Chocolate-Mint Creams--Easy Sunday Dessert

Last week, while cleaning my food pantry, I found in different boxes several pieces of leftover, quality chocolate, mostly Belgian. There were pieces of dark bitter and milk chocolate and a little bit of white chocolate. It turned out I had quite a lot, almost half a pound of chocolate--perfect amount for chocolate-mint cream that I always wanted to try.

I imagined that this dessert would be delicious, but I was even more sure that it would be pretty caloric and rather irresistible. I decided to make it over the weekend when my son had his friends over, so the dessert did not last for too long.

The Italian recipe I had for this dessert calls for bitter sweet chocolate. But since I am a lover of milk chocolate only, this leftover mixture worked better for me. I just cut the amount of sugar used in the recipe. Also, at my son's request, I added a little bit of mint extract to make it more aromatic. It is probably one of the easiest chocolate treats that can make a wonderful last minute weekend desert.



Chocolate-Mint Creams
(Makes 6 portions)

Ingredients:
1/2 pound of dark bitter chocolate chopped into small pieces,
1 cup of half-and-half,
3 tbsp sugar (add only 1 tbsp if you use milk chocolate),
3 egg yolks,
1 tsp peppermint extract,
1/2 whipped cream for decoration

Preparation:
1. Heat the half-and-half in a medium pot until it almost boils. Take it from the heat and add chopped chocolate. Mix well until the chocolate melts completely.
2. In a medium bowl beat yolks and sugar until fluffy. Add mint extract and beat again.
3. Slowly add half of the chocolate to the eggs and mix. Pour the egg mixture to the remaining chocolate in the pot. Return to the heat and simmer gently for about 3 minutes.



4. Pour the chocolate to the small serving bowl and chill for 4 hours. Serve cold with whipped cream.

Very Light Napa Cabbage Salad

Today a very light and easy salad.

I used to buy Napa (also called Chinese) cabbage very often and made many salads with it. However, somehow drawn to different types of lettuce available those days I forgot about Napa cabbage for a while.

I made this salad this winter and tested it on my vegetarian friends over Christmas. They enthusiastically approved this recipe for sharing. Yesterday, I served it again and a young friend asked me for the recipe.

This salad has some exotic flavors thanks to mango and jicama. Both are those days widely available in all grocery stores. Jicama, which has a very delicate taste, gives mostly crunchiness and mango brings about the sweet taste to the salad.

This salad can be served alone but it goes even better with all kinds of meats, especially grilled.



Napa Cabbage Salad

Ingredients:
1 medium Napa cabbage (about 2 pounds),
1 small jicama peeled and sliced julienne,
2 mangoes peeled,
1/2 red onion sliced,
2 tbsp roasted pumpkin seeds,

For the dressing:
Juice from 2 limes,
2 tbsp running honey,
1 tbsp Sherry vinegar,
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Cut the cabbage in half and slice thinly. Place it in a medium bowl.
2. Add sliced onion and jicama.
3. Cut out large slices of mango avoiding the hard parts around the seed and slice them more thinly. Add to the cabbage.



4. To make a dressing mix, in a small bowl mix lime juice, honey, vinegar, olive oil, and add a bit of salt and pepper.
5. Pour the dressing over the cabbage. Toss gently and let it infuse for 10 minutes.
6. Sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and serve.

Upside Down Apple Cake

This cake is a prefect dessert for today's weather as it tastes best when it is warm. And it is also very easy to make. It is neither a typical tart Tatin nor a true upside down cake. It is rather a combination of both. The crust of this cake is soft like in upside down cakes but it is much thinner, more like in tart Tatin, and a little bit similar to muffins in texture.

My son, who is a lover of all simple apple cakes, praised it very much and had half of it before it cooled down. You can serve it with a dollop of crême fraîche, sour cream , or whipped cream, which will melt slightly on the warm soft apples and taste great.



Upside Down Apple Cake

Ingredients:
3 Golden Delicious or Granny Smith apples peeled, cored, and sliced in thin half moons,
3 tbsp unsalted butter,
1/2 cup light brown sugar,
1 cup all purpose flour,
1/4 cup granulated sugar,
1 tsp baking powder,
1/2 tsp baking soda,
1/2 tsp salt,
5 tbsp cold unsalted butter cut in cubes,
1/2 cup butter milk.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 425F.
2. Heat the butter on a heavy duty frying pan until foam forms. Add sugar, mix, and spread the mixture on the bottom of a 10-inch baking pan.
3. Arrange the apples on top of the mixture.



4. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and soda in a food processor. Add butter and pulse until it turns into crumbles. Add buttermilk and pulse until the dough is all moist.
5. Drop the dough on top of the apples and spread, leaving an inch-wide space around it.



6. Bake for about 30 minutes until top is dark gold. Cool the cake slightly and turn upside down on a serving plate.

Serve warm.