No Accounting for Taste

How weird is this?  Last night, we tried out a new chili recipe that involved beer and chocolate.  When we were talking to my mom later that night, she asked us how it was.  I said it was okay, but mostly all I could taste was the beer.  My husband looked at me funny and said, "Really?  I mostly tasted chocolate -- I could hardly tell there was beer in it at all!"

I had leftovers of it for lunch today, and I still can't really taste the chocolate.  It's mostly beer, a little tomato.  And I am not a beer fan.  Neither is my husband, so we can't just assume that my taste buds are accustomed to chocolate and his to beer.

It makes me wonder what else I taste differently than other people.  When someone agrees with me that a particular food is tasty, are we really tasting the same things?  Or does watermelon, say, taste one way to me and another way to you, but we both agree it's tasty?  Kind of flips my lid a little every time I realize that I experience the world in a completely unique way, as does everyone else.

Okay, enough Deep Thoughts.  Time to get back to my crocheting while the girls nap and my son does some jigsaw puzzles.  I'm working up a new set of embellishments that are tickling my fancy quite a bit :-D

Chocolate Chip Cookie Trifle

I made this for the dinner celebrating our new pastor's installation last Sunday, and I also made it a month or so ago for a shindig at my hubby's office. It's based on this recipe, but I've changed it a bit. Because it uses pre-made cookie dough and instant pudding, it's quick and easy.


Chocolate Chip Cookie Trifle

Ingredients:

1 (18 oz) package ready-to-bake chocolate chip cookie dough
2 cups milk
2 (3.4 oz) packages vanilla or chocolate instant pudding mix
1 (12 oz) container whipped topping -- thawed1/2 quart fresh raspberries
1 quart fresh strawberries -- sliced

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375. Cut cookie dough in half lengthwise and then in half lengthwise again, creating four long wedges. Cut each wedge into 4 logs, 2 1/2 inches long each, to create 16 logs. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for one minute, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Beat milk and pudding mix in large bowl until blended. Fold whipped topping into mixture. Crumble 4 cookies and sprinkle on the bottom of a 2-quart trifle bowl or other deep glass serving dish. Cover with 1/3 of pudding mixture. Add the raspberries over the pudding. Cover with half the remaining pudding mixture. Stand up 10 cookies, face side out, along the inside of the bowl. Add strawberries. Cover with remaining pudding. Crumble last two cookies over the top. garnish with sliced strawberries or raspberries, whatever strikes your fancy.

Makes 12 servings.

Not-so-skinny Dipping

Once in a while, I want to give a batch of cookies a touch of elegance. Dress them up a little, especially if I'm giving them as a gift. What do I do? Why, I dip them in chocolate, of course! They turn out looking seductively tasty... probably because they are! For example, I transformed these humble pistachio sugar cookies into ambrosia:


If you'd like to try this yourself, here's my recipe:

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 (1.55 oz) bars Hershey's chocolate -- broken in pieces
1 Tbsp shortening

Stir together over low heat in a small saucepan or double boiler. Stir continuously until melted. Cool for a few minutes, then dip desired items and place them on waxed paper to cool.

You don't have to stop with cookies, either -- I've dipped dried fruit and pretzels in this too.

Stir-Crazy Cake

Every Sunday, after our church service, the members of our congregation gather in the basement for "Fellowship," a time to visit and get to know one another. Every week, two families bring treats for Fellowship and are in charge of making the coffee, etc. (We Lutherans are quite devoted to our coffee, you know.) This week was our first time bringing treats, so yesterday, I made a really yummy bundt cake for it. Unfortunately, the cake didn't come out of the pan in one piece, and it wasn't remotely fixable with frosting or any other means. So I made a Stir-Crazy Cake to take instead.


This is probably the tenth time I've made a Stir-Crazy Cake in the past six years. I think it was the first cake I baked after I got married -- I remember my husband found the recipe online and said it looked so odd he wanted me to try it out. And odd it is, but it is also super yummy, and the quickest, easiest from-scratch cake I've ever made. So I thought I'd share the recipe, in case you'd like to try it too. It has a crispy topping, so it doesn't require frosting. And it makes very few dirty dishes, because you mix it up in the same pan you bake it in. So here's the recipe:

Stir-Crazy Cake

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup baking cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups cold coffee
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

Put flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, cocoa, soda, and salt into an ungreased 9" x 13" metal baking pan. Stir until combined. Form 3 wells in flour mixture. Pour oil into one well, vinegar in one, and vanilla in one. Pour cold coffee over all ingredients and stir with a spoon until well mixed. Do not beat. Combine 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over batter. Bake at 350 for 35 min.

If you're like me, you'll look at the batter and think, "This is way too liquidy to be cake batter. The cinnamon-sugar stuff on top is all sinking in -- it'll never form a crispy topping. It's a funny color, and it's got little bubbles in it. And there are no eggs! How can this be a cake?" But when you take it out of the oven, you will breathe in its rich, chocolatey aroma and hardly be able to wait for it to cool before you cut yourself a slice.