Molten Chocolate Lava Goodness

One of the hottest (literally...because it is served warm) desserts around right now are the molten chocolate lava cakes available at numerous restaurants. I highly encourage you to avoid the cakes served at chains because in the case of the lava cake they are pre-made, packaged, and nuked cakes that do not resemble the warm, flow of cake that you can make with relative ease in your own home.

If you have been living under a rock and have no idea what I refer to when I mention Molten Chocolate Lava cakes you are truly missing out...if you love chocolate. The cakes are personal to two person sized, unless you are Matt's sister McKay who can polish off two or three of the larger ones on her own. The cake is a relatively light, soft chocolate cake that, when cooked properly, has a decent crust to offer a pinch of resistance before your fork cuts into the cake. Once you have forged that teeny bit of resistance you will find nothing for your fork to cut through because the recipe is designed to "separate" itself into baked cake and warm, gooey center. The center is thick and fudgy in consistency and has a decent overload of chocolate flavor. It is best served hot (so the middle stays warm and flows) and with your choice of sauces (we prefer raspberry), or as shown below with fudge ripple ice cream and fresh raspberries.

Recipe:

Butter your baking dishes (either 3/4 cup souffle dishes or I prefer a regular muffin tin).

Stir 14 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chopped (or just use chocolate chips), 1 1/4 cups of unsalted butter in a saucepan over low heat until the chocolate is melted. Cool slightly.

Whisk 6 large eggs and 2 tsp vanilla extract to blend. Whisk in 3 cups of powdered sugar until blended. Add the chocolate mixture and 1 cup of AP flour.

Fill dishes to top with batter.

Bake at 425 until the batter has risen above the dish, the top edges are dark brown and the center is soft and runny. For souffle dishes that is 18 minutes for cold batter or 15 minutes for room temperature batter. For the muffin tins I usually start checking them at 10 and it will take about 12 minutes.

Run knife to loosen the edges and let sit for 5 minutes.

Serve as elegantly (or not...McKay probably couldn't wait) as you wish...you can always simply dust with powdered sugar and serve with a mint leaf.

The batter can be made up to 1 day ahead and stored in the fridge.

Any leftovers you have make sure to refrigerate and reheat (we usually nuke them chain restaurant style).

Enjoy!

Elk!

Matt is the typical guy's guy who likes to work on cars, go hunting and fishing, and drink beer. I especially enjoy the second listing because it means that I get tons of fresh game and fish whenever he does go out. I really like when they go to the gulf to go fishing because even if he is not always successful at fishing he brings me home gulf shrimp (which I love). Matt and his dad (and more recently his brother and brother-in-law) have been hunting a lot in the area of their house. Not long ago, in addition to the deer they took down, they took down an elk as well. Apparently there are people in the area who have wild game as pets and when some of them escape they join the herds of deer.

Mattie's family always takes their food to Slovacek's in Snook for processing. They always do a good job breaking down the meat into steaks, back straps, roasts, sausage, and ground meat. They also try to tenderize the tougher pieces of meat which leads me to my post today.

We usually eat more on the Mediterranean/Italian spectrum of things, but occasionally enjoy a good old country meal. So we decided to do just that with wedge salad, chicken fried elk, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Wedge Salad:

Cut an iceberg lettuce head into wedges. I personally think that unless this is your meal fourths is too big...I try to go for sixths to eights.

Top with diced onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, crumbled bacon, and either feta or blue cheese.

Most wedge salads come with a creamy dressing (I usually splurge and make ranch), but we have had it with vinaigrette too and it is still delicious.

Serve with copious amounts of cracked black pepper, a fork, and a knife.

I usually prefer romaine or green leaf salads, but the iceberg is perfect for this salad. It acts as a "boat" for serving the other vegetables that have been covered in the creamy dressing and cheese. Additionally, the soft cheese and tomatoes contrast nicely with the crisp cucumber and lettuce.

The chicken fried elk was fairly easy to make.

Take your cut of meat (if you are unsure of what cut of meat to use, look for something that is already tenderized in the store...it looks like it has lots of wholes in it) and season it with salt and pepper.

I prefer to double dredge my frying meats so dip that sucker in flour (seasoned with salt and pepper), an egg and milk wash, then flour again. It makes the meat, once fried, extra crispy.

Heat an inch or two of oil in a frying pan, once hot gently place the floured meat in the pan. It is important that your oil is sufficiently hot for a number of reasons. I learned from Rachel Ray that the easiest way is to dip a wooded spoon into the oil, if bubbles appear it is hot enough. Make sure that it is hot because you will eliminate sogginess and a good golden crust will help from too much fat/oil entering into the meat. Once golden brown on both sides you can begin checking for doneness. This is obviously more important with chicken than it is with red meat, but you want a good amount of doneness with this too. Let the meat drain on a paper towel to soak up extra oil when done.

Serve with mashed potatoes, cream gravy, and green beans (we like to jazz up canned green beans with onions, mushrooms, and garlic powder). Enjoy!

Cornbread, onion, and bell pepper stuffed porkchops

Tonight's meal was a creation of my own mind and the main course turned out pretty well. We have finished dinner and the Spaghetti Squash is still cooking in the oven because it was not ready yet...o-well it will be good tomorrow with our extra two pork chops.

I had a deep desire for fall foods. I really enjoy fall and I especially enjoy the foods that come with fall. I love squash, pumpkin, maple, cinnamon and all of the other flavors that others seem to forget about the rest of the year. Some of my favorite foods are only available at restaurants at this time of year. I love a warm and creamy butternut squash soup and crave pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake all year long! Whether it be because of t.v. and movies or because of my own deep feelings, fall food is so comforting and helps to rejuvenate me for football season and gearing up for the winter.

Because I was wanting fall flavors and Matt wanted something different from our usual meals I decided to do stuffed pork chops. We had made a similar dish years ago, but I decided to wing it this time. The following "recipe" is not, I repeat NOT, my cornbread dressing/stuffing that I use for Thanksgiving. Thus I will appreciate it if the thought does not even cross your mind. I will try to replicate that delicious dish soon enough and post it well before Thanksgiving for the general enjoyment of the public.

Basically grab 4 (or so)1 to 1 1/2 inch pork chops. We look for a leaner pork chop so we usually go for the loin cuts. Salt and pepper one side of the chop and sprinkle a dash of cinnamon on each (trust me...cinnamon and pork were made for one another). Cut a deep pocket into the side of the pork chop: just take a sharp (steak) knife and run it along the side of the chop. You can separate the meat a bit extra if you need to. For the stuffing make a batch of cornbread. For this recipe I used a box of Jiffy cornbread mix because I like the sweetness and soft texture that Jiffy has. I used half of that (once baked) and combined with a teaspoon or so of butter, a third of a sauteed red bell pepper, and a quarter of a sauteed onion. Mix all of this together and spoon into the pockets of the pork chops. The cornbread should be soft enough that you can press (and mash) it into the crevices of the pork. Place in a glass baking dish with a third of a cup of chicken stock mixed with a tablespoon or more of maple syrup. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until cooked throughout. Enjoy with your favorite sides...we were supposed to have spaghetti squash and green beans but will have to wait on the squash.

The chicken stock mixture kept the pork nice and moist and the cornbread stuffing soaked all of the pork juices as the meat cooked. It had a good meat flavor without being greasy or fatty and the cornbread stuffing lent a sweetness that complimented the pork well. Hope you enjoy this and many other meals!

Baby T-Rex and Mattie like steak...

If it was up to Matt and we had an unlimited budget we would probably eat steak every other day. Mattie loves steak and partakes in it whenever possible. As most other people in the country, I grew up with the feeling that steak was a special occasion food and like that we only have it every once in awhile, it makes you appreciate it more. I would however like to partake in it more than we do and I feel like the baby T-Rex would agree seeing as I really enjoyed steak (and meat in general) for the first part of this pregnancy.

I will admit that Matt and I are both steak snobs. We would never choose to purchase a Ribeye and would rarely purchase a Sirloin. We would happily partake in a Sirloin at someone else's home and would eat a Ribeye there, but it would not be our first choice of meat. Plain and simple we are both Tenderloin filet kind of people. Matt does not like having to work for his meat and he hates having large amounts of fat in his steak, bacon, chicken, whatever. There has been no amount of marbling (the fat distribution within a steak) that we have found in a Ribeye that makes it worth it to him. Quite frankly I like the pure beef flavor of a Tenderloin and I like what a well defined piece of meat it is. I feel like you know where you stand when you get a filet and overall the quality of a filet is very hard to compromise, there is little room for deviation.

When I made the steak in the picture above I actually got them from the butcher at HEB. For me, if I am going to make a filet, I want to pick out what I will be taking home. I acquired the filets of my choice looking for little fat (and what fat there was having equal distribution through the cut), thickness (to acquire perfect medium-rareness), and a nice red color. Mattie and I both like our filets simple...kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper on the both sides and bacon wrapped. Matt likes the flavor of the bacon but not the usual softness so we have started par-cooking (cooking until barely cooked) and then wrapping so it can become fully crispy around the steak. I imagine you lose a little bit of bacon flavor this way, but it works out in the end. We will usually sear the steaks in olive oil and finish in the oven unless we have the grill going (which is rare).

These steaks we enjoyed with buttery baguette, green beans that had been sauteed with mushrooms and tomatoes, and a loaded baked potato. As far as baking the potato goes...don't. Pierce your potato (we prefer red potatoes) with a fork several times, rub in olive oil, and nuke in the microwave until you can pierce easily with a fork. Wrap that sucker up in foil to get an even, creamy texture, then indulge as usual.

So enjoy my foodie friends...I have a request for a certain recipe by one of my readers, but don't have any pictures to go along with the post...so we will see...

Quick props for Kroger...

I am usually unhappy with both of our nearby grocery stores. HEB has an awful tendency to be out of two or three of the main things we go there for which frustrates me to no end. I have been known to abandon carts full of groceries there (although I usually tell someone so they can put all the cold stuff away). HEB does have excellent customer service though. Their checkers are usually good about being able to tell that I don't wish to chit chat, I would just like my items scanned quickly. Their baggers are also excellent and I usually don't have to tell them that the insulated bags we got at the commissary (which we visited with McKay) are for cold things. I rather like the Kroger around our house because it is rarely out of what we need (but the items are still fresh) and it has great manager specials. However their checkers and baggers are notoriously slow, eat and drink while touching my food, are incessantly on their phones texting, and never know what the insulated bags are for. I have not noticed much of a price difference (overall on your entire bill) between either store. There are some things that are cheaper at each place and I think it balances out in the end.

However, HEB has been running a major advertising campaign against Kroger specifically and especially that their prices are much cheaper even without a special card. I would like to officially endorse my use of the Kroger Plus Card for a number of reasons:

A) You don't have to actually carry around the card, if it is linked to your phone number you can just type in the number on the key pad.

B) If you use your card enough you get extra free stuff...we always qualify for a free Turkey at Thanksgiving and we have recently been getting tons of Kroger specific coupons in the mail. These coupons are tracked through what we frequently buy so this last visit we got Free eggs, Free cherry tomatoes, a few other free things, and discounts on items we buy anyways. I like that.

C) We learned recently that by linking your phone number to your card and with their tracking (which is probably mainly for marketing research which I am ok with) that if you buy a "tainted" item, they will call you to warn you and you can bring said item back for a refund (if you still have it. Mattie was surprised to receive a phone call that a batch of cilantro (which was gone by two or three days) that we purchased may have been tainted with salmonella. I like that I do not have to worry about these items and that Big Brother Kroger is watching out for me...

So shop where you wish, but don't listen to the advertising scheme by HEB to shop somewhere just because you don't need a card...

A salty and sweet soap box

I am a firm believer that there needs to be a good deal more balance in this world. Aside from the saying that there needs to be darkness in order to appreciate light and Sirius Black's firm contention that the world is not divided between good people and Death Eaters, balance is an important component to the world of cooking and enjoying cooked food. One thing that I really appreciate about a good burger is when the vegetables (lettuce, tomato, pickles, and onions) are cold in contrast to the hot hamburger patty. Throw in a soft bun to help hold together the crisp veggies and you get a very happy customer...me! The Japanese contend that this is part of the sixth sense of gastronomy...mouth feel...but it is more than that. However, I would argue that the Asian world has a better sense of where I am going. I refer mainly to that complete contrast of flavors that makes some food so appealing. The contrast of sweet and spicy or sweet and sour that awakens our taste buds in a way that more complimenting flavors can not. While most of us appreciate (and are beginning to appreciate even more) the presence of sweet and spicy in everything from fast food Sweet and Sour Pork to the Cherry BBQ glazed, Free-range, Lamb Ribs I had at Madden's a few weeks back, few of us realize what an important component this is to baking...especially when baking with Chocolate.

I didn't realize how few people realize the importance of salt to balance out the flavors of sweet items was until I continued to get crazy looks from several people when describing different cookies. Even people that know a little about baking would look at me strangely if I commented on a particular dessert having just the right amount of saltiness. I suppose that some would write off salt in a dessert because often (not always) unsalted butter is called for in the recipe, but this is to control the amount of salt in a dessert, not to eliminate it all together. Forget about the fact that many desserts simply cannot behave properly in a chemical sense if the salt is left out, the simple fact of the matter is without the salt you have an overload of sweetness that is not enhanced by more sweetness in the way that it is with that touch of salt. A really easy way for you to understand my soap box is to go buy a package of Rainbow Chips Deluxe cookies. Once you get home with them, do not enjoy them right away, instead stick them in the fridge for at least (and I really mean this) a day. When they are nice and chilled, slowly eat one specifically looking for the salty, buttery flavor. If you do not have the patience to wait for it to be chilled, buy Oreos, eat all of the creme filling, and look for the salty flavor in the cookie. You will be surprised by the depth of flavor in a simple packaged cookie when your mind is open to receiving it.

A place that knows a thing or two about the salty, buttery balance of flavor is the Corner Bakery Cafe. It is something of a chain and if you have not been there, it is like an upscale Panera with the same prices. I first partook of this wonderful Sandwich (and more) shop when attending the Holocaust Museum Houston's Summer Institute and was delighted to find a cookie very similar to this one in my lunch. It is a chocolate chip and m & m cookie with m & m's on both sides of the cookie. One might think this was too much chocolate, but you would be wrong because of one simple fact...yes...because of the salt/butter balance present in the cookie. I was given an extra cookie by a friend, took it home, and showed my complete devotion to Matt by letting him enjoy it after dinner. He did not believe how much of an act of love this was (thinking it was a regular store bought cookie) until he took his first bite. He now knows how much I love him with this simple gesture.

I had to include a picture of myself and Mattie's grandmother because she understands a thing or two about the salty necessity in her baking. Her chocolate chip cookies are famous among the grand kids. They are not ooey, gooey cookies, but there is something about them that screams "Eat me" when all of us make the trip up to Oklahoma to see her. The cookies are dense, chocolate chip filled, and not only do they have a nice layer of butter flavor (thus having a good amount of salt and butter) but they also have pecans which adds more texture and a contrasting flavor to the chocolate. She has so perfected her cookie that you can literally experience different flavors as you eat her cookie. It is first sweet, then chocolaty, then nutty, then has that wonderful bread/salt/butter flavor. Any woman that can take a three bite cookie and turn it into such complexity definitely has my admiration. In fact, I have some of her cookies in the freezer, I think I need one now.

There is no recipe for this post because the flavor is out there, I am just asking you to go look for it. And just because I mentioned cookies, does not mean that there are not other salty and sweet combinations already out there. Take your time, don't wolf down your food, and look for multiple reasons to enjoy it!

Really easy Chinese...thanks Paula Deen

I would like to thank the one and only Paula Deen for making this post possible. Surprisingly enough the recipe calls for no mayonnaise, no butter, and no sour cream. I didn't think it was possible, but I guess there are surprises everywhere. The recipe was super easy, it is simply Paula Deen's Chicken Stir Fry. I have listed my modifications below.

Because I am trying to find recipes that are quick and easy for when the baby T-Rex comes I did take a little help from the store. I used a bag of frozen Asian/Stir Fry veggies, nuked those, then threw them in the stir fry to crisp them up a bit. I did use fresh onion and mushrooms (I had regular mushrooms on hand, not shiitake) and sauteed those like normal. I love the crisp water chestnuts even though Mattie is not partial to them, so I just picked them out of his and added them to my bowl. Instead of powdered ginger, I used fresh grated ginger and it turned out fine and we served it over rice instead of noodles. We also used a bit less chicken (because it was what we had) and liked it with less chicken because it meant that we had a little more sauce. We are going to try freezing it next and I would think the best thing to do would be to remove it from the heat before the sauce tightens up too much from the cornstarch mixture so that when you reheat it, it will be nice and saucy.

I really liked this recipe because it was fast, light, and relatively healthy. As far as flavors go, it was the perfect balance of sweet and salty with a bit of an emphasis on the sweet undertones (from the Hoisin sauce). The veggies were a nice compliment to the chicken, so you could feel good about eating Chinese. We served it with brown rice which is supposedly healthier for you, but we like it because it adds a hearty, nutty feel to the meal. I think next time I make this I am going to add just a touch of crushed red peppers to the oil when I saute the chicken or veggies to add a little spice to the sweetness. This meal was light enough that we probably wouldn't feel incredibly guilty if we got egg rolls to go along with it next time.