cooled 1/2 cup cocoa powder 1 tbsp vanilla 3 tbsp Nutella
In a pot that is not Teflon coated combine the sugar and the water and heat over medium high heat until sugar is dissolved. This is called a simple syrup. Remove pan from heat and whisk in the egg yolk. Add the coconut milk, coffee, cocoa powder, and vanilla. Whisk together. Return the pot to medium heat. You want to see steam coming off the top but you don't want the mixture to be boiling. Reduce the mixture for about 15 minutes. Transfer to a container and cool. Add to your chilled ice cream maker and churn as directed. When the ice cream is nearly done add the nutella and continue to churn so the nutella is spread throughout. Please note that I did all these ingredients to taste so just add as much or as little of whatever you want until the unfrozen mixture tastes good to you. If it tastes good hot it will taste good frozen too. :))
The Yogi Tea company makes a tea for just about everything. Right now I am taking their Mother To Be Tea which contains raspberry and other things that are supposed to support uterine health and help with a healthy labor. When I have PMS i drink this Woman's Moon Cycle Tea. It works wonders. It calms me down, mellows me out, helps with all the aches, pains, bloating, mania, and everything else. Plus, it tastes like and oatmeal cookie kind of. My dad just recently had some trouble with kidney stones and Yogi Tea makes a tea for that so I'm going to buy him some of that. It cant hurt right?
A girl I used to work with was on her way to a get together with a bunch of her girlfriends one day and she said to me, in passing, that she had to stop and pick up a gift to exchange at the party. I asked her about it, wondering if it was someone’s birthday, and she said that her and a bunch of girls were getting together to have some drinks and exchange with one another a few of their favorite things. I thought “What a great idea!” I think these girls were exchanging girly things like cosmetics and what not, which would also be great, but when I heard this I thought of all my favorite delicious treats and how cool it would be to make a gift basket for my sister for her upcoming birthday filled with all of my secret, and not so secret favorites. What a great gift to receive, and I was hoping that my sister would take it as a clue and send me a basket of her favorite goodies in return. How fun to try a bunch of new stuff, and a very cute way to get to know someone better too, a way to be close when you’re so far away.
That is my little sister on the far right. She lives in Colorado. Isn’t she beautiful?
Well…I never ended up making this basket for my sister because every time I bought the stuff I ended up eating it all. Hey!!!! Can you blame me? It was MY favorite stuff after all. I still think its a great idea and I still want to do it one day, or maybe even have a party like those girls I was telling you about did, but in the meantime I’ve decided to just write about it. SSSSOoooo without further ado,
A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS
I was first introduced to these treats last Christmas by my friend Carrie.I was a bit apprehensive about trying them at first.I’m not much for dark chocolate or the combination of salty and sweet.Well, I wasn’t until I had these I should say.They changed my whole perspective.The combination of the bitter chocolate, the sweet caramel, and the crunchy salt is like nothing I have ever had.It is heavenly.What else makes these so special is that you can only get them around the holidays so you either have to stock up or wait expectantly for Christmas to roll around once again.I tried stocking up but they didn’t even last until New Years!
Izze sparkling grapefruit is a delicious little thing I found at the health food store. I think you can get it at some regular grocery stores as well. It is basically grapefruit soda but it’s made with all natural fruit juice and soda water so it’s not loaded with extra sugar and other additives. I absolutely love these. I just tried their peach flavored one the other day and it was great too. They have a huge variety so I’m looking forward to trying them all. I love the bottle design too. So simple and clean I think they would look pretty in a basket.
Nutella!!! Creamy delicious hazelnut chocolate spread.Need I say more?Well I will say more.The best way to eat this stuff is to smear it on a piece of white bread and chow down.Sounds weird I know but its really, really good.My French aunt Zabet used to give us this. I wonder if it’s just a European thing. I tried to make some sandwich cookies for Christmas last year by mixing this and chocolate chips together for the filling.The filling was good but the cookies I used weren’t, so I think I will have to do a few more experiments with that one.
Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki. While also eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and is commonly sold and eaten during that time.This product is a delicious green tea ice cream wrapped in a sweet mochi.I don’t know about you but I think green tea flavored things are great.I’ve also developed a taste for unique flavors of ice cream.This summer I think I am going to try and make lavender-honey ice cream (stay tuned for the blog).Anyway this stuff is weird and yummy.The mochi outside is powdery, sticky, chewy, and just weird.Not for everyone for sure, but I love it, and the inside is creamy yummy green tea ice cream.A great little treat. I guess this wouldn’t do well in a gift basket though huh?
Hot Tamales oh Hot Tamales.These things are like cinnamon flavored crack.I swear this girl I used to work with knew how much I loved them so she would bring me a box from time to time.Not the small box, the big one.The thing wouldn’t even last a day.For some reason I just can’t stop eating them once I start.They must put something in them.YUM!!!
Cadbury Fruit & Nut hmmm, my mommy used to always have one of these candy bars stashed in her bedside table.Now I do too.They don’t last long though.Something about the combo of raisins and almonds with the Cadbury creamy lovely chocolate makes for the perfect bite.I love these candy bars.My husband hates raisins with an unnatural passion and cannot understand my taste for this bar. He comments every time he sees me getting one about how much he hates it.
This is another Trader Joe’s treat.What a neat store.Trader Joe’s Butter Almond Thins taste a little bit like Pepperidge Farm’s Chessmen cookies but with a much better texture and flavor.They are just paper-thin little cookies but they are great.They break easily though so every time I’ve gotten these, almost all the cookies have been in a million pieces.Still taste great but not great if you want to serve them at a party.
This is another one from my childhood.I remember my grandmother having boxes of this in her basement freezer.I don’t know if I was actually allowed to have any or not but I loved it and would snag a piece on the way out the door, headed for a day at the lake. My fondest memories were made at that lake.
Chocolate Lace is a really neat product that I have always wanted to try to make at home.Its basically just caramelized sugar drizzled on a sheet pan in a pretty swirl design and then covered with chocolate.I don’t know how easy or difficult this would be to do at home.It seems rather fragile so I may run into some trouble there.If anyone has any experience or tips about making chocolate lace I would love to hear from you.
Chantilly cookies from Pepperidge Farm were another of my mom’s favorites that I took a liking to.They have actually changed the name and stopped topping them with sugar, which I am very upset about.The sugar was the best part.These yummy things were filled with raspberry jam.Sooooooooooo good.I hate it when companies change things.It’s just like when you finally find a lipstick you like and then they discontinue it right when you run out.Jerks.
Well folks.That was a few of my favorite things.I must have sugar on the brain right now because I just noticed that there are only sweets on this list.I guess one day I will have to write another blog.
A Few of My Favorite Savory Things…A Few of My Favorite Spicy Things…
Lets just say
