Chocolate Fondue & Truffle Inspired Treats

Things to look for in this post:
Chocolate fondue
Peanut Butter Bites - Truffitized*
Frozen Banana Bites - Truffitized*

(*Truffitized. I made this term up. They aren't exactly like your ordinary chocolate truffles, but they're definitely truffle-inspired. Someday I want to make truffles, but since I can't afford to make pure-chocolate delicacies at the moment I thought this would be a nice compromise/simpler test-run.)

This past weekend I hosted a chocolate fondue party, and it was a nice success:

Our partially eaten fondue. And yes, that is a RICE COOKER in the middle. Rice cooker fondue. I used this to keep the fondue warm--gotta be creative when you don't have a fondue pot!

























Mmmmm... melty chocolate!



Chocolate Fondue recipe, adapted from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Bar-Fondue/Detail.aspx

• 32 ounces milk chocolate, grated
• 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1/3 cup hot water

The fondue I made VERY roughly follows the recipe. I did not put coffee powder in it, and I made "estimates" of how much heavy cream/water/white sugar/vanilla extract to use. For chocolate, I used one 11.5oz bag of 60% cacao and one 11.5oz milk Ghiradelli chocolate chips, but I ended up having to add another 12oz bag of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chip morsels. Basically, I eyed in ingredients until the chocolate looked smooth and silky and tasted yummy :)

My coworker's wife has been bringing in truffles that she is thinking of starting a business with; from this and from extra food sitting around, I was inspired to make truffle-like treats.



Peanut Butter Bites
I had a Reese's peanut butter cup last week that reminded me of how great they tasted... so I decided to try to make use of the 2 jars of peanut butter I had laying around to make something peanut-buttery to dip into the fondue. The peanut butter I bought was some crummy no-name organic brand from Costco that was extremely runny for peanut butter; I ended up looking up a recipe in order to make it more firm for me to be able to roll it into tiny balls:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Peanut-Butter-Balls-21812

• 1 cup sifted powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened

The result of the recipe: tastes SO much like the inside of Reese's peanut butter cups!

These little bites weren't the biggest hit of the party, so I decided to make use of the leftovers and turn them into candies.

Since my peanut butter was more runny I had to keep them frozen until right before I chocolate-dipped them. Also, unfortunately, once you add liquids to your fondue, it's hard to keep the chocolate solidified as chocolate candy. Under normal circumstances I believe the chocolate would easily harden around the peanut butter, but this wasn't the case. To fix this, I decided to roll the chocolate-covered peanut butter bites in powdered sugar and immediately stuck them in the freezer. The entire process is a little more complicated given the constantly-melting chocolate/peanut butter; I had to use saran wrap and an egg carton to help me with the spherical shape. Check out some pictures from the process:

































































Serves well directly out of the freezer. Yum!



Frozen Banana Bites

Left over bananas? ...CHOCOLATE COVERED BANANAS! It was none other than Disneyland, of course, that motivated me to put chocolate and bananas together. I also had some nutella left that I thought would go great with the bananas. I mixed the nutella into the chocolate, in approximately a 3:1 chocolate to nutella ratio.

I broke the banana into approximately 3/4 inch pieces and shaped them into small balls. I then froze them for a few hours and used the same process as the Peanut Butter Bites to cover them in chocolate. Bananas and chocolate don't mix/stick together too well, so I left the chocolate-covered banana balls in the egg carton overnight. The next day I pulled them out and rolled them in chopped nuts. Here's the finished product:




































Another delicious frozen treat!


P.S. If you notice some of the pictures I'm able to get more close-up detail on now... it's because I recently found the "digital macro" function on my camera. Hopefully one day I will out-use my camera so I can think about investing in a dSLR. :)

Why I love Puff Pastry

I just bought a kitchenaid mixer and... wait what does that say?? Your KitchenAid Stand Mixer will mix faster and more thoroughly than most other electric Stand Mixers.. hmm INTERESTING.

Ok, this recipe is not fancy, but I LOVE Hot Pockets and I'm trying to learn to love cheese in food besides cheese burgers, pizza and chili cheese fries. Here is the blog where I found the recipe. I really love frozen puff pastry (even my Ralphs has it so yours probably will too). It's so convenient! I let it thaw while I prepare the other ingredients... just be careful not to tear it when you open the folds. I usually use it in sweet recipes- this is my first savory one with puff pastry.

When it says you should stretch the dough, you really should try to stretch it a tad bit, or make less filling. I didn't stretch the first 2 and I had leftover filling (plus 1 busted open).

Here's mine:




And I also bought pastry shells because there were on sale and ended up with this:


It's a modified version of the Fresh Strawberry Pie recipe from Epicurious (which I can't find right now...). It was basically cubed strawberries macerated, and then that juice + lemon juice + gelatin and then the macerated strawberries were added back in. This was left until almost solidifed and it was spooned into the already baked shells. Overall, delicious (but I did overbeat the cream).

Food Photography!

Apologies for the terrible photo quality (and more to come). I try my hardest with my point-and-shoot Canon SD600, but it'll take some more time and research for me to take some better pictures with the manual functions.

But the absolute hardest thing I've had to deal with thus far with food photography is LIGHTING. I am a complete noob when it comes to photography, but I am absolutely positive lighting makes all the difference in the world. Natural sunlight is my best friend, and I have seemingly found it while browsing the web: http://steamykitchen.com/blog/2008/02/03/lowel-ego-lights-for-food-photography





from Amazon








I got really excited over that blog post--I want those lights... really badly! Maybe sometime down the line...

The Ultimate Reuben Sandwich

In celebration of St. Patrick's Day, I bought some corned beef with a mission in mind: the ultimate Reuben sandwich. Unfortunately I couldn't find corned beef in the deli-sliced meat section, so I thought, well why not make it "from scratch"? Cheers to first-times; it turned out DELICIOUS. Feast your eyes:




















If only I could transmit smells through pictures... the aroma of corned beef is heavenly. It's also surprisingly simple to make, inexpensive, and yummy! Impress your friends; here's a try-it-yourself recipe:

Ingredients (Makes about 8 servings.)

• 1 package (3 lb.) corned beef brisket
• 1 loaf sliced Russian rye bread (or any variation of rye)
• 1 16 oz. jar sauerkraut, drained
• thousand island dressing (or substitute with mayonnaise)
• 2 tbsp butter, or to taste
• 1 package sliced swiss cheese (muenster cheese works well too)

Directions

1. Place corned beef in a pot, submerge with water. Bring to a boil.
2. Turn down heat to low-medium and cover with lid. Let simmer for another 3 hours. This will make the meat very tender. Add water as necessary to keep meat submerged.
3. When done, the meat should come apart very easily/should be able to easily poke into the meat with a butter knife. Remove from water and let drain and set/cool for 20 minutes. This will help the meat solidify and make it easier to cut thin slices.
4. Heat a pan to medium heat, and melt butter. Place two slices of bread onto buttered pan, and place cheese on bread to melt while over heat. Heat until bread is toasty and browned.
5. Assemble sandwich with sliced meat, thousand island, and sauerkraut to your liking!

For the budget-conscious: all the ingredients cost a little under $25. A Reuben sandwich ranges from $6-$10 (save two to three times the eating-out cost!), and deli-sliced meat will probably cost you at least $15 more.

What's more: save the broth you cooked the corned beef in and use it to make SOUP!

Ingredients

• 5 potatoes
  
• 3 carrots
• 1 cabbage head
  
• 1 onion

Peel, wash, and dice ingredients to your liking and toss it in the broth. Add water and salt as necessary. Voila!--a hearty soup to serve with your sandwich.