Clockwise from foreground left - Marzipan Snowballs, plain with tempered dark, Crystallized Ginger rolled in Gingersnaps, plain topped with cocoa nibs, peppermint rolled in mint hot chocolate powder, plain. Marc and I have gone through many truffle travails the last two weeks, and even though I feared we would be defeated, we (Marc mostly) pressed on and prevailed. Among other things, my rather unpleasant flold (103 degree flu, sniffly cold), and the general speedy lunacy that is the holiday season, really threw a monkey wrench in our chocolate adventures. My fantasy, (oh…how naive) was that we’d make a few different flavors of truffles over a couple of days, and tra la la, have beautiful pictures for posting and tasty truffles to bestow well before Christmas. Hmmm…apparently there was another plan at work, and it included me having to take a back seat role for fear of delivering more than just chocolate (i.e., cooties) to our loved ones, and we finally finished the last batch today…December 30th. Truthfully, we did create some delicious chocolate treats, but they are just a little late. AND we have some good pictures, but they took an inordinate amount of doctoring on Marc’s part to be presentable. Making ganache (truffle filling) is easy, fun and incredibly versatile. If I had really known how much precision is necessary with tempering, I would have practiced and gotten through the learning curve some other time of the year, and just made what we knew worked, right before the holidays. Temper, Temper Before we get into truffle making in a general sense, there is a little background you should have on tempering chocolate. All chocolate bars you buy commercially are tempered. They have a clear glossy sheen, and snap crisply when you break them. Whenever you melt chocolate, it loses it’s temper. Meaning that if you just melted it, and then it hardened, the chocolate wouldn’t return to that crisp glossy state. Tempering chocolate is a precise chemical series of events. The effects of tempering come from the formation of beta crystals. When you melt tempered chocolate, you melt those beta crystals, and if you want to re-temper, you need to bring the chocolate up to a high enough temperature to melt completely, but not above 125, otherwise it’s scorched and can never be tempered again. Then you need to bring it down to a low, but still melted temperature to encourage the beta crystals to form. Then the key is reheating the chocolate to a particular 2 degree range in order not to let all other detrimental (gamma, alpha, etc.) crystals form, but still maintain beta crystals. Tricky, huh?  read more »

What is there for me to not love in Chincoteague? There is the pristine beach of Assateague, the abundant and beautiful wildlife, the talented artists, and the friendly people. It's a paradise for me.

I have just one problem with Chincoteague - the food!

Chincoteague is hardly known for five-star cuisine even among the seafood lovers, but if you're not a seafood lover, eating can be tricky. Chincoteague is famous for its oysters and its proximity to Maryland means plenty of good crab as well. When I see big steaming pots of shellfish coming to someone's table, I really wish I did like the stuff, but I don't.  read more »

Happy Independence Day!! I don't know about you, but our 4th has been quiet and uneventful. Dave and I slept in, watched some tennis, and went for a walk. Weather permitting, we'll go check out the local fireworks after dinner - and if not, we're off to the movies! Now, I had been hoping to share our dinner with you today, but on their current schedule, my 7-hour maple baked beans won't be ready until next Tuesday... so I thought I would share this lovely dessert with you instead!  read more »

This one's for Inv Robbins, who died on Monday after helping to make about a zillion kids happy by creating the first American food franchise: Baskin-Robbins. When I was a munchkin, I loved Baskin-Robbins. There was a BR store within walking distance of all my usual haunts and they gave you free ice cream on your birthday. Even better, my older brother's best friend was a shift manager. For him, this mostly meant he, at 17, got to herd 15 and 16 year-olds, which I am sure was a pain. For him. I, on the other hand, thought that the point of being a shift manager was free banana splits. Not for him. For me. Since then, I have switched to making my own ice cream.  read more »

I was recently contacted by a man who felt I had an important voice, and who wanted to see if I could do something to inspire us Britains to buy "British" and rally around local farmers and producers and help support the industry of food producing here in the UK. I thought it was very timely as this is British Food Fortnight , an event which is now in it's seventh year and is a celebration of the wide diversity of foods we have available here, locally produced and grown right in the United Kingdom. There is a real feeling growing here in Britain that we should rally around our local farmers and buy "British," in order to help support British farmers and help to maintain Britains fresh and local produce and goods, rather than support goods and produce being shipped in from abroad. My Todd, in his younger years, was once a cowman. He knows only too well how very hard these people work on their farms, and quite often for very little in return. So many of us never stop and take a thought for the hard work that often goes into producing these lovely things we enjoy on our tables every day and the history behind it. I try, whenever possible to buy British products. It really annoys me when I go to buy blueberries for instance, and the only ones on offer are from Poland, especially when I know that beautiful British blueberries are being grown just down the road. Oftimes I know it is because of trade agreements our country has with the other countries in the European Community, but I think it's really sad when you can't get a British Blueberry and, to be perfectly honest, I am getting to the point where I just won't buy things unless it says on the label produced in Britain . . . I firmly believe that if we fail to support our local farming communities, they will be forced to shut down shop and then where will we be . . . we'll be at the mercy of foreign producers and investors and will have lost a lot of the charm and pleasures of our local farming communities.  read more »

These are the most amazing, gluttonous chocolate brownies in the History of Ever. And I mean that. You know you are in trouble when you lick the spoon, and then use the spoon to lick the bowl, and you end up needing a tall glass of milk. Trouble that starts with T, that rhymes with B, and you get holy-crap, the best brownies ever! Di, of Di's Kitchen Notebook , chose for our TwD gustatory pleasure Dorie 's French Chocolate Brownies. I don't know what makes them French, but I don't care. These are that good that I don't care about anything other than eating them. Short-sighted, maybe. But make these yourself and you'll understand. I would almost suggest you NOT make these, they are that dangerous. That, and I don't really want to share the world's chocolate resources with you - I want them all to myself so I can make these every day. Well, not every day. My doctor would probably kick my ass. With 12 tablespoons of butter per pan, I would swiftly turn into a solid. My plan is ruined. I shall come up with another. World domination can come about another way: Dorie for President. You heard me right. When we go to the polls this November and are given the opportunity to write-in our candidates, rather than vote for Mickey Mouse or Ronald McDonald, we should all vote Dorie into office. She would sooth the leaders of the world, not just with her famous World Peace cookies, but with these brownies. She could fight to lower food prices around the world and lead us all into a Chocolate Age of Happiness. Who's with me?  read more »

Welcome to my weekly edition of Tuesdays With Dorie where I get to tempt you, my readers, once more with a delicious recipe and photos from my most bestest baking book of all time . . . Baking, From my home to yours by my most bestest baking book author of all time . . . Dorie Greenspan! Yes, this is the one day a week I join in with some couple hundred plus (my . . . how we have grown!!) "Like Minded" bakers from across the world and bake yet another tempting delight from within it's pages. I was so excited when I read that this weeks recipe challenge was going to be the Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake as chosen by Caitlin of Engineer Baker !!! I have always wanted to make a polenta cake, but have always been a bit afraid of it. Perhaps because I was thinking that it may be too much like cornbread and I'd have to break out the baked beans and ham . . . instead of the ice cream . . . I could not have been any more wrong in my thinking than that! This beautiful cake in no way resembled cornbread and I have to say it turned out to be the moistest, most lucious cake anyone could ever want to eat . . . . and . . . . oh so very yummy!  read more »

Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller Thai One On Peanutty Somen Noodles with Shrimp Chicken Satay with Rice Mango-Red Onion Salad Steak Salad with Peanut-Lime Vinaigrette Root Beer Floats Chocolate-Hazelnut Sandwich Cookies It takes a lot to make a bad peanut sauce, but thats just what happened when I looked in on Robin Millers Quick Fix Meals. This was a show from 2006 and I LOVE peanut sauce, so I thought I would check it out. Her plan was to make a peanut sauce at the beginning of the week and use it in several ways to make different meals during the week. That sounds fine. But I grow concerned at her very first step. She takes 3 cups of chicken stock and pours it into a pot. Why does that bother me?  read more »

Youll have to read until the end to find out, or maybe this is just a shameless way to incorporate the greatest Olympic champion of all time into this post. Iron Chef America Chef Bobby Flay battles Chef Jose Garces Whose cuisine will reign supreme?  read more »

I love peanut butter
it's very plain to see
that I love peanut butter
and peanut butter
sure loves me

COOKIE!

(rats! I couldn't think of anything that rhymed with pie that had anything to do with cookies, tee hee! Yes, this is my corny attempt to write a poem about peanut butter!)  read more »