Best Chocolate Layered Dessert

All about good ingredients and the main ingredient is CHOCOLATE! This dessert can be put together with mixes but if you really want to knock your & family’s socks off use homemade cake, pudding and toffee candy. And by all means whip the heavy cream. Coffee, Kahlua or Bailey’s is poured over the cake when layered and all this melds together into an amazing delectable dessert.  A heavenly dessert idea is one of Melissa’s, my hairstylist, who not only does a fantastic hair color but has given me some wonderful food ideas … ethnic recipes usually, Turkey Alcatra, and then there are those like Jalapeño Poppers Dip. Melissa has a large extended family … some of her ideas have been passed along by other family members. I believe she said this was her aunt’s creation. Melissa is an experienced cook with a bit of perfectionism thrown in. Enjoy this perfect dessert for chocolate lovers. Thanks to Melissa & her aunt.

Choose one of your favorite Chocolate Cakes for baking or one of these, here. The whole cake need not be used for this dessert. For example, if you choose a 3 layered German Chocolate Cake you can save one layer for this dessert. I used one-half of Trisha’s Chocolate Pound Cake and recommend pound cake because of the texture. Cake with a lighter texture may not hold up to layering with high moisture ingredients.

Continue reading


Gazpacho with Feta Crema

 

This recipe was adapted from California Olive Ranch’s Classic Summer Gazpacho with Feta Crema, a whole different take on Gazpacho. Of course it includes olive oil from California Olive Ranch. Make no mistake their olive oil is competitive with the best in domestic and imported. I can count on its consistent good quality. No advertisement here just my experience. About the Gazpacho, it’s an interesting take and worth the effort.

I did change it up a bit with peeling the tomatoes and I do recommend a sweet red onion instead of the sometimes bitterness a shallot can produce. Give it a try and let me know what you feel about the results. Enjoy!

Here is my Family Loved Recipe of Gazpacho.

Continue reading


Chocolate Pound Cake

 

Just given a new dessert recipe to try! The main ingredient is a chocolate cake. Pretty much any chocolate cake as long as it’s tasty. I’ve posted many of my favorite chocolate cake recipes over the years but wanted to try something new just for fun. Chocolate pound cake seemed the perfect texture for the layered cake dessert recipe (coming soon). So I did a search and came up with Trisha Yearwood’s Chocolate Pound Cake. Since I know Trisha (ha) I just had to try it. I guess I should explain I really don’t know Trisha. I did run into her husband, Garth Brooks, at Reasor’s in Owasso (Oklahoma) back in the day. There was no fuss going on around him and I wouldn’t have noticed but he looks like my middle son (with a cowboy hat). I did a double take! And if you’ve heard the story of Trisha and Garth’s engagement, well, it’s all about Bakersfield, a place I know very well. Back to the cake, I had all the ingredients for her cake recipe and it had nearly a five star rating. A perfect choice for my layered dessert. Until then enjoy Trisha’s pound cake and some of my favorite chocolate cakes too.

 

Continue reading


Stuffed Poblanos

Changing up from the traditional stuffed bells to poblanos. Less bitter than green bells, full of flavor, especially when roasted, poblanos are a great choice for stuffed peppers. Use your own recipe and substitute roasted poblanos or my vegetarian stuffing (easy to make vegan). I have a meat stuffed bell here or another vegetarian version here … one is bound to strike your fancy.

Continue reading


Summer Vegetables with Pasta

Rustic pasta with vegetables, herbs and broken pieces of long ziti. Purely vegetarian with a light taste. Great to serve on a hot summer’s day. Enjoy the last of summer veggies with this simple satisfying dish.

Continue reading


Eggplant Rollup

Appetizer or dinner this eggplant treatment is not usual, and fun to do! Definitely Italian in flavor making it so delicious. Cheesy basil stuffed tender rolls of eggplant are so good. Add a plain red sauce or not. It’s Perfect!

Apparently I’m into eggplant. I have quite a few recipes with this ingredient. If you’d told me when I was younger this would be one of my favorite vegetables I’m not sure I would have agreed. Here are a few other eggplant recipes you might enjoy.

 

Roasted Eggplant Dip

Orzo with Eggplant

Eggplant Appetizer

Eggplant Parmesan

Ratatouille

Tangy Roasted Vegetables

Continue reading


Fig Chutney

Dinner tonight with wine of course! My little fig tree produces the best figs. It’s that time of year. So tonight I had Fig Chutney with mascarpone on toasted country bread. It was scrumptious! This is a versatile recipe. Not into all the spices just eliminate what you don’t like. Add lemon zest if you are into it Chopped apple can be added too. It’s hard to go wrong!

If you’re into figs you might like to try these recipes too, Fig Topping & Fig Bars

 

Continue reading


Small Batch Chow Chow

 

 

What a great recipe to make with those pintos! Start both recipes from scratch and they’ll be ready to serve together. What do you do when the garden begins to slow down? You throw a collections of vegetables together and make Chow Chow! I just didn’t have enough green tomatoes to follow my cousin Margaret Costa’s recipe. So I pulled together what I had in my garden to fill in. And because I wanted it today I changed the process a bit.

What you can do with Chow Chow is endless. Mix in with rice, add to deviled eggs or chicken salad, serve over meats, beans, black eyed peas, potatoes; or the way I like it …. over scrambled eggs. Just about anything!

Continue reading


Sandwich Filling for a Crowd

Original Recipe and My Revised Recipe

Looking back, so many of the prepared foods eaten when I was a child are no longer considered a healthy choice. The main ingredient of this sandwich filling is a processed meat you can’t seem to find any longer in the grocer’s deli. Grandma’s recipe did incorporate cooked chicken if you preferred but it was the original that I loved. For a special treat I do go the bologna and pork loaf but cut the recipe way back from the 6 loaves of bread, etc, to a 4 serving proportion … Just enough for a treat but not for a full on wedding reception. Now I have to say my Grandmother was well known for this recipe by her family & friends. And I feel pretty lucky to have found it written down by her niece many years ago. Problem is Grandma was a change up artist. What she had in the pantry might find its way into the mix. My Mother too had a way of changing her Mother-in-law’s recipes. Mom made it tuna. It can even go just eggs. Or how about turning this into a salad instead. It all can be done with this recipe. Have you ever heard, ‘no one can make it like Grandma?’ Need I say more!

Continue reading


Marinated Reds and Cucumbers

Easy salad goes perfectly with that New York Strip steak! At least that’s the way I had it years ago. It’s amazingly good and the prep is so quick and easy. If you’re into onions, cucumbers and tomatoes this is the salad for you.

 

Continue reading