Tag Archives: chocolate

by | April 29, 2013 · 5:05 am

The Inverted Peanut Butter Cup of the Lueck Ladies

[Back hand, stage whisper] “The secret is the chocolate is on the inside!”

The [trademarked chocolate and peanut butter confection] Challenge. This entire meal resulted from Myr having made peanut butter cookies from an Alton Brown recipe. Myr followed the recipe fairly closely, except that she did not have chunky peanut butter. She made do with smooth PB and added fresh chopped peanuts. Even after she had made dozens of large cookies, she still had a quarter of the cookie dough left over. When she told her mother about this, Jan said, “That would make a good pie crust and we could fill it with Claudia’s Chocolate Mousse. I also just bought a bottle of “Voodoo,” a chocolate and peanut stout. Karl, make a dinner with chocolate and peanuts!”

The Inverted Peanut Butter Cup of the Lueck Ladies

The Inverted Peanut Butter Cup of the Lueck Ladies

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Desserts & Treats, Pies & Tarts

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

by | April 29, 2013 · 4:47 am

Karl’s Chicken Cacao with Peanuts and Mango

The [trademarked chocolate and peanut butter confection]  Challenge. For the last few weeks I have been constrained by trying to make things suit a particular cuisine. With just an ingredient challenge I am free to go whole “California Fusion.” To mix and match flavors and techniques with only one constraint–it should all taste good when I’m done.

Karl’s Chicken Cacao with Peanuts and Mango

Karl’s Chicken Cacao with Peanuts and Mango

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Main Dishes, Poultry

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

by | April 29, 2013 · 3:00 am

Karl’s Kale with Mushrooms

The [trademarked chocolate and peanut butter confection] Challenge. I have recently discovered dark greens. For the last two weeks I have made a collard side dish. Gee, you don’t have to cook dark greens into sludge like our mothers did! Maybe it is time to revisit kale.

To meet this week’s challenge I will have to work in chocolate and peanuts, but for this dish the greens will be the star. A little peanut butter and ground nibs to give the sauce a thickness and base should be enough.

Karl’s Kale with Mushrooms

Karl’s Kale with Mushrooms

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Side Dishes, Vegan, Vegetables

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

by | April 29, 2013 · 2:53 am

Karl’s Peanut Rice

The [trademarked chocolate and peanut butter confection] Challenge. My chicken dish for this meal emphasizes the chocolate elements. For my starch side dish I want to make the peanuts the star, with the chocolate element being more of a secret ingredient. I want it to add a depth to the taste without having a distinct “chocolate” flavor.

Karl’s Peanut Rice

Karl’s Peanut Rice

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Side Dishes, Starches

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

by | March 28, 2013 · 5:31 pm

Jan’s Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt Cake with Kalua Whipped Cream

Adapted from a recipe from Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food by Sam Mogannam and Dabny Gough, found on Two Peas and Their Pod

Around our house the birthday options include: cake, pie or mousse. For his birthday Chris wanted cake. So Jan found this Bundt recipe. She thought this recipe had way too much butter, but it was not her birthday. Jan uses Dagoba organic chocolate power for the cake. In Dutch processing alkaline is added to the chocolate power, so she prefers not to use it.

Many Americans like their cakes really sweet. Jan and the kids think that this is just cloying.  For this recipe she cut the sugar by almost half and dropped the sugar out of the glaze all together. She also added a tablespoon of coffee to enhance the chocolate flavor in the cake without adding to the sweetness.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Cake, Desserts & Treats

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

by | March 11, 2013 · 4:55 am

Karl’s Pork Tamales with Mole Poblano

Some assembly required. Many cultures have a festival dish that is something wrapped in dough that can be stored and then cooked quickly (so the moms can enjoy the festivals). The Hispanic countries have tamales, the Asians have jiaozi (pork dumplings) and the Eastern Europeans have perogi. However the price for this festival freedom is sometimes days of preparation. Making the dough, the filling(s) and assembling the final product are painstaking tasks.  Usually this is made easier by making it a group activity. In China we would be treated to jiaozi parties.  Our host would bring over the prepared meat and dough and then everyone would pitch in to make (and eat) the jiaozi. For a fun idea of how the Mexican culture does this, I recommend the children’s book Too Many Tamales! (for the hearing impared.)

Jan and I were watching Triple D and one of the featured restaurants was a Mexican place that always has 15 different moles. Jan loves mole and the show expanded my mind on what was possible in the way of mole and how to use it. One of their signature dishes was tamales with mole.

Karl’s Pork Tamales with Mole Poblano Karl’s Green Mole Rice Karl’s Refried Beans II

Karl’s Pork Tamales with Mole Poblano
Karl’s Green Mole Rice
Karl’s Refried Beans II

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Main Dishes, Pork

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

by | March 11, 2013 · 4:35 am

Karl’s Mole Poblano

A few months ago I had tried making molé for the first time, based on a recipe by Ty and Juels. This was one of our Sunday challenges before I started writing this blog. I found Ty’s recipe, but I could not help myself, I had to make some changes. That is just the kind of cook I am, I even have trouble following my own recipes. I rarely make the same dish the same way twice, I am constantly tinkering.

Mole Poblano

Mole Poblano

Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under Sauces and Spices

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

by | January 20, 2013 · 6:31 am

Claudia’s Chocolate Mousse

For me this is the chocolate mousse by which all others are judged. I have paid $10 for desert at fancy French restaurant and gotten something that was not even close to the oral satisfaction of my mother’s mousse.

Chocolate Mousse

Before I left home for the first time, I sat down with my mother’s recipe box and wrote down my favorite dishes.  I have made a few changes from my mother’s original recipe. The most significant being that I have doubled her recipe and NO! There is no such thing as too much of a good thing! The only other change I have made is that mom always made this desert with Nestle’s Semi-sweet Chocolate Bits.  Chocolate snobs that we are, we always make it with high end dark chocolate. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Desserts & Treats, Treats

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | December 18, 2012 · 10:17 pm

Karl’s Black and White Peppermint Bark

Adapted from Joy of Baking

Peppermint Bark is something I always look forward to during the Holidays. I never made it myself, because it was the Christmas specialty of one of my wife’s coworkers and it seemed like trespassing to make it. Jan has different job now, so this year we decided to have a go at it. My goal was to make peppermint chocolate bark, not peppermint and chocolate.

Peppermint Bark

I knew that I wanted to make two layered bark, because that is what Jan prefers. But for a seemingly simple recipe (melt chocolate, sprinkle on peppermint chunks), I did find variations and techniques on the internet that I decided to include. Stephanie Jaworski’s blog (Joy of Baking) includes a good video of the process of making two layered peppermint bark.

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Desserts & Treats, Treats

Tagged as , , ,