February 5: Chocolate Fondue Day

Right now, a majority of Americans are watching the Superbowl, the game of all games for the sport known as (American) football.  I'm one of them.  I have no particular investment in the game - no money on the game, none of my teams made it - so I'm just rooting for a good game.  Well, I suppose I'm semi-cheering for the Giants, since so many of my friends are Giants fans.

In addition to being the day of the Superbowl, it's Chocolate Fondue Day.  So while the game is on, we're dipping various foodstuffs in melted semi-sweet chocolate mixed with cream.  We started out with fruits and some peanut butter sandwhich cookies as you see pictured here, but as the game has gone on, we started dipping anything and everything in the chocolate.  Leftover waffles?  Dip it!  Pumpkin bread?  Dip it!  Hey, we have some carrots! Uh....

Okay, so we're not dipping everything.

First step for the fondue, after buying everything, was chopping up the chocolate.  That was tiring so we took turns.  Next time, I buy the chocolate that comes in smaller pieces.

Initially, for our chocolate fondue, we mixed about half a pound of semi-sweet chocolate with 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream. As the chocolate melted, we added about 1/3 cup more cream since the chocolate was looking thick.  We began by dipping fresh pineapple chunks, fresh mango slices, fresh seedless green graps, dried figs, fresh satsuma mandarin segments, fresh ruby red grapefruit, dried papaya  spears, and peanut butter sandwich cookies.  As the chocolate dipping continued, we added some fresh banana, pumpkin bread, and even some leftoever waffles.

By the time halftime came around, we were chocolated out (but not out of chocolate.)  Sometime in the third quarter, we unplugged the mini crockpot we were using for the chocolate.  (While being bi-coastal is great for exploring, it sucks when your electric fondue pot is on the other coast and you're looking for it.)

I feel like I need to eat nothing but cruciferous greens for the next 24 hours to atone for the chocolate consumed.

Happy Chocolate Fondue Day, folks!  And here's hoping the end of the game is exciting and the commercials improve!

February 4: Stuffed Mushroom Day and Homemade Soup Day

Stuffed Mushroom Day

The first time I had stuffed mushrooms, my friend had made them and, truth be told, they weren't very good.  I'm not sure what she did, but I remember politely eating one and then not eating any more because it was just too salty. 

Since then, I've had stuffed mushrooms a few times.  And, other than that unappealing first time, the time that sticks out most in my memory is when my friends had stuffed mushrooms at their wedding.  Those were a hit!  They were super delicious and even the non-vegetarians were snatching them up.  I can only imagine that it must have been hard for the catering staff to keep up with demand. 

I've made stuffed mushrooms a few times, and I never follow a recipe.  I usually just separate the stems from the caps and then chop up the stems.  To the chopped stems, I usually add chopped onions, chopped bell peppers, and chopped celery.  Then I finish the mixture by adding whatever mixture of herbs I have on hand that I think will go well together and either shredded cheese or bread crumbs.  The mixture is then stuffed back into the caps in heaping piles and baked in the oven at 400 under close watch for 15-20 minutes.

I'm always left with leftover stuffing and I always try to use it all up in other dishes, instead of just throwing it out.  This most recent time I was left with enough stuffing to add to biscuits and to stuff inside pastry dough, making a home version of a Hot Pocket.  (Or perhaps it's more of a mushroom calzone?)


Homemade Soup Day

As I've said before, homemade soup is awesome.  It's super cheap and easy (most of the time) so what's not to love?  Homemade soup would've been perfect today because it's was overcast and dreary most of the day, then finally opened up with rain.

So what would've I done if I had made soup today?  First, I would've tossed some broth into the crockpot.  (While not essential for homemade soup, crockpots are a great tool.)  Then, some carrots and kidney beans.  A bay leaf would be added, as would some peppercorns.  About an hour before I wanted to eat, I'd add some celery, onion, and cooked rice.

Mmm...maybe I'll make soup tomorrow.

February 3: Carrot Cake Day

"So what's today?"
"Carrot Cake Day."
"Ooh, let's make carrot cake!  That's healthy right?"
".... Cake."
"So?  There's no sugar, right?  And there are carrots?  So it's healthy."
"..... CAAAAAAKE."

That was the conversation between my roommate and me today.  I was a little shocked that she could even think anything with "cake" in the name could be healthy.  We ended up pulling out all the cookbooks and searching around online for carrot cake recipes.  We had everything to make carrot cake...except carrots.  When we went to the store, the carrots were less than fresh so we opted out.  In the review of carrot cake recipes, we found so many variations.  My favorite variation of carrot cake includes juicy raisins and crushed pineapples.  I'm still working on finding a recipe I like that doesn't use sugar, because carrot cake is already sweet enough.

February 2: Heavenly Hash Day

What in tarnation is Heavenly Hash?  I looked at a bunch of recipes online and they're all different!  The only common ingredient seems miniature marshmallows.  Many websites have recipes for Heavenly Hash Brownies.  There's even a recipe for Heaven Hash Cake. Cooks.com calls it a salad.   Some sites have fruit and cream in the recipe.  There's a thread over at CopyKatChat where some recipes use lime Jell-o.

So I still don't know what it is!  It appears that as long as you mix miniature marshmallows with either fruit or chocolate, its called Heavenly Hash.

I think I'll try the recipes that use fruit.

February 1: Baked Alaska Day

Now, I've heard of Baked Alaskas, but I've never had one.  Obviously, I've never made one either.  So I looked around to figure out what exactly a Baked Alaska is.  Back in 2007, Jessie over at CakeSpy got curious about Baked Alaskas and put together this amazing round-up of information.  Wow! That is a dessert I will someday have to make - it looks so complicated and challenging that I feel I must conquer it!  I just have to decide if I make it in the oven like Martha Stewart does, or do I use a torch like Alton Brown does?  I'm leaning toward the oven, so I don't have to buy a torch.  I am tempted to make a Baked Alaska, then turn it into a Bombe Alaska.

By the way, this is a food that has a reverse- an alternative universe counterpart, if you will - the Frozen Florida.  That sounds like it could be a lot of fun to make, too.

New month, new celebrations!

Hoo-boy, February is going to be a challenge.  February is:

• Sweet Potato Month
• Heart Healthy Month
• National Potato Lover’s Month
• Berry Fresh Month
• Great American Pies Month
• Chocolate Lover's Month
• Snack Food Month
• Berry Fresh in the Sunshine State Month
• National Cherry Month
• National Fiber Focus Month
• National Hot Breakfast Month
• National Grapefruit Month

Some of these make perfect sense.  Chocolate Lover's Month is perfect for February, what with Valentine's Day.  (Or as my friends like to call February 15th, Half-Off Chocolate Day.)  Others confuse me - is it supposed to be Berry Fresh Month or Berry Fresh in the Sunshine State Month?  Does that only mean Floridians are allowed to celebrate Berry Fresh Month? 

Well, time to get started on the February celebrations!

Whoo! One month!

I've managed to go a full month of blogging!  I realize that some people have been blogging for years and one month is no big deal to some bloggers, but I have the habit of sometimes starting a project and not finishing it because I get bored with it, lose motivation, become busy or get interested in a new project.  And I'm not alone in this - so many blogs out there have one post and then are abandoned and never updated again.

When working out a plan for this blog, I decided that if I managed to update regularly for a month, I would assess my progress and decide what changes needed to be made.  So over the next week or so, I plan on tweaking the layout, working on more photos, and incorporating new themed posts.

Here's to one month of blogging and another future eleven!