Double Chocolate Pie

Dark chocolate pudding in a Kona coffee graham cracker crust topped with chocolate whipped cream.  A pie for chocolate lovers.

I was alone for Thanksgiving this year and this pie made my holiday.  I went back and forth about whether or not I'd make anything special for Thanksgiving.  I love cooking, but it's also nice to just relax and have a stress-free holiday.  Then I thought about chocolate pie and that decided it for me.  I made a Thanksgiving dinner for one just to accompany this pie.

#DoubleChocolate #Pie will make any day special  [Tweet this]

Chocolate pie may not be traditional for most people for Thanksgiving, but we always had one when I was growing up.  My dad does not like pumpkin pie so he always had a chocolate pie instead.  I don't mind pumpkin but as with most sweets I prefer chocolate.  So since this meal was just for me I made my favorite.  I'm so glad I did too.

When it comes to #sweets I prefer #chocolate esp Dbl Chocolate Pie  [Tweet this]

This pie was fabulous.  I made my favorite graham cracker crust using local Kona Coffee Royal Creem Crackers.  I love these cookies.  They are just slightly sweet and very crunchy and the coffee flavor always enhances anything chocolate.  The pudding I made with Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder so it was extra chocolaty and I added a double shot of espresso (also local).  Then to top it all off I made a chocolate whipped cream for even more rich indulgent chocolate flavor.  This is sure to please any chocolate lover.

Please #chocolatelovers w/ Double Chocolate #Pie  [Tweet this]

Double Chocolate Pie

Servings:  6-8
Cook time:  15-20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 9-inch Graham Cracker Crust
1 c sugar
1/2 c cocoa
4 T corn starch
1/4 tsp salt
3 c milk
2 oz espresso
2 T butter
1 tsp vanilla
Chocolate Whipped Cream

*Graham Cracker Crust:  Mix together 2 cups of cookie crumbs and 1 stick of melted butter until the mixture resembles wet sand.  Press into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate. Bake at 450 F for 5-8 minutes or until set.

**Chocolate Whipped Cream:  You need 2 cups of heavy whipping cream and 1 cup of melting chocolate or chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate).  Place the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and add just enough cream to cover the chocolate.  Microwave on high for 15-second intervals, stirring after each until chocolate starts to melt.  Continue stirring until the melted chocolate thoroughly mixes with the cream.  In a large bowl start beating/whipping the remaining cream until it starts to streak before soft peaks form.  Keep whipping while slowly pouring in the chocolate until it is thoroughly mixed and you have stiff peaks.

First prepare the crust and set aside to cool.

In a medium saucepan, stir together sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and salt.  Gradually stir in milk and espresso.

Heat over medium heat, stirring continuously until mixture comes to a boil.  Keep stirring for one minute more then remove from heat.

You can also cook the pudding in the microwave instead of on the stove top.  Follow the same instructions but use a large microwave safe bowl.  Microwave on high for 7-10 minutes, stirring every 2 until mixture comes to a full boil.

Stir in butter and vanilla.

Then pour into the prepared pie crust.  Cover with plastic wrap pressing the wrap directly onto the top of the pudding.  Refrigerate for at leats 2 hours and top with the **Chocolate Whipped Cream.

You can serve it immediately, but I prefer to refrigerate it overnight for best results.

Enjoy.

For more chocolate recipes check out:

Tira-mocha Truffles  -

Mocha Chip Cheesecake

Dark Chocolate Peanut Clusters

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Green Bean Salad

Crispy green beans in a honey mustard vinaigrette with sliced almonds.  A simple and quick vegetable side for any meal.

 

Repost of original from 3/25/13 190 views.  Added tweet-ables, pinnable image, follow my pinterest board, and minor editing.

This is one of my favorite ways to eat green beans.  I don't care for canned green beans that end up mushy and have no texture.  I first had this salad at my sister-in-laws' and I fell in love.  The green beans are only slightly blanched (steaming works too) so they are cooked yet still crisp.  Then tossed in a honey mustard vinaigrette with sliced almonds for more crunch.  You can top this salad with crispy fried onions or shallots for more crunch and more flavor, but it is fine without.

Say no to mushy green beans. #GreenBean #Salad  [Tweet this]

I love this recipe as a Thanksgiving side dish.  It's a great, lighter way to enjoy green beans instead of the usual green bean casserole. It's also great because you can make it the day before and store in the fridge until dinner time. This frees up time and cooking space on Thanksgiving day.

Save time with this #ThanksgivingSide: #GreenBean Salad  [Tweet this]

Green Bean Salad

Cook time:  under 10 minutes
Servings:  3-4

Ingredients:

1 pound green beans, snapped
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 hand full sliced almonds
Crispy fried onions or shallots (optional)

Blanch the green beans.  Toss the beans in a large pot of salted, boiling water and stir for 1-3 minutes.  Remove the beans and immediately place in ice water (sometimes I just rinse under cold running water) to stop the cooking.

Meanwhile, make the vinaigrette.  Mix the mustard, honey, vinegar, and olive oil in a glass jar with a lid.  Shake to combine.

Pour the vinaigrette over the beans and toss until coated (use as much or little as you like).  Add the almonds and mix.  Top with fried shallots or onions if desired.

Refrigerate until ready to serve.  Makes 3-4 servings.  Serve cold or at room temperature (I served this with my Pineapple Pork Chops it also makes a great #Thanksgivingside).

Enjoy.

For more vegetable sides check out:

Spicy Edamame     -

Baked Potato Salad   -

Simple Carrot and Cucumber Salad

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Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Coconut Oil

A Simple side dish of mashed sweet potatoes with coconut oil.  That's it and it is delicious.

A re-post of the original from 5/24/2013.  Adding pin-able image, tweet-ables, and editing.  225 views and 2 +1s.

I will no longer put butter in my mashed sweet potatoes.  It's not about health or nutrition, or even an aversion to dairy (though those are all good reasons) it is about taste.  Once I added coconut oil to my sweet potatoes I was hooked.  The coconut oil brings out the sweetness of the potato, and adds a creaminess, like butter.   I must stress:  if you like sweet potatoes, get and use some coconut oil with them.  Here is the easy 2 ingredient recipe.

Easy #2ingredient MashedSweetPotatoes w/ #CoconutOil  [Tweet this]

Another recipe in my Thanksgiving sides series.  Everyone knows about sweet potato casserole for Thanksgiving but why not try Mashed Sweet Potatoes.  You could make it more like casserole by adding some cream (or keep it dairy free and use coconut milk), cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice, and top with chopped Candied Pecans.  This will be my "sweet potato casserole" this year.

Trade #Sweetpotatocasserole 4 MashedSweetPotatoes #thanksgivingsides  [Tweet this]

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Coconut Oil

Servings:  2
Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 very large sweet potato
1-2 Tbsp coconut oil
Cinnamon (optional)

Peel and cut the sweet potato in small even pieces.  Place in a saucepan and cover with cold water.  Bring to a boil for about 10-15 minutes until potatoes are soft.

Remove from heat and drain.    Remove sweet potatoes to a medium-sized bowl (or just put back in the saucepan) and mash with 1-2 Tbsp coconut oil.  No need to add any other liquid because sweet potatoes absorb more liquid while boiling than regular potatoes (but if you think you need some reserve some of the cooking liquid and use it).

Makes 2 servings.

Enjoy.

Also mentioned in this post:

Candied Pecans

For more vegetable sides check out:

Cinnamon and Cumin Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Maple Glazed Carrots                                          -

Sauteed Kale                                           -

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Thanksgiving for Two Continued

This is part two of my thanksgiving recipes. Sweet potato casserole, cranberry relish, and green beans. 

SWEET POTATO CASSEROLE

I was a little concerned that sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes would be overkill. However, I did not make a desert for this meal and sweet potato casserole is as good as sweet potato pie (to me). So why not? I think sweet potatoes are pretty sweet on their own so I did not use as much sugar as some recipes. I was also able to use some leftover pumpkin pie spiced sugar, from an earlier post of Pumpkin Pull Apart Bread.

3 large sweet potatoes, mashed
1/2 stick butter
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup pumpkin pie spiced sugar

Crumble topping:

1 cup pecans, chopped
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp butter
4 Tbsp brown sugar

Cook sweet potatoes (you could boil or steam them; but, I baked them, at 350 degrees, in a toaster oven for 1.5 hours then scooped out the flesh when cool) and mash with butter, eggs, milk, and sugar.  Pour into a greased 8 by 8 inch baking pan.  Then, make the crumble.  Chop the pecans, by pulsing, in a food processor (or by hand) until evenly chopped.  Switch to the plastic pastry blade and add the rest of the ingredients.  pulse until evenly mixed, then pour over potato mixture.  Spread evenly and cover with foil.  Refrigerate until ready to bake.  Bake at 350 degrees, covered, for 30 minutes.  Then uncover and bake for 15 minutes more or until nicely browned.

These turned out great, sweet but not too sweet, and the crumble added a nice crunch.  Leftovers make a great breakfast.

CRANBERRY RELISH

This recipe I adapted from No Cook Cranberry Orange Relish that I found on Foodista.  I did not use fresh cranberries I used Craisins, because I had them, and I changed a few other things, but the No Cook Relish was my inspiration.

1 cup craisins (dried cranberries), chopped
1 orange, the zest and juice
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger

I pulsed the Craisins, in two batches, in a food processor until chopped.  Then I also chopped the pecans.  I mixed the two in a medium mixing bowl then added the grated zest and juice from 1 orange and the grated ginger (a last second inspiration because I had some on hand).  I mixed thoroughly and refrigerated for a day before serving.

This was amazing.  The flavors were so great together, and it was so easy to make.  I highly recommend this recipe.

GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE (sort of)

I picked up some fresh green beans for a vegetable side.  This dish was made up on the fly.  Some bacon was cooked, to flavor the green beans, then flour added to the drippings (making a roux).  There was about 1/2 of a can of chicken broth left over so that was dumped in along with a dash of cream and cooked until slightly thickened.  Then the cleaned and snapped green beans were added to the bacon gravy and simmered for about 15 minutes.

This made a kind of green bean casserole.  That wasn't the goal at the outset, but things were just added as they were thought about and that was the result.  It turned out very good and the beans were still crunchy, which is how I like them. 

Enjoy.

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Thanksgiving Dinner for Two

A typical Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans, and cranberries.  This dinner was delicious and made for two, but there were plenty of leftovers. 

 

TURKEY

 

I did not want to cook a whole turkey. This may not be very American of me, but I don't like turkey that much. My favorite thing about thanksgiving is all of the sides. So knowing it wouldn't feel like thanksgiving without turkey, I made turkey drummets (part of the wing). There were 3 in the package I bought and they were pretty big. For an easy and no hassle way to cook them I used a Crockpot/Slow cooker.  After searching online I found a general consensus of how to do this.

2 cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can chicken broth (use the soup can to measure)
Salt and pepper
1 tsp dried sage
3 turkey drummets (thawed)

It is a simple recipe, just put all of the ingredients in a crock pot and cook all day on low (or 3-4 hrs on high). The turkey turns out moist, and falls off the bone, and you can use the cooking liquid as gravy.

STUFFING

My favorite thanksgiving food is stuffing so I have been planning this for a while. Usually I just use the store bought bread cubes, but I make homemade sandwich bread weekly.  So I  cut whatever bread was leftover and about to go bad into cubes and dried them out in the oven at a low temp. I have been doing this for a couple of months before I saved up enough. It is a great way to use that last third or fourth of your loaf (croutons are also a great use).

5 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 stick of butter
3 cups bread cubes
2 eggs
1 tsp dried sage
Garlic powder, to taste
1 tsp salt
Chicken broth (enough to moisten)

Saute celery and onion, seasoned with salt and pepper, with butter in a large pan until soft. In a large mixing bowl mix the veggies with the bread, eggs and spices. Add enough chicken broth to moisten. Pour into a greased baking pan and cover with aluminum foil. This can be done a day ahead and kept in the fridge until ready to  bake. Bake in 350 degree oven (covered) for 30 minutes, then uncovered for 15. This is delicious and classic, nothing fancy but still very good.

MASHED POTATOES 

 

Mashed potatoes don't really have a recipe in my family. My husband is in charge of making the potatoes, he introduced me to good mashed potatoes so he's in charge.

Growing up I always had mashed potatoes that were mashed with margarine and either skim milk, or potato water. These were fine, I knew no better and they may have been healthier but I never went back for more.

My husband's mashed potatoes are a once or twice a year treat. He mashes the potatoes with plenty of real butter an real cream. It may not be very heart health, but we don't have them often, and they are so good.

This post is getting long so I will continue this next time with my sweet potato and cranberry recipes. See ya then. Enjoy.

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