Posted on 02/10/2017 3:05:10 PM PST by Yaelle
Happy Weekend, Everyone! A little birdie in a kilt whispered to me that we should have a cooking for Valentine's Day theme this weekend, and that is a perfect idea. I love chocolate so let's get some tried and true old favorite recipes out, as well as some new challenges if you want. But don't stop at dessert! Lots of our true loves have savory desires on Valentine's Day. Steaks, beef stew, potatoes Anna or Baked with sour cream... what is going to delight your honey, family, or even just yourself this week?
Me, I'm thinking of chocolate this week. I keep hearing Sean Hannity's commercials for chocolate covered strawberries, but can't afford those. He deserves support for his sponsors, for sure, but if you ain't got the cash, let not your heart be troubled (lol). They are easy to make.
Get some good quality chocolate chips (you can spend more $ using bars of European chocolate too), like guittard or ghirardelli. Dark, semi, milk. Your preference. Some white for decoration.
Buy organic Strawberries if possible because pesticides really Get Into the berries. Get a lot. Either way, rinse them in batches in a colander, then dry well with paper towels so as not to stain your dish towels.
Melt the chocolate chips in a medium bowl in the microwave, 10 seconds at a time only. Stick a chopstick in after each warming to attempt to stir it. They will suddenly go liquid while faking you out by holding their little shapes.
The rest is easy. Just dip the strawberries by their green stems into The chocolate, and place them on silicone or parchment lined cookie sheets. Let them get hard in the fridge. To decorate with white Chocolate, melt some and put it in a little Ziplock bag. Seal it and snip the tiniest corner off on the bottom. Squeeze little squiggles of White onto the chocolate covered berries.
Make a lot because they will go fast!
What's cooking at your house? What will you make for Valentine's Day?
Don’t get me wrong: the cookies are beautiful. But too hard! I have a love, love less relationship with Martha Stewart. I have done a lot of her recipes and some were unbelievable. But some she clearly phoned in. And I have some of her kitchen equipment. My favorite mixing bowl that I want to use for everything is hers, the metal deep one in the perfect size with a pouring lip and a plasticized bottom to keep it still and quiet? DO NOT MESS with Mama’s bowl. I use it 3x a day I bet.
The afternoon I carved three butternut squashes into ghosts for Halloween, from her idea, I MAY have cursed her name a few hundred times.... But dang if they didn’t look really cool when done. ;)
OK. You don’t have to bring anything.
I have made the Elvis sandwich a few times. It s death by sandwich but it is really good. If I remember correctly, it’s peanut butter, sliced bananas, honey, on soft white bread, and then fried in butter in a pan. At least do it once.
I love this thread too. It was fun to play substitute with Cotton Ball and get it started. Clearly conservatives are the best cooks and enjoy life as well as food.
Almost looks like ice cream.
Waving hello! Glad to “see” you!
Oreo, not oral! This is a family thread! :0
We just made it with creamy peanut butter and bananas, sliced cross-wise, on fresh white bread. But the Elvis sandwich definitely sounds interesting.
Offer just one of these little jewels and we’ll follow you anywhere. A challenge to choose a favorite. All look too good to ignore.
You say walnuts; I say pecans. :-)
But if you are worried about it use black pepper essential oil (food grade naturally!). I use it for any dish where black pepper would be visually unappealing.
Add to dish with toothpick. You will always get more then a drop and it is potent stuff.
Also makes a nice muscle rub. Less heat then capsaicin so it works well for people with sensitive skin.
The fudge sauce MAKES this cake. I microwave a piece for a minute or less, then add the cream (whipped or ice)
As it melts over the warmed cake then it’s eaten post haste.
A plus side to the recipe - fewer dishes to clean; you make it in the pan! All round it’s a win win to serve this one. AND - it is SO good.
Hilarious.
I respect Martha a lot for what she’s achieved, but I quit subscribing to the magazine a few years ago. It seemed to become a high-style thing, and didn’t have as many of the simple crafts that someone could do at home - which she seemed to have started with, and for which I began to subscribe.
It’s all too fancy for me, now - and I have heard complaints for many years about the accuracy of the recipes. I honestly don’t think I even tried many recipes, though I saved a lot of them.
Some of the ‘informational’ articles were good - I remember one about pruning a Christmas Tree that I thought was brilliant...
-JT
I’ll grant you pecans. But not chopped more than in half.
After reading this thread I had to go make hot cocoa. Oven was engaged so could go crazy and make what I always have called chocolate pudding cake. :-)
I use pecans in many recipes that call for walnuts. The pecans are sweeter and ‘crispier’.
I like to just eat walnuts out of the shell; reminds me of when we got them in our Christmas stockings - the only time we ever had them in my chldhood - and had to take the nutcracker to them ;-)
Hi, Kalee;
Glad to see you too, and glad to be back!
-JT
Gots to make it.
Something seems to have gone wrong with TX pecans this season? More duds than I’ve ever seen.
I swear I’m not the Debbie Downer I seem to be! on this thread.
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