Camacho Watcho

Days have been busy busy busy! Cooking club has come and gone again, a winter getaway up North, Febgiving 2011, and, yes, Valentine’s Day.

Let’s start at the beginning — Valentine’s Day.

As I’ve written before, Kyle and I have a Valentine’s Day tradition. He cooks….I eat….perfect. This year was no exception and he pulled together a great meal of salad, steak, roasted veggies and…drumroll please….espresso lava cakes!

I repeat – Espresso Lava Cakes. Choooocoooolate!!!!

Speaking of my love for chocolate…

Years ago Kyle went to Switzerland for work. When he returned, I was amazed that he came home without anything for me. I mean, the guy goes to Switzerland and I’m left at home to receive nothing upon his return? I’m not really someone who gets hung up on gifts, but he went to the land of Swiss chocolate and he didn’t even bring me a square???? He claimed he didn’t have time to buy anything (work trip — yadda yadda), and my exact response was…

“Wasn’t there even a chocolate left on the pillow that you could have brought me?”

“I didn’t know you liked chocolate,” he replied. Uh, WHAAAAT? This man, whom I had known for seven years didn’t know that I liked chocolate?

First of all, a broad assumption can be made that most people (I won’t narrow this to just women here) like chocolate. Second, any time I’m asked what flavor I want of something, it’s chocolate — chocolate milkshake, chocolate donut…you get the point. There was also a period of time in my life when I couldn’t pass up a piece of chocolate cake. EVERYwhere I went, I sought out chocolate cake. Simply couldn’t refuse it. Boy do I miss my teenage metabolism…

But to sum it up – I love chocolate.

Note: To give Kyle a little credit — a couple years later he went to Italy and, learning from his prior mistake, came home with some awesome shoes and an avocado green sequined belt for me (that he picked all by himself). If there’s one thing a girl could love more than chocolate, it’s shoes and accessories. All was forgiven.

But to get back to my Valentine’s Day meal. The kid really stepped it up in telling me he loved me this year — and he did it through chocolate. More specifically, he used these chocolate cakes to tell me he loves me best!

While the title seems to imply that the chocolate will flow like lava, it’s really just a moist cake with warm melty pieces of chocolate mixed in. No lava flowing, but the topper of an espresso whipped cream makes up for that oversight. Of course, bonus points were given when Kyle went off-recipe and added a pinch of Espresso Brava Salt that I had in my cupboard to bring an extra oomph! to the dish. Um, can you say YUM?!?

Chocolate Espresso Lava Cakes with Espresso Whipped Cream
Bon Appetit February 2002

1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
6 teaspoons instant espresso powder or instant coffee powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
12 tablespoons semisweet chocolate chips (about 4 1/2 ounces)

1 cup chilled whipping cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar

Sift flour, cocoa powder, 5 teaspoons espresso powder, and baking powder into medium bowl. Place butter in large bowl; add both sugars and whisk until well blended. Whisk in eggs 1 at a time, then vanilla and almond extracts. Whisk in dry ingredients. Divide batter among six 1-cup ovenproof coffee mugs (about 2/3 cup in each). Top each with 2 tablespoons chocolate chips. Gently press chips into batter. Cover and refrigerate mugs at least 1 hour and up to 1 day.

Combine cream, powdered sugar and remaining 1 teaspoon espresso powder in medium bowl; whisk until peaks form. Chill up to 1 hour.

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Let mugs with batter stand at room temperature 5 minutes. Bake uncovered until cakes are puffed and crusty and tester inserted into center comes out with thick batter attached, about 30 minutes. Cool cakes 5 minutes. Top hot cakes with espresso whipped cream and serve.

Optional – top with a pinch of Espresso Brava Salt.

I also love tulips! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Febgiving was created as a brilliant excuse to gather friends mid-winter (and to gorge ourselves mercilessly on Thanksgiving tradition favorites). Jim and Becca hosted this year’s Febgiving USA 2010 this past weekend, which Kyle and I were excited to attend. A great gathering and some fantastic food!

More photos and info about Febgiving here.

I can’t believe the long Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone. We had four days at home to get through our list of “to do’s” and, while we accomplished many things, it just seems that the time went too fast.

Part of this is because one whole day was spent cooking a Thanksgiving feast. Our initial intention was to go out for a Thanksgiving dinner, since it was just the two of us, but at the last minute we decided to stay in and cook. As soon as I agreed to it, I knew I’d gone crazy. The only thing that got me through the long day of cooking was the thought of eating all the leftovers over the weekend – no leftover meal satisfies like a turkey taco with dressing.

And although I enjoy turkey, for me Thanksgiving is all about the side dishes. We were only two, but I just couldn’t decide what not to make. So we didn’t skimp – potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts with bacon, gravy and cranberry relish. We also made a pumpkin praline pie. I didn’t make a homemade crust, but I did roast the sugar pumpkins. Honestly, this is one of the most incredible pies ever.

Although the sides were good (except the very pretty, but very bad cranberry pear ginger relish recipe I tried out), the most important dish to me was my mom’s sage dressing. As we waited for our bird to finish in the oven, I realized that all I really cared about was digging into that huge bowl of intensely flavored dish – the bread moist but still fluffy and crunchy from the onions and celery.