LVA Cooking Club: sweets, not much else

Haven't had time to do much cooking.

Next week I'll have to assemble some food for a moderate size gathering. I'm bringing burrito fillings. I'll make some pork green chile stew, beef chile colorado, arroz blanco, arroz verde, charro beans, and some pinquito beans. A little bit of work in front of me.

I have managed to continue to take desserts into work.

The most recent is a chocolate "pave", which is a flourless chocolate cake, but not a heavy dense one. It's made like a chiffon. I've got a chocolate sauce to go with it.

I've made a couple of batches of Whoopie Pies. My first efforts. On the second batch, I brough some real Fluff -- I think it really helps. I got a Whoopie Pie cookbook for Christmas. I have only done Chocolate Cake with vanilla filling so far. The filling was good, but I'm thinking of changing up the recipe a little, using a little cream cheese. A critical tool: a disher to get a consistant size on the cakes. I started with a #50, I'll go down one step next.

Found a chewy chocolate cookie recipe I like. I did it with chocolate chips and with peanut butter chips. Both times, excellent.

I think cream cheese is dreamy w/ eggs.

I have had several people make me serious pea soups..

w/ ham bone and cubed ham

Jims was good but Molly's rivaled Pea-soup Andersons- high praise indeed

My secret to split pea soup: seasonings -- I use a lot. And a variety. Second, cream. Not a lot, but it really elevates it. Finally, liquid smoke. Since I don't have well smoked ham bones, liquid smoke gives that smoky flavor. I haven't made split pea in a while. Clam chowder I'll do very soon, maybe this weekend. My last batch was excellent. I think my best.

I have been thinking about buying a smoker for a long time - didn't know if I would get my $400.00 value out of it.
Then I discovered the Sidekick - It sits over the single burner on the side of a BBQ and it works very well for warm/hot smoking, roasting and steaming - but not for cold smoking. But for $75.00? Best cooking gadget I have purchased in years. My favourite thing so far is to soak whole bulbs of elephant garlic in red wine and then smoke them. Have also made chipotle, smoked Mahi Mahi and smoked pork so far.

Highly recommended

Tonyrob

Starbucks is making bank on mini cupcakes and red velvet whoopie pies/ they are bite sized or two bites if you are a lady..

Smoke flavor helps many things- my lungs and taste buds both like smoke