Chocolate Lovers Delight

Ever since we got married, my husband and I celebrate Valentine's Day at home.  We'd rather go out another night when restaurants aren't as crowded and in a hurry to seat the next party and prices aren't inflated because of the holiday.  To celebrate at home, I always fix something special for supper.  This year, my husband and son both asked if I would fix Grilled Peppered Steaks.  My husband would love Chocolate Covered Cherries for dessert, while our son would prefer a Peanut Butter Pie with a Magic Shell chocolate topping.  Unfortunately, my son doesn't like cherries and my husband doesn't like chocolate and peanut butter combined.  I don't have time to make both so I decided to keep it simple and just make something chocolate.

My mother found the recipe for Chocolate Cobbler in the newspaper in the early 1990's.  The name is misleading because it doesn't use fruit like most cobbler recipes, but like a cobbler it only has one crust.  I've seen the recipe called by other names including, "Pudding Cake," "Fudge Cake" and "Brownie Pudding."

Usually when I serve dessert, it's something that can be made ahead of time and served cold or at room temperature.  Chocolate Cobbler, though, is best served hot from the oven.  To make it less stressful at the end of the day when I'm cooking supper, I measure the cobbler ingredients ahead of time.  By the time supper's on the table, I've got the cobbler mixed up and ready to go in the oven.  By the time supper's over, the cobbler is ready to eat.

The cobbler starts by combining sugar, cocoa, milk, oil and self-rising flour.

Self-rising flour is a time saver because it already has the leavener and salt added.  If you don't have self-rising flour, you can make your own.  For 1 cup self-rising flour, add 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt to 1 cup all-purpose flour.

Once the cobbler ingredients are combined, spread them in a greased 8 or 9-inch square pan.

Combine cocoa and brown sugar in a bowl and sprinkle the mixture over the cobbler ingredients.

Unlike white sugar, brown sugar needs to be firmly packed into the measuring cup.  If you need to know how to do this, or want to know why, you can read about it here.

The final ingredient is hot -- not boiling -- water.  Turn the hot water on and let it run until the faucet feels hot to the touch.  Measure the water in a liquid measuring cup and pour it slowly over the brown sugar mixture.  Do not stir the water with the other ingredients!  

Put the pan in the oven and bake the cobbler for 45 minutes.  When you remove the cobbler from the oven, you'll see that the batter has risen to the top and made a crust.  The cocoa and brown sugar mixture melts and turns the hot water into a delicious chocolate sauce underneath the crust!

Scoop the cobbler into a serving dish, making sure to spoon some of the sauce over the top.  The cobbler is good plain, but it's even better topped with whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  For a truly decadent dessert, substitute chocolate ice cream for the vanilla!

Chocolate Cobbler is a tasty way to celebrate Valentine's Day, but it's also a great dessert to serve year round.  It's delicious, easy to mix up and, since it doesn't use eggs, chances are you've got the ingredients on hand. To be on the safe side, though, you might want to keep some ice cream in the freezer!

Chocolate Cobbler

6 Servings

1 cup self-rising flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbsp. cocoa

1/2 cup milk

3 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/4 cup cocoa

1 3/4 cups hot water (not boiling)

Combine the first 5 ingredients in a mixing bowl.  Pour into a greased 8 or 9-inch square pan.  Stir together the brown sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa; sprinkle over the batter.  Pour hot water evenly over the brown sugar mixture.  Do not stir!  Bake at 350° for 45 minutes.  While hot, scoop into serving bowls and spoon sauce over each serving.  If desired, top with whipped cream or ice cream.

© Margaret's Morsels

Slow Simmered

Every January, I make it a point to share a crock-pot recipe in honor of National Slow Cooking Month.  With my husband's surgery earlier this month, January almost got away from me this year.

I like to vary the recipes I share and not post similar recipes close together. However, I'm going to break that unofficial rule today and share another recipe that uses ground beef.  It's quite different from the Sweet and Sour Meat Loaf recipe I posted earlier this week.

Homemade spaghetti sauce is one of my favorite cold weather recipes.  It only requires a little prep work, is quick to assemble and can easily be doubled.  It's also the best spaghetti sauce I've ever eaten!  Over the last 20 years, I've adapted the recipe to suit our tastes.  The easiest adaptation I made was to move the sauce from the stove top to the crock-pot.  If you're making one batch of sauce, you'll need a 3 1/2 to 4-quart crock-pot. If you double it like I do, you'll need a 6-quart crock-pot.

Although I don't brown roast beef or chicken before I cook them in a crock-pot, I always brown ground beef before using it in a crock-pot. Spaghetti sauce doesn't take as long to cook as roast beef or chicken, so I want to make certain the meat is fully cooked.  Browning the meat beforehand gives me that peace of mind.  It also gives me the opportunity to drain off the grease so it won't be in the finished sauce.  The easiest way to drain the grease is to set a colander inside a large bowl and pour the meat mixture into the colander.  I let the meat drain while I prep the other ingredients.

Grease from two pounds of extra lean ground chuck.

Once the grease is drained, the meat and onion are combined with the remaining ingredients.  Unlike many spaghetti sauce recipes, this one doesn't use crushed or diced tomatoes.  It uses tomato sauce and tomato paste instead.  It can be difficult to get all the tomato paste out of the can, so I want to share a trick my mother taught me when I first started cooking. Open one end of the can of tomato paste.  Leaving the lid in place, turn the can upside down and open the other end.  Remove this lid, turn the can upside down over your mixing bowl or pan and use the lid on the other end to push the tomato paste out of the can.

The sauce is seasoned with oregano, garlic powder and a package of Italian style spaghetti sauce mix.  Sometimes I can't find Italian style spaghetti sauce mix so I use a package of thick and zesty spaghetti sauce mix instead.

A little bit of sugar is added to the sauce to help cut down on the acidity of the tomato sauce and tomato paste.

The only other ingredients are the liquid and canned mushrooms.  To give the finished sauce more flavor, I drain and reserve the mushroom liquid, adding enough water to it to equal the amount called for in the recipe.

 Liquid from two (8 ounce) cans of mushrooms.

Mushroom liquid and water for a double 

batch of spaghetti sauce.

If you don't like mushrooms, you can leave them out and just add water to the sauce.

Once everything is thoroughly combined, cook the sauce three to four hours on high, or six hours on low until the sauce is heated through.  The last 30 minutes of cooking, I fix the pasta and garlic bread and assemble the salad.

I always double this sauce so I can freeze some to use later in the year. To do this, I refrigerate the sauce overnight so it's completely cold.  The next day, I ladle the sauce into a freezer safe, resealable plastic bag, making sure I date and label the contents.  The sauce expands as it freezes so don't fill the bag completely full; leave about an inch of headspace.  To save space in the freezer, I freeze the bag flat.  I have a chest freezer so it's not always easy to find a spot to lay the bag flat.  To solve this problem, I put the bag on a cookie sheet and put the cookie sheet in the freezer overnight.

The next day, the bag looks like this:

To use the frozen spaghetti sauce, thaw it in the refrigerator overnight.  It can be reheated on the stove top or, what I do, in the crock-pot.  Either way, you'll need to add some additional water to the sauce when it's reheated.

I've often wondered why January is National Slow Cooking Month.  I finally decided it must be because a lot of people only use their crock-pots in the summer when they don't want to heat up the kitchen.  National Slow Cooking Month is a great way to remind people to use their crock-pots in cold months too.   Even better, use this time saving appliance all year round!

Spaghetti Sauce

4 Servings

1 lb. ground beef

1/2 medium onion, finely chopped

1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce

1 (12 oz.) can tomato paste

1 (1.5 oz.) envelope Italian style spaghetti sauce mix

1 1/2 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. crushed oregano

1/8 tsp. garlic powder

1 (8 oz.) can mushroom stems and pieces, liquid drained and reserved

reserved mushroom liquid and enough water to make 1 1/2 cups

Cook and stir the ground beef and onion in a large pan until the meat is brown and the onion is tender; drain.  Combine the meat and onion with the remaining ingredients.  Cook in a crock-pot for 3 to 4 hours on high, or 6 hours on low until the sauce is heated through.  Serve over hot spaghetti. Recipe can be doubled.  Leftover sauce can be frozen.

© Margaret's Morsels