Chocolate pudding made simple

This is the best chocolate pudding I have ever tasted. I took a basic recipe from Food Network and added several ingredients (salt, vanilla, instant coffee) for more flavor. I'm glad I did because the result was smooth, rich and satisfying - just what we are looking for when craving chocolate! Sorry, but Artie, my blender, did not help me with this. The recipe was so good, I wanted to write it down before I forgot it so I can make it again. This way, you can see it too. Try it, you'll like it!

1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 white sugar
2 Tbsp corn starch
dash of salt
1 Tbsp instant coffee granules
2 cups milk or 1 cup milk and 1 cup half and half (this is what I had, so I used it and it was fine)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 whole egg
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Mix cocoa, sugar, salt and corn starch and coffee granules in a sauce pan.
2. Bring mixture to a rolling boil, stirring constantly over low to medium heat.
3. Add chocolate chips and stir in until melted.
4. Beat egg with a fork in measuring cup and add 1/4 cup of the pudding mixture to temper the egg. When thoroughly mixed, pour it into the pudding and cook over medium heat while whisking for about a minute.
5. Add vanilla and mix.
6. Pour into individual serving dishes, cover and chill for 2 hours before eating.

To make you drool cookies

Today I decided to make cookies. Ah, but what kind of cookies? Chocolate chip oatmeal pecan cookies, crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. I found a great recipe on another blog site, but needed to personalize it a bit, so I looked up cookie tips. What I learned is that in order to ensure I don't produce "looser cookies" (what my daughter Beth and I affectionately refer to all cookies that flatten out when they bake) I need to be careful not to over-beat the sugars, butter and eggs, and possibly reduce the amount of eggwhite called for in the recipe. I did both things and the results will make your mouth water! Since I was running low on Vanilla Extract, I used Brandy Extract also.
Here is the recipe I created:

Goodies:
1 1/2 cups white flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
dash of ground cloves
dash of cardamom
2 1/2 cups of old fashioned oats
1 cup toasted pecans

1 stick butter
1 stick margarine
1 1/4 cups white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp brandy extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate morsels

Steps:
1. Process the whole pecans and oats together in a food processor until the nuts are roughly chopped and the oats are reduced in size but not turned into flour.
2. Add all the other dry ingredients to the nuts and oats.
3. Cream the sugars and butter together on low speed for about 2 minutes. Add the whole egg, mix again on low speed then add the yolk and mix.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture using the mixer's #2 speed until moistened.
5. Place rounded tablespoon sized cookies on cookie sheet and bake in preheated oven at 375 degrees for 8-11 minutes, depending on oven and desired crispness.
6. Leave cookies on the warm cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer them to cookie racks to finish cooling.
7. Try to keep everyone from eating all of them at one time.

Foccacia Bread

Look at this lovely homemade foccacia bread. It was delicious! Artie mixed the dough with the awesome dough hook. It was the first time I'd used that attachment, and it worked well. My bread machine would have done the same job, but I wanted to try the Kitchen Aid to see the process. Same deal as the bread machine - you just watch and add flour as needed to get the dough to the right consistency. Fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil gave this restaurant quality flavor. You've got to make this stuff!

Blueberry Fantastic Lemon Awesome Muffins

Ok, that's not the name of them from the cookbook, but it should be! They were terrific - so much so that my hubby left me a note this morning raving about them. Couldn't say it better myself. Artie whipped up the egg, milk and oil very well. As with all muffins, you really don't need a power mixer for adding the dry ingredients, because they will come out tough if you go overboard. So, I used the very lowest speed on the mixer and watched it carefully. Ultimately, I needed to stop and use the spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl, so I could have done it all by hand. Probably wouldn't use it to make another batch. On the other hand, wanting to use the mixer does stimulate the desire to cook, sooo....

Mashed Taters the Artisan Way

This evening's dinner included mashed potatoes with cheddar cheese. For the first time, I used the Kitchen Aid mixer for making them. Other than a few lumps (which can actually make the potatoes upscale) I loved making them this way. Much easier than the potato ricer I bought earlier this year. That thing requires brute strength, but Artie does all the work while I just throw ingredients into the bowl. I'm not sure if the cheese made them a little stiff, but they tasted good. Probably could have used more milk or butter, but I was trying to go easy on the calories. Next time I'll use the whisk attachment instead of the heavier one, and see if that makes a difference. By the by, I made homemade BBQ sauce for the chicken, too, but Artie didn't help me with that...

Yummy Bread Pudding

Today the Artisan and I made an awesome bread pudding. Shown here shortly before it was devoured...

The wire whip attachment beat the 3 eggs to an airy fluffiness, then frothed up the 2 cups of milk added to them. A half a cup of sugar, 1/2 tsp of vanilla, a quarter teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of cinnamon completed the liquid portion of the pudding. Torn up stale white bread (about 6 or 7 slices) in a buttered 8x8 baking dish got soaked up with the mixture. I dotted the top with small bits of butter (ok, margarine, which I rarely use) and cinnamon sugar was sprinkled on for a lovely look. Then it was baked in a 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes. The smell in the house is almost as good as the flavor - makes you want to do this more often!

Spice Applesauce Cake

It's been a few days since my last post. Our youngest daughter went off to college 2 days ago. Now things are starting to get back to normal. Today I made a box mix (gasp!) cake with the shiny black kitchen power tool. It was a breeze - I didn't have to juggle scraping the bowl and holding the hand mixer. Just popped in the ingredients, turned the thing on, and went about preparing the cake pans. Haven't tried the cake yet, but it smelled heavenly coming out of the oven. One thing the Artisan doesn't do, and that is properly measure the water you add to the mix. We shall see if the error cost me flavor, or just made the cake more moist than it would have been.