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

Corn Dip

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A friend of ours brought a great dip that Frosty now says is his favorite dip (I’m surprised at this because you can’t buy it at QT or Walmart), but we actually made it Sun night and our family that was here having dinner with us, loved it also.

1 can of whole style corn, drained

1 can of black beans, drained

1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped very fine

2 green onions chopped

8 cherry tomatoes chopped

2 avocado diced (right before serving the dip)

1 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese or Mexican style

1 cup Pace’s Picante sauce

Combine all ingredients except the tomatoes and the avocado, and toss to combine  and let sit in fridge about 2 hours before serving time. Right before serving, add the tomato and the avocado. Serve with chips of your choice.

Daily Thoughts

Frosty’s Big Surprise

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We have hit an all time low. Today after running errands, Frosty tells me he has a big surprise for me. Since it was around lunch time, I began to wonder if this was going to be the day he drove us down to Neiman’s for a special lunch ending with our favorite coconut cake that has always been one of the huge reasons we would drive down to North Park. But as we pulled into QT, I’m thinking that he will be filling the gas tank for our little trip across town, when he pulls past the gas pumps right up to the front door. I thought that maybe he was going in to get a drink so I wouldn’t get thirsty driving so far, but as he puts the car in park, he just looks at me and tells me that, “surprise, we are getting some of the best hot dogs and they are 2 for $2.12..what a deal. They have all the condiments you could want” he says, I just look at him and follow him into the store. We head to the hot dog counter where Frosty pulls out the buns from out of the warming tray. Is this gourmet or what? When I tell him that it’s not a real hot dog unless we have chile and that I don’t see any pot of chile. He points to a machine that has a lever which lets you pull it for chile  or cheese. You have got to be kidding me. I am topping a hot dog that has been warming for probably several hours with chile that comes out of a machine just like getting soft ice cream at Dairy Queen. I get enough napkins to cover my face for the walk back to the car. My big surprise was lunch at QT. It was at this moment that I gave thanks for our car windows being tinted and that you can’t really see in. The thought that friends might visit QT and see us sitting in our car eating hot dogs was just too much. It’s ok to do that at Sonic, but QT? It was not to long ago that he surprised me with a Walmart picnic. He buys Hawaiian rolls and gets chicken strips from their deli and sits in the car with his sandwich of chicken strips on the rolls. We do live an adventuresome life, Walmart parking lot picnics one week and QT picnics the next. Retirement just keeps getting better and better. Who knows what next week will hold? But if he pulls our car into Golden Corral Thanksgiving day, I will be calling a divorce attorney first thing Friday morn. It will be easy to find Frosty to serve him the papers. I know at the swell places where he hangs out now.

Daily Thoughts

Frosty & Noel’s Gingerbread House

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Ugly Christmas Sweaters
Ugly Christmas Sweaters

It is here….the week that we go from Peter and Penelope Pumpkin to Frosty & Noel. It is also this time of year that our adult children, bless their little hearts, cease to call us because they are afraid that if we don’t answer the phone, like when Wheel of Fortune is on, that they will have to listen to our voice mail in order to leave us a message. Both of our cell phones have this as our voice mail message, ” hi, this is Frosty (or Noel if it is my phone). I’m at the mall  and she’s baking cookies, when we are through we’ll give you call.” It just makes the Christmas season at our house. My phone, of course will say, “Frosty’s at the mall and I’m baking cookies, when we get through we will give you a call.”….

When we first married, I found a little pillow that had “Bah Hum Bug” stitched across it and I bought it to place on his side of the bed. But I have to admit, Frosty has come along way. Without me even asking now, he gets the boxes of Christmas décor out of the garage and brings them all in (all 27 boxes) and begins to set up the trees, then proceeds to put up the lights outside. Frosty has become Clark Griswald, I’m happy to say and it makes the season so much sweeter to have a hubby that doesn’t smirk every time I mention that I just need to make one more trip to Hobby Lobby. This year, he even suggested that we go early before the ugly sweaters get picked over and buy matching for our Christmas Card…is he a great Frosty or what? All this to say that the decorations are up, the candles are lit and the first of the family is coming over tonight to eat.

Last night, we met friends at a Greek Restaurant here in Frisco. It almost ended in us going shopping for a wig. We were sitting there having a great time with a platter of pita bread and hummus sitting there, when all of a sudden I felt this enormous amount of heat all down the back of my neck. Before I could turn around to see what was happening, I hear, “oompa” and this flash of fire is inches from my hair as the waiter has lit this platter of who knows what for the table of 4 sitting behind us. Apparently he doesn’t realize that in Dallas, you never get that close to ladies big Dallas hair. With the can of hair spray that is on my person to keep this Dallas big hair in place, my hair will go up in a flash. When I yelled, the waiter realized how close to my hair he was. W When the table on the other side of us ordered the platter of fire, before the guy lit up the sky and yelled “oompa” he remembered to turn around to check how close he was to me. We managed to finish our meal and leave before any more of my hair was singed. let’s just say that my hair stylist won’t need to cut the back of my hair now…the waiter did it for me

Chocolate · Desserts

Chocolate Creme Brulee

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Having just returned from Corpus where we go to see my mom, as usual, we stay with the friends who I have mentioned several times. They treat me like their daughter and Randy, well, Hal, who is 90 bends Randy’s ear about the oil field surveying business. Hal still goes to work everyday and Jane cooks non-stop. She is 80 and has so many of the best old cookbooks that I love to look through as we sit and talk in the evening. I copied several of the recipes that caught my eye. Frosty loves crème brulee and I love chocolate, so when I read this recipe, I couldn’t wait to come home and make it. Since we will be having pecan pie and piles of whipping cream piled on pumpkin pie this week, I think I had better hold off since this recipe has lots of heavy cream and 4 egg yolks. Do not want to spend our Thanksgiving in the hospital having our arteries unclogged.

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

1 teas vanilla or 1 vanilla bean

1 (4 oz) dark chocolate, chopped

4 egg yolks

t Tables sugar

4-6 Tables sugar for topping

Preheat oven to 300. Mix cream and vanilla together in a double boiler. Heat mixture for 10-15 min and stir in chocolate. Remove vanilla bean if that is what you used instead of extract. Whisk egg yolks and sugar together in a mixing bowl.. Slowly pour chocolate mixture into egg mixture, continuously stirring.

Place bowl over simmering water (which was under the chocolate mixture) until cream mix thickens and coats back of spoon. This takes about 6-8 min. Pour into 4 (4 oz) custard dishes. Place in a large baking pan and add enough water to come up halfway to the sides of the custard cups. Bake until custard is set, about 1 hour. Remove from water and cool. Cover and refrigerate; sprinkle 1 tables of sugar over top of each cup and with a brulee torch, caramelize the top before serving.

Desserts

Texas Sheet Pumpkin Cake

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The Pioneer Woman just posted a recipe that she made by altering the Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake. It sounds delish and since the Pioneer Woman says it is wonderful, it must be, because if you can’t believe the Pioneer Woman, who can you believe?

So in case you don’t take her daily email here it is….Many of you have ask if we just have desserts for Thanksgiving since I do seem to post more desserts than any thing else. We do have other things on the table, like, brown sugar coated brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes with sugary marshmallow topping, ham with brown sugar-pineapple sauce and strawberry-pretzel salad,

So see, I can cook something besides desserts,  As long as the recipe has sugar in it.

Pumpkin Sheet Cake

2 sticks butter

2 cups pumpkin puree (not the pumpkin pie filling)

3/4 cup boiling water

2 cups flour

1/4 teas salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

2 teas baking soda

2 teas vanilla

1/2 teas maple extract (opt)

Frosting

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 pound (about 3 1/2 cups) sifted powdered sugar

1 tables half and half or milk (might require a little more than this, add slowly)

Preheat oven to 350 Spray a sheet pan (jelly roll pan) with baking spray (such as Pam). Set aside

In a medium saucepan, melt 2 sticks of butter. Whisk in the pumpkin puree until it is totally blended. Whisk in boiling water until mixture is combined well. Set aside.

In a measuring pitcher, combine buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, vanilla, and maple extract (if using). Whisk together and set aside..

In large bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt. Pour in the pumpkin mixture and stir until halfway combined. Pour in the buttermilk mixture and stir until combined. Pour into the pan and smooth until mixture is evenly distributed. Bake for about 20 min or cake tests done. Remove and allow to cool.

Frosting:

Mix together the cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar until well combined. Add half and half as needed to all the frosting to be of spreading consistency. It should be somewhat thick but thin enough to spread over cake.

Cut into squares to serve. Keep leftovers in the fridge, as frosting will get to soft if left out.

Desserts

Luby’s Millionaire Pie

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  Yesterday at the craft show, a friend ask me if I ever saw the recipe for her favorite pie at Luby’s Cafeteria. I told her I would find it and send it to her. So here it is, Betty Jo, enjoy and save one of the pies just for yourself…..
  • 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
  • 1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
  • 2 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crusts
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Directions

  1. Blend together the cream cheese and condensed milk; gently fold in the whipped topping.
  2. Stir in the crushed pineapple and pecans; pour into pie crusts and refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours.
Breads · Breakfast · Desserts

Streusel Pumpkin Loaf

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Just finished participating in a craft show the last 2 days and sold cakes and casseroles. We sold out and one of the best sellers was this streusel pumpkin loaf. I have learned to always keep samples out for the customers and that is a guarantee of selling your baked goods. As soon as I put the sample out, the cakes sold themselves. It was such a simple cake to make and proved to be delicious. Tried to take a picture but my dropbox is full and I don’t have a clue how to delete some of the pics so I can add others to it to post on here. Fortunately, I bake better than I compute….

Mix up your favorite pumpkin bread according to directions on box. I used the little paper loaf pans that I purchased at Home Goods. I did rub a little butter on the bottom of the paper pans, just in case. I don’t think you need to do this, but just wanted to be sure they didn’t stick when the ladies got them home.

Streusel Topping

1 cup flour

1/2 cup cold butter, cut into slices

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

2 teas cinnamon

Using a pastry blender, blend the cold butter with the flour, sugar and cinnamon. As soon as it resembles coarse crumbs, dividing the crumbs evenly between the amount of pans you are using, sprinkle over the pumpkin batter. Bake according to directions on your box of pumpkin bread or cake. It adds a crunchy delicious buttery topping to any pumpkin or spice cake. I drizzled a little cream cheese frosting over the cakes as soon as they were cool….sold them all!

appetizers

Cheese Bites

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Taken from 2006 Southern Living Magazine these make great party appetizers for your next holiday party!

4 oz cream cheese (1/2 package 8 oz, duh, I guess you would have known that)

1 (16.3 oz)_ can refrigerated flaky buttermilk biscuits

1/2 cup jalapeno pepper jelly*(see below)

Cut cream cheese into 24 pieces and let soften.

Separate each biscuit into thirds, making 3 rounds from each biscuit. (see below) Press biscuit rounds into bottom and up sides of 24 mini-muffin cups. Spoon about 1 teas pepper jelly into center of each biscuit cup; top each with 1 cream cheese cube.

Bake in preheated 425 oven for 8 to 10 min or until golden brown. Let stand 10 min before serving.

*1/2 cup mango chutney may be substituted

Makes 24 appetizer bites.

Uncategorized

Back To Normal

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We are alone for the first time in 5 days. It was time to send Jodi and Noah home to Eric, Jaden and Caleb.  Since we knew she was leaving today, we held off cooking the collard greens and deviled eggs for dinner, after loading her up with triple berry shake for breakfast. We figured that she would never again see the people who sat by her on the plane, so we decided to save ourselves and serve  some of her favorite dishes right before she flew home.

Randy has spent the afternoon in the garage (while it is 40 degrees outside) shampooing some of our rugs that had just a tiny bit of smashed M&M’s, Honey Nut Cherrios, dried apple juice and stains from the pitcher of tea that a set of little sweet hands pulled off the counter. We have dusted today, found a stuffed Nemo under the bed, one little sock and put all the Fall décor back to where it was before Noah visited. We have to admit that we were getting use to the glass bowls void of any candles, but filled with water from Noah thinking that it was fun to pour water in them. We miss finding candy between the couch cushions, as it gave us snacks without even having to leave the couch. Hearing that cute little sound at 5 a.m. really got us up and running for the day.

Just like labor pains, we tend to forget all the above mentioned things as soon as they walk onto the plane, already wanting them to turn around and come back. We would gladly give up our vacation monies to  fund Noah’s carousel addiction.  Times like these make us wish so much that we could be around all of our grandchildren all the time, not just a few times a year. But….we will make sure the rugs are covered by plastic and the furniture is wrapped in bubble wrap before the next set of them come for a visit…