Almond stuffed chocolate covered dates

Hey all!

It's been a long time. I'll be honest: I've been busy. Completely renovating a humongous century home with your friends, being fought tooth and nail by your mother, working full time in tech, doing grad school in the evenings, and throwing yourself fully into a relationship with your Canadian lover keeps a gal busy.

BUT! Somehow, I'm developing a rhythm in the chaos and I'm starting to get back into one of my favorite things: cooking! I'll have to update my profile, as I'm no longer a vegetarian (!!!) After 10 years of commitment, the hectic-ness of my life and the physical labor involved with renovations tipped me over the edge into eating for my new life style. I hope to soon find the balance between meat and veg, but that's something I'm working on.

At work, I've been part of project room, so there's been 7-9 of us in this interior meeting room that's been converted for the purposes of this project, for the last 6 months or so. We have a snack table, and one of my Indian co-workers brought in pitted dates. Folks tried them, but many decided they didn't like dates. For many, it was their first exposure to them! So, I asked him if it was alright for me to bring them home and bring date-products back that perhaps people would like more. He was fine with it, so voila! The first of several date recipes. This one was a hit; every single person said they liked it, even those who said they didn't like dates. #win

Almond stuffed chocolate covered dates

Ingredients:
12-15 dates, pitted
12-15 almonds (raw or toasted)
1 chocolate bar (I recommend dark, but I happened to have milk on hand)

Instructions:
1. Break up the chocolate into a bowl. Microwave until melted, stopping every 10 seconds to stir and check.
2. Prepare a platter with wax paper.
3. Slip an almond into each date.
4. Using a fork, drop a almond-stuffed date into the melted chocolate, roll around in the bowl until well coated in chocolate, then place on wax paper. Repeat with all remaining almond stuffed dates.
5. Place plate in refrigerator for at least an hour until chocolate is set. Serve.

Chocolate Candy Filled Chocolate Cookies

Now this is not my usual: I have been trying to avoid processed sugars and unhealthy food. In fact, one of my friends has persuaded me to try a juice detox coming up here soon! That being said, we had a couple of cool Canadian associates doing some training at my work for a couple weeks. A group of us locally-based associates took them out for a bar tour of Kansas City last weekend and good times were had by all. One of them who was sweet and vegetarian was leaving this last Friday, and for his departure I wanted to make a truly American cookie. In my mind this means extremely unhealthy. My first thought was chocolate chip, as to me this is very American but I was unable to find my chocolate chips and I ended up finding this recipe.

I put dark-chocolate covered salted caramels as the center for these bad-boys (since I had a Costco-sized container that's been living in my room, so many bad choices there I know). The original called for Snickers bites, but I have boycotted candies like that in recent years. A home-made snickers would be a fabulous cookie filler though. I also used craisins instead of chocolate chips since I was unable to find my chocolate chips this time and, somehow, all of my 85% bars have migrated to work <.<

I definitely plan to make this one again, but cutting the caramels in half and squishing them into a ball. There was way too much caramel and the cookies too large. It also meant I only had 13 to share which, among my self, my co-workers, and my house mates, isn't as much as I'd like to have.

Chocolate Candy Filled Chocolate Cookies
from Pretty. Simple. Sweet.
makes about 18 cookies

Ingredients:
125 g. flour (I used whole-wheat flour and it was fine in these)
42 g. cocoa powder, unsweetened
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
113 grams butter, softened
100 g. brown sugar
100 g. sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup small chocolate chips
16-18 candies
coarse sea salt, to sprinkle

Instructions:

make dough
1. In a medium bowl sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars for 3 minutes using electric mixer until fluffy, then beat in egg and vanilla to combine.
3. Add dry ingredients and gently mix with by hand or wooden spoon until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips, cover with damp towel, and chill for 1-2 hours or overnight (helps with cookie spread-age)
assemble and cook
1. Pre-heat oven to 350F and line a baking pan with a silicon mat.
2. Take 1 Tbs of cookie dough, press candy on top of it, and take another Tbs of cookie dough and press edges together until candy is completely sealed in dough.
3. Sprinkle cookies with sea salt (if desired) and bake for 8-10 minutes, until edges start to set. Let cool for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to finish cooling.

Raw Brownies

I've been wanting to make raw brownies for a long time now: they just look so dense and chocolaty and healthy! Everything I look for in my food (as well as simple and fast: no baking because it's raw). Finally I got the chance to do so! I didn't add any honey to mine, and I feel like since I used all cocoa powder instead of half and half carob, this is why. It was good, but I feel a few tablespoons worth would go a long way. I doubled this recipe and pressed into a standard 8x8 square brownie pan. They're quite dense and rich, I would recommend making a single batch.

Raw Brownies
from Season to Season Eating
makes 4 large or 8 small brownies

Ingredients:
1 cup dates, pitted (fresh are better)
1/2 cup raw walnuts (or toasted, if you're not going for raw)
1/2 cup cocoa powder (or half and half carob powder)
1/4 cup flax seed
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
2 shakes cayenne
1/2 tsp course sea salt + more for sprinkling
honey (to taste)
2 Tbs water

Instructions:
1. Blend walnuts in a food processor until finely ground. Add dates and blend until a paste.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until spices are incorporated.
3. Pour the mixture into a small pan and press mixture into pan. Dust with additional cocoa powder and sea salt (or coarse/powdered sugar)

Dark Chocolate Tart

This was super rich and tasty. Unfortunately they do not sell graham crackers in France, so I made this crazy cookie crust thing, but it worked out : ) Definitely will make again when I get back to the states and have graham cracker access.


Dark Chocolate Tart
from dough puncher

Ingredients:
1 graham cracker crust (chocolate or honey)
8 + 1 3/4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used half and half milk and 74%)
1 1/4 cup + 2 Tbs. evaporated milk (or heavy whipping cream)
1 tsp. honey (or corn syrup)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbs. water

Instructions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F (175 C)
2. In a sauce pan (or in the microwave), bring 1 1/4 cups of the evaporated milk to a boil. Take off the heat, and pour over 8 oz. of the chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes. Then, gently whisk to combine.
3. In another bowl, whisk eggs, vanilla, and salt together. Whisk into chocolate mixture.
4. Then pour the mixture into the prepared crust, and bake for 18-25 minutes, until the filling is set 3 inches from the edge but center isn't quite set. Let cool for 1 hour.
5. Boil the remaining 2 Tbs. of evaporate milk, and then remove from heat. Then pour over the remaining 1 3/4 oz of chocolate. Let sit for a minute, then whisk to combine. Then whisk in the honey and water. Pour ganache evenly over the pie, tilting the pie to even out the ganache. Let pie sit for 1 hour.

Chocolate Frosting

Here's the chocolate frosting recipe I used on my grain-free chocolate cake. This is a friend's recipe. You can substitute regular milk for the soy milk if that suits you better.


Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cup powdered sugar
6 T. butter, softened
6 T. soy milk
6 T. cacao powder
1 t. vanilla extract

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients, and mix until you get a very smooth consistency. If you need to, melt the butter slightly, not completely, so it mixes well.

Grain-Free Chocolate Cake

So last night was a pot luck in commemoration of the birthdays of a couple club members. One of the birthday girls is grain-free, so this gave me an awesome excuse to explore into the grain-free sector of the food world! Flour-less cakes have been a huge fad for a while on the food blogs, I've just never been motivated to make them. This recipe turned out very well. It uses a lot of cacao powder which makes it very very filling. I made this a double batch, putting each in a separate round pan and then stacking them so it was a regular cake height and shape! Then I slathered the whole thing (including the middle) in a chocolate frosting recipe, which I will post later. : )




This is us doing our traditional food-hover, like vultures before tearing in.

Birthday girls cutting the cake!

Flour-less Grain free Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Associated Content

Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 T. butter
1/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch of salt

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Line the bottom of your round cake pan (8" diameter) with parchment paper. Try to make it cover as much of the bottom as possible.
1. Melt the butter. To that, add the eggs and beat.
2. Add sugar and salt, and mix well.
3. Add cocoa powder and mix until it is just fully incorporated.
4. Pour the batter into the pan, making sure to even out the batter across the bottom.
5. Place into the oven and bake for 20 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean). Check before 20 mins is up if your oven is particularly hot.

Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies

Deliciousness in disk-form. My personal taste is that they need to be more chocolaty, but still these are worth making.

Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies
recipe from neighbor

Ingredients:
1 - 8 oz. brick cream cheese, room temp.
1 stick butter, room temp.
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
1 bx moist chocolate cake mix
confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a large bowl, cream cream cheese and butter with electric mixer until smooth. Beat in egg, then vanilla, then cake mix.
3. Cover and refridgerate for two hours.
4. Roll chilled batter into T. size balls, and roll in confectioner's sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 12 mins.
Note: The cookies will remain soft and "gooey".

Chocolate-Covered Corn Chips

While in Seattle, I was presented with corn chips and dark chocolate. My first thought? Cover them!


Ingredients:
Corn chips
Dark chocolate

Instructions:
1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.
2. Line a cookie sheet in wax paper, wax side up.
3. Cover as much of the chip as you want in chocolate. Possibly, double dip.
4. Place covered chips on the wax paper in a single layer. Once finished covering the chips, place the cookie sheet into the freezer until chocolate has hardened.