Mostly for Chocolate Lovers

I promised 2 things last week: Chocolate and Paula Deen recipes. Well that is sort of true. Two of the 3 recipes came from one of Paula's shows when she had a guest. There is no butter in either recipe and the chocolate is actually cocoa powder. The dessert I had planned was scrapped after I came across something fun and interesting in the food section of the Chicago Tribune.

Roasted Beet Salad with Cocoa Vinaigrette
Chocolate Spiced Pork Chop
Spiced Mousse Minis

I've spoken before of my preference to roasting vegetables. Beets roast extremely well brushed with oil and salt/pepper and wrapped in foil. They were cooled and sliced. They top a mix of spring greens and are joined by orange segments, goat cheese, red onion and toasted pecans. The vinaigrette is made of red wine vinegar, cocoa powder, sugar, salt and pepper and EVOO. A nice dressing for the colorful salad. Will do this one again.

The bone in chop is rubbed with a mixture of Italian seasoning, onion powder, cocoa powder, garlic powder, paprika, red pepper flakes, cumin and salt/pepper. Let rest for 10 minutes and sear 3 minutes per side and finish in the oven; about another 3 minutes depending on the thickness of the chop. Nice crust and the cooking time left the chop moist and full of flavor. Will try this rub on other meat as well.

The original dessert I planned was Chai Spiced S'mores, but the mousse minis caught my eye and turned out to be a fun bite sized way to end the meal. The mousse is made up of cream cheese, pumpkin pie spice, sugar, coconut milk and a bit of heavy cream. There were 4 different minis, but the same mousse is used in each. I chose the chocolate and strawberry ones. There were also banana cream and Pina Colada options. The fun part of the mini is that they are prepared and served in 2 ounce shot glasses. The chocolate one started with crushed chocolate wafers, the mousse, more cookie and a tablespoon hot fudge sauce. The second one was crushed shortbread cookies and crushed strawberries. I had no shot glasses and all I could find at Jewel were blue plastic ones. Probably would have looked better in clear glasses, but the color didn't detract from the yummy concoctions. I could see this on a build your own dessert buffet.

All in all a great meal on Saturday. Since I plan to watch the hockey game, dinner for Sunday was something I could prepare ahead of time and cook at the last minute.

Healthy Steak Tacos

Jillian Michaels is one of the trainers on 'Biggest Loser's'. Have never watched an entire program, but have read some about Jillian. Her philosophy on food is "If it didn't grow out of the ground or did not have a mother, don't eat it". This preparation is the first time I have worked with flank steak that it didn't come out like an old shoe. The meat is rubbed with a paste of chipotle and oil and grilled 5 minutes per side and then rested for another 5 minutes. I use a stove top grill pan. The meat sliced beautifully and was very tender. A bit spicy however. Next time I might cut back on the chipotle. The salsa was grilled pineapple, cut up, diced red onion and red pepper, fresh cilantro and red wine vinegar. Love grilled fruit (peaches and plums are my favorites) This was my first experience with fresh pineapple. A great addition to the other ingredients of the salsa. I have enough left over for lunches most of the week. Will see how it holds up.

I hope you try some of these and next week I'm looking at braising. Perhaps lamb shanks. Will see what I find. Have a good week and THINK SPRING!