Oh Chocolate, Hallowed Be Thy Name

Chocolate!  It’s been a while since we had something chocolaty.  What can you make with chocolate that doesn’t involve baking?  Cookies?  Brownies?  Cake?  Nope, they all require turning on the oven, which is something I’d rather not do since I don’t have central air nor do I have an air conditioner in the kitchen.  After much thought, it was a tossup between fudgesicles and mousse.  Well, since I don’t have popsicle molds, I opted for mousse.  Not just regular mousse, though, rocky road mousse.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 pint heavy cream
14 oz. good dark chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 pinch salt
¾ cups almonds
¾ cups mini marshmallows

The first thing we need to do is melt the chocolate so that it can be cooling.  In order to do that, we have to chop it. 

That’s a lot of chocolate!  Now for the melting.  I like to use a double boiler for this quantity or chocolate, so move it to a glass bowl and sprinkle it with just a small pinch of salt.  Just put an inch or so of water in the bottom of a saucepan and place the bowl over the top of it.  Bring the water just barely to a simmer. 

 

Now just keep stirring.  Eventually, all of the chocolate will melt into a smooth, silky, pile of decadent deliciousness. 

Seriously, is there anything more beautiful than melted chocolate?  Ok, enough drooling.  So when it looks like this, remove the bowl from the heat and set it aside to cool.  It’ll probably take 30 minutes or so.  Just stir it every 10 minutes.  You’re looking for it to come back down to almost room temperature.  And in the meantime, you can work on chopping.  Chop the almonds pretty coarsely.  You don’t want whole almonds, but you don’t want crumbs either.  I used dry roasted, salted almonds in mine, I like the salt and chocolate thing, but you can use any variety you want.

After the almonds, come the marshmallows.  Sure you can leave them whole, but I wanted them smaller so I cut them all basically in half-ish. 

I also happened to have some meringues on hand. 

Thinking they might give a different texture but similar flavor to the marshmallows, I chopped up a few of them and substituted them for half of the marshmallows.  In the end, I couldn’t decide which I liked better, but since most people (me included) don’t usually have meringues sitting around, marshmallows are just fine. 

When the chocolate is cool, whip up the cream with a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla.  I just bought some vanilla bean paste and wanted to try it out, but either that or vanilla extract will be just fine. 

When you have stiff peaks, or rather, the cream has stiff peaks, throw a large dollop on top of the chocolate and whisk it in. 

Continue to add the cream in large dollops (4 or 5 parts), but from here on out, you’ll want to fold, being more careful with each addition.  Folding is easy.  Just press your spatula down in the center of the mixture,

then pull it toward you, scraping along the bottom and side of the bowl and fold it over the top.  Continue repeating those steps, turning the bowl with each fold.  Eventually you’ll have a nice, even mixture. 

Throw in the almonds and marshmallows (an meringues in my case) and fold them in carefully. 

 

I decided to pipe the mousse artfully into the dish, but I don’t have a piping bag yet, so I used a ziplock bag.  I just cut off the end, and squeezed it in a nice spiral pattern, into the dish. 

What I ended up with was a nice spiral pile of brown lumpy stuff that would have been more appropriately found on the back lawn.  Yeah, it was that bad.  The only thing missing was the steam.  So, although I had a good laugh, don’t follow my example.  Just dollop or something.  Or serve it in a champagne flute.  Luckily I was able to make mine look edible... tasty even. 

Even like this, though, its appearance doesn’t do it justice.  It is, without doubt, the most amazing chocolate mousse I’ve ever eaten.  And I’ve had way more chocolate mousse in my day than I will ever admit to. 

Update on Friday, August 5, 2011 at 3:37PM by Taneasha

If you refrigerate your mousse, like I did, it needs to come back to room temperature before being served.  When you first pull it out of the fridge, it will be almost crumbly, rather than smooth and creamy.  Give at least an hour, two if you have it, to warm up a little, and it will be perfect again. 

Pasta: Salad the Sequel

Yeah, I know, I made a salad last week.  But really, watermelon salad and pasta salad can hardly be considered part of the same category.  Besides, during these hot summer months, what sounds better than some kind of cool salad?  They’re simple, refreshing, and delicious. 

There are a million and one ways to make a pasta salad.  Here’s what you’ll need for the one I threw together today:

1 pound pasta (uncooked)
¼ pound cheese
1 bell pepper
1 cup grape tomatoes
¾ - 1 pound bacon (uncooked)
¾ cups mayo
¼ cup mustard
3 Tablespoons vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 Tablespoon sugar
¼ cup chives

Oops.  Somehow I forgot to include bacon in my picture.

In spite of my repeated trips to Home Goods, Target, and Kohl’s, and my many deliveries from Amazon, I still haven’t managed to procure a sheet pan.  Yes, I really did get rid of everything when I moved.  So although the real thing is a gazillion times better, if you happen to be in a predicament like me, or it’s just too hot to turn on the oven (I refuse to go back to cooking bacon on the stove) go ahead and use the precooked stuff.  Just make sure to crisp it up in the microwave first. 

The first thing we need to do is get the dressing made and out of the way.  In a small bowl combine the mayo, mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar. 

Chop your chives.

Then throw them into the bowl, whisk everything together and pop it into the fridge. 

Cook your pasta according to the package directions, then drain it and rinse with cold water. 

While the pasta is cooking, feel free to work on your chopping.  Just don’t forget to stir from time to time.

Any color bell pepper will be fine.  I chose green because they looked the best.  Dice it up into fairly small pieces.  If you cut strips and line them up, it makes the process quick and easy. 

Halve your tomatoes, or quarter them if they’re really big.  If you can get your hands on a variety of different colors of the little guys, they’re fun and fabulous in something like this.  (Whoa!  That was a little too Rachael Ray like for my comfort.)

I used an extra sharp cheddar.  I love the texture of cheddar, and the tang of one that’s been really aged… Yum! 

Dice it up, followed by the bacon and throw them all in a bowl with your (now cold) pasta. 

Pour on your dressing and stir gently until everything is evenly distributed and coated. 

I like to just load up a bowl and eat it as a meal, but it’s also a fabulous side to whatever you’re grilling this weekend. 

Do you have a favorite pasta salad?