Author: Chocolate Castles

Welcome to Chocolate Castles, a blog about food, family and stories that hopefully will bring a smile to your heart. Thanks for reading chocolate castles and may the recipes and stories help bring your family and friends a little closer around the table! Remember that Princess On The Porch is still available on Amazon! Makes a great gift for anyone who enjoys being in the kitchen and needs a little laughter in their lives.
appetizers · Holiday Fare · Vegetables

Stuffed Red Peppers (Vegetarian Recipe by Melissa Southam)

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What a great recipe to serve at a luncheon (especially at Christmas because of the gorgeous colors) alongside any type of meat, or even combined with a couple of different salads for a beautiful plate of salads. Taken from Frisco Style Magazine, this one caught my eye.

2 red bell peppers

olive oil

7 oz feta cheese (I will probably use the herb & garlic feta crumbles for extra flavor)

20 cherry or grape tomatoes

2 Tables pesto

2 tables water

ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375. Halve the peppers, cutting right through the stalk. Scoop the seeds out of the cores of the peppers. Brush an oven dish with oil and place the peppers on it. Dice the feta cheese and add it to a bowl with the halved cherry tomatoes. Mix the pesto with the water before adding it and the ground black pepper to the bowl. Stir the mixture before spooning it into the pepper halves. Bake the peppers in the oven for about 15 to 18 minutes or until they bubble and are heated thoroughly.

2015-08-25 12.45.35

Desserts · Fruit · Holiday Fare

French Apple Creme Pie

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Taken again from the Gooseberry Recipes, a great pie for the cooler days that will soon be here. Surely, cooler days are coming, right?

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2 unbaked pie shells

Apple Filling:

3/4 cup sugar

2 Tables flour

1/2 teas cinnamon

1/2 teas nutmeg

1 Tables lemon zest, grated

5 cups Granny Smith applies, peeled and sliced

4 tables butter

Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon zest in a large bowl. Add apples and stir to coat. Turn into one of the pie shells and dot with slices of the butter.  Top the pie with the remaining pie crust and cut a 2″ slit in the center of the crust for the air to escape while pie bakes.e ( usually sprinkle a little sugar over the pie crust before putting it in the oven.)

Bake for 10 minutes at 425 and then 30-35 minutes at 375. While the pie is baking, cook the crème sauce

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup sugar

1 tables lemon juice

3 oz package of cream cheese

1/2 cup sour cream

In a saucepan, combine eggs, sugar and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add cream cheese and sour cram. Take off heat and stir until well combined. Pour over slices of the apple pie when serving.

Desserts

Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie

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I just can’t help myself. When I know that Fall is almost here, I start to pull out pumpkin recipes. Today, I even pulled out an orange shirt in honor of the first cool day being just around the corner (probably 40 to 60 days, but we will take it when we can get it). Orange shirt…orange pumpkins! Randy knows what this means. That the time is very near when he will be bringing in the boxes of Fall decorations from the garage. He is so excited! I told him that this year, I will find him a pumpkin t-shirt to get him really in the festive mood for our week of bringing all the pumpkins out. Does life really get any more joyous?

1 egg yolk

1 extra large graham cracker pie crust

2 (8 oz) packages of cream cheese, softened

1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (your preference, I use 3/4, does this really surprise anyone?)

2 eggs, room temperature

15 oz can of pumpkin (not the pumpkin pie filling but just plain pumpkin)

1 1/2 teas cinnamon

1/2 teas ginger

1/4 teas cloves

Garnish: whipped cream and toasted pecan sprinkled over the top, if desired

Beat the egg yolk and brush on the pie crust. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 5 minutes.

Set crust aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar.. Add the pumpkin and remaining spices and mix until throughly blended. Pour into pie crust and bake at 350 for 40 to 45 minutes or until set.

Cool and refrigerate several hours or overnight (covered after the first couple of hours of cooling)

Top with whipped cream and crushed pecans

Beef · Meats · Soups

Italian Tortellini Soup

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

This is one of the recipes that I “stole” from Dee’s house, from a Gooseberry Cookbook that she had out. What a great soup and a very easy soup to have on hand during the fall!

1 lb mild Italian sausage, casing removed

1 cup onion, chopped

2 large cloves of garlic, chopped

6 cups beef stock

1 (16 oz) can tomatoes, drained and chopped

8 oz can of tomato sauce

1 large zucchini, sliced

1 large carrot, sliced

1 medium green bell pepper, diced

1/2 cup dry red wine

1 teas dried basil leaves * (see below)

2 teas oregano

8 oz cheese tortellini

Parmesan cheese

Brown sausage and remove from skillet. Drain drippings. Add onion and garlic and saute about 5 minutes. Combine the meat, onion and garlic, beef stock, tomatoes, tomato sauce, zucchini, carrot, green pepper, wine and spices in  a large pot. Simmer about 30 minutes or until veggies are tender. Add tortellini. Cook until tender. Serve with the Parmesan cheese and a loaf of hot garlic bread.

Salads

Three Sisters Salad

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During our vacation in California these past 4 weeks, I had time to go through a friends stack of cooking magazines (which is one of my favorite things to do) and ended up taking a armload of them to make copies! So I came home with lots of new recipes that are on my “to make” lists. Thanks Dee for all the new recipes! This one came in a book from Southern Living: New Fall Recipes

1 (2 lb) butternut squash (about 2 cups chopped, which I now see at Trader Joe’s and other grocery stores already cubed in a bag)

2 tables olive oil

1 (15.5 oz) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups fresh corn kernels

1/3 small red onion, chopped

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

3 cups loosely packed arugula

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Preheat oven to 400. Peel and seed butternut squash and cut into 3/4″ cubes. Toss squash with olive oil to coat. Place in a single layer in a lightly greased aluminum foil-lined jelly roll pan. Bake 20 minutes or until squash is just tender and begins to brown. Do not overcook, stirring once after 10 minutes. Cool completely after baking 20 minutes, total.

Toss together cannellini beans and next 3 ingredients with squash in a large bowl. Add the Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing and cover and chill about 2-4 hours. Toss with arugula just before serving.

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Whish together 2 tables balsamic vinegar, 1 large shallot, minced. Add 1 teas minced garlic, 1/2 Tables light brown sugar, 1/4 teas sea salt and 1/4 teas seasoned pepper. Gradually add 1/4 cup canola or olive oil in a slow steady stream. Whisking until well blended. This can be made a day ahead and allowed to stand, covered in fridge.

Daily Thoughts

Vacation Blues & Bloating

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We just returned last night from a month of being in California and Arizona. What a wonderful time we had…but we are back to reality of grocery shopping, washing clothes and going through piles of mail. As we drove through Arizona and New Mexico, we had lots of time to reflect on this past year and a half of living back in Texas and the things that we love about Texas and what we miss about living in California. Of course, we are so thankful to be living near some of our family and precious friends that we missed while living in California. We were excited to come back to Whataburger, Pappadeux and Paciugo! Our home church of Prestonwood has a choir that is makes me feel like I am standing in Heaven and hearing the angels sing. It is nice to be familiar with the area and not have to wonder if we are on the right street for the Driver’s Liscense Dept.

But we were just as excited to drive up to different friends homes out in California, where we enjoyed so many evenings of laughter and fellowship and food, food, food! It was such a blessing to go back to our Sunday School class there in Pasadena and see the people that we love so much and enjoy worshiping together with them. Even after a year and a half, they make us feel like we are still a part of their family. That was a highlight of our trip.

We ate our way through California, Arizona and New Mexico. Of course, we had already sent our list of favorite places that we wanted to go back to while in CA, and everyone there was sweet enough to be sure that we visited each and every place we had listed. Randy told me that if they didn’t want to go to all those places, they should not have ask where we wanted to go while out there. Isn’t he just so precious! So off to New Moon & Panda Inn (the original) for Chinese, Porto’s for the best desserts in Glendale, Guadalupes for Mexican food and Mama Patrillos for one of my favorite salads that is only available during the summer months with awesome pizza and spaghetti.  This time I was sure to buy some of their salad dressing to bring home so I could make my own. It is so interesting that when we moved back to Texas, we both couldn’t wait to get back to Tex-Mex food but after we got here, we both realized that we had really begun to like the Mexican food better at Guadalupes. Their sauce was just so good that is poured over all the enchiladas and then sprinkled with cheese and placed into the oven to melt. It oozes into the rice and beans and just creates this masterpiece of Mexican flavor that we haven’t found here. Isn’t it weird that the slogan, “distance makes the heart grow fonder” is so true. When we were out there, I couldn’t wait to get back here to go to Pappadeux and when I am here, I can’t wait to go back to Guadalupes and New Moon. Because of the extreme heat this summer back here in Texas, we took our time coming home. Some friends offered their home while they were gone to their cabin in the Segoia National Forest. So that is exactly what we did. We “house sat” for them for a week. The weather in California that week was just gorgeous so we would sit out on the patio and have our quiet time, our breakfast and even dinner, all the while teasing our family and friends back in Texas with pictures of us being able to sit outside in August, while they were melting here and not venturing outside until after dark, to try to escape the heat.

We were paid back the minute we arrived to see our kids in Phoenix. We were met with a monsoon, our first night there and then the sweltering heat wave of record breaking heat for the next few days. I won’t ever tease about being “so cold sitting out having dinner that I had to go put on a sweater” EVER EVER!!!! We simply melted. I thought for sure that some of the new found pounds that had poured on during our eating tour of California would have melted off, but NO!!!! this morning, when I got on the scales, I had gained weight this last month. Doesn’t it just seem that driving should burn calories? Or having to hold going to the bathroom, when you didn’t stop at the rest stop and have to go another 120 miles before you see any type of road side rest stop out in the desert? I am telling myself that it is the humidity that is making me fat. Out in CA and AZ, where it was so dry that I had to pour coconut oil over my face just to put my make up on, I could easily zip my new capris.

I already texted our friends who we sit by in church every Sunday that they might need to sit in front or behind us as we will need a little more room on the pew this week. I guess that all of our “oh, I just have to go to Panda Inn one more time and go get a Tiramisu from Portos to snack on in the car” caught up with me. All the restaruants which we have found on previous trips in towns that we drive through and “just had to go back to”…the pounds just kept adding up after each stop. These great little cookies from Paradise Bakery in Phoenix….well, how can cookies so small have so many calories? Where do they put the calories when the cookie is that small? That is a Google question I guess for this evening when I am caught up with all the laundry and am having some of the chocolate that my daughter-in-law sent me from Ethel M in Vegas.

All this to say, that after going back and reading this post, it appears that our lives certainly center around food and special places where we love to gather around the table with friends while sharing some amazing food. Our home in California had an artist that had painted this across the end wall of the kitchen. “Alls Well That Ends With a Great Meal”

That is the best way to describe our lives, no matter the town!

Uncategorized

Apple Cake

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We are hangin (trying to sound like a true valley girl) out in California waiting for cooler weather to arrive in Texas before going back. Randy is going ahead and buying our burial plots here as he doesn’t think that will ever happen. Anyhow, going thrierough a friends stack of cookbooks I just found this and am now craving apple cake. See what you think.
Cake
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
2 eggs,room temp
1 teas vanilla
1 teas salt
1 teas,baking soda
2 teas baking powder
2 1/2 cups flour
3 cups apples,chopped
Topping
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 teas cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts
Vanilla Sauce
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tables flour
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup butter
2 teas vanilla
For cake: beat oil,sugar,eggs and vanilla together. Blend in dry ingredients. Stir in apples
Press into a lightly oiled 13×9 pan.
For topping:
Combine all ingredients and sprinkle over cake. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes depending on your oven. For vanilla sauce:
blend sugar and flour together in a saucepan. Whisk in whipping cream. Add butter and cook over medium heat, whisking often, until thickened. Add vanilla and stir. Serve cake warm with vanilla sauce.

Beef · Chicken

Chimichurri Sauce

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We are at some of our precious friends home for a couple of days out here in California. Last night they treated us to amazing grilled steaks with this awesome sauce. Dee is kind enough to share recipes with me and when she showed me this recipe, I knew that I would be making this when we got back to Texas. Tonight they are grilling chicken and once again topping it with this sauce. I could eat it poured over cheese or even baked potatoes. She got the recipe from Mary S which we also met on one of the Big Bear trips and is also such a good cook. So thank you Dee and Mary!

1 bunch of Italiian flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

5 sprigs of cilantro

1 small red onion, minced

2-6 cloves minced garlic (Dee used about 8 small cloves)

1 teas oregano (fresh)

1/2 to 1 teas crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1 1/2 cups olive oil (evoo)

1 teas salt

1/2 teas black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a Cuisinart and pulse a few times until ingredients are smooth, but not pureed. We are having the left over sauce tonight on the chicken. Put sauce in a plastic or glass container and refrigerate. It lasts for up to a month.

Makes 2 1/2 cups

Uncategorized

Orange Pound Cake (taken from Barefoot Contessa)

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1/2 pound unsalted butter at room temp

2 1/2 cups sugar,divided

4 extra large eggs at room temperature

1/3 cup grated orange zest (about 6 oranges)

3 cups flour

1/2 teas baking powder

1/2 teas baking soda

1 teas kosher salt

3/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice,divided

3/4 cup buttermilk at room temperature

1 teas vanilla

Glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons orange juice ( freshly squeezed if possible)

Heat the oven to 350°. Grease and flour to 8.5 x 4 and I have my 2 1/2 inch loaf pans. Line the bottoms with parchment paper. Cream the butter and 2 cups of the granulated sugar in the bowl of electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for about five minutes or until light and fluffy. With the mixer on medium beat in the eggs one at a time and the orange zest.

In a large bowl sift together the flour,baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a different bowl combine 1/4 cup of the orange juice,buttermilk and vanilla. Add the flour and buttermilkmixtures alternately to the batter, beginning and ending with flour. Divide the batter evenly between the pans,smooth the tops and bake for about 45_55 min or until cake tests done.

When the cakes bake, cook the remaining 1/2 cup of granulated sugar with the remaining 1/2 cup orange juice and a small saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves. When the cakes are done, let them cool for 10 minutes. Take them out of the pans and place them on a baking rack set over a tray. Spoon the orange syrup over the cakes and allow the cakes to cool completely . To glaze combined the powdered sugar and orange juice and a bowl mixing with a wire whisk until smooth . Add a few more drops of juice if necessary to make it pour more easily. Poor over-the-top of cakes  and allow the cakes to dry; wrap well and store in the refrigerator.

Daily Thoughts

California Cuisine & Table Talk

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We are visiting friends here in California, where we lived for 3 years before moving to Texas. We stay with several different couples, not wanting to ruin out our welcome (which we probably did a long time ago, but they are way to nice to say anything)

The memories that are made here seem to radiate around meals. They say that the South is known for fellowship around the table, but the South has nothing on the friends who have taken us in here and treat us as one of the family. The meals that people serve to us are exceptional and always filled with great conversations. While at Bonnie and Arnie’s house, each meal usually consist of Arnie ending the meal with one of his thought provoking questions. Today, we ended up our lunch time with this question, “if you were being rescued from a desert island and they told you that you could have anything that you wanted to eat, what would that be?” I didn’t have to think too long on this one. Of course Randy answered with “Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, green beans and chocolate cream pie with whipped cream.” Bonnie said, bacon wrapped filet mignon from The Derby. My answer wasn’t so simple. Depending on the mood I was in when I was rescued would dictate what I would want. But some of my favorite foods are grilled steak, hamburgers, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken fried steak, cornbread dressing with turkey gravy and Houston’s Key Lime Pie. So there you have it, my favorite meal would probably be a progressive supper. They could just take me from restaurant to restaurant until I was able to sample each of my favorite foods, then collapse into a Lazy Boy recliner and watch the cooking channel, drooling over the recipes that I will be dying to get up and bake as soon as I have regained my strength from being shipwrecked on the island.. We have been preparing to go to the California Philharmonic Pops concert tonight with some friends. We had all decided that to save some money, instead of buying the dinners that they sell at the concert, we would bring in our own picnic dinner. The food there would cost about $15.00/person, so our precious hubbies decided that we could certainly eat cheaper than that if we just brought in our own. So off to Trader Joe’s for our cheese, crackers and meat. Then off to Porto’s for  a variety of desserts. Oh and of course, we decided that we needed a cute little table from the Crate & Barrel that Randy told Arnie about. We had bought one while living here for all the Pasadena pops concerts and the Rose Bowl 4th of July fireworks evenings. So off they go to Crate & Barrel to buy them one. They have gone up in price just a little from 2 years ago. We have totaled up what we have spent on the food and picnic items for this evening. We would have saved money had we bought the dinners that are available to purchase at the concert. But, the memories of collecting all our favorite snack foods and going downtown Pasadena to pick up the new table and Barbara standing in line at Porto’s, seriously, isn’t this what memories are made of?

Last evening we were at dinner with two precious couples here celebrating their 50th wedding anniversaries. What a grand evening we had. I felt like I was having dinner in Europe, as the dinner lasted from 7:30 to 11:30. What a memory we will be taking back to Texas. The laughter, the conversations that ranged from politics, family, church, and old memories of times past when all of us had been up at Big Bear made the entire evening a great time.

That is what is so great about friendship. As we age and look back, we see that our fondest memories are not what we have bought or obtained with money, but the experiences and friendships that God has blessed our lives. It’s true, most memories are centered around food, and the laughter, the conversations and the love that flows from the times together. It makes having to go buy new clothes a size larger by the time we leave here, all worth while.