Chocolate Goodness!

For Easter, like all family gatherings, the Hubby and I go to two place each holiday. Depending on what holiday it is depends on whose house we go to first.

Since Easter falls on Sunday every year, we are at church. So we get together with my side of the family immediately following services and eat with them. Then after lunch with them the hubby's side likes to get together around 2:00 and eat their lunch.

I asked both sides what I could bring to help out with food. My side said I could bring a potato casserole (click on potato casserole to see that recipe). Hubby's side said they wanted deviled eggs and a chocolate dessert. So, that's what I made. Below is the chocolate cheese cake that I took.

After church services we ate lunch with my side and then left after lunch to head to hubby's family's get together.


I changed the recipe up a little. I did a different toping then the one they have in the picture. I used a raspberry jelly with fresh raspberries.

Source

I got the cheesecake recipe here, but I tweaked it a little. I only used the core recipe for making the cheesecake.

Chocolate Cheesecake

• 2 (8oz.) packages of Philadelphia Cream Cheese (softened)
• 1/2c. sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 c. Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels (melted)
• 1 c. heavy whipping cream
• 2 tbsp. margarine (melted)
• 3 tsp. vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

Cheesecake:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees
• Crush cookies into fine crumbs and add melted margarine.  Combine well and press into the bottom of a 9-Inch Springform Pan
• Beat softened cream cheese with sugar until smooth.
• Add eggs one at a time, beating in between each one.
• Add remaining cheesecake ingredients, beating until smooth.
• Pour into crust and allow to sit at room temp for 30 minutes.
• Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 60 minutes,
• Turn off oven, open oven door a little and allow to sit for another 30 minutes.
• Remove from oven and run knife around edge of pan.  Remove edge of pan. 
• Allow cheesecake to cool to room temperature before adding toppings.

* I used the Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels and it was great. Normally I like to use Ghirardelli, because of the wonderful cocoaness that is has, but the that would have ruined this recipe. So stick to the Nestle morsels. It's worth it.

**Make sure you don't do this at 9 o'clock at night when you are wanting to go to bed. It will make the whole cooking experience better. :)



Topping:

I got the topping recipe here. It's from Ina Garten. She makes wonderful dishes.

Her recipe is as follows:

1 cup red jelly (not jam), such as currant, raspberry, or strawberry
3 half-pints fresh raspberries (I only used 2 packages of raspberries. 3 was too many for me).

I heated the jelly on the stove at a low- medium temperature. You want it to get liquified and runny so it makes it easy to spread. 

Then I added one package of raspberries to it on the stove to warm it up. Then I mashed them so there were chunks in my sauce. 

I then poured the topping on my cheesecake and put it back in the fridge to harden. I also added the fresh raspberries on top for extra goodness.

Cut then serve.

This is how mine came out. It was delicious, chocolaty, smooth, and rich. If you love chocolate or cheesecake, then this is a great dish to take.

It was a hit to make, but boy did I learn my lesson. I had no idea that it took 2 hours to make a cheesecake!!

Happy eating!!

P.F. Chang's Mongolian Beef Copycat

Have you ever tried to make a dish that's outside of your "normal" comfort zone? Well that's exactly what I did the other night. I really like Asian food, but have a hard time making the flavors blend.

That was until I found this recipe. It completely changed my life. OK, maybe just dinner. If you have ever wanted to make something delicious and thought, I hope this turns out good, then you found the right recipe. It was so simple to make and had a great flavor.

By making this recipe, it's really boosted my confidence in making Asian food. Check it out. Here is a picture from what I made. Sorry, I don't have "professional" food pictures.

This is another Pinterest inspired dinner and you could say it was a success!!

Click here for the link to the recipe at Six Sisters Stuff blog.

But if you're like me and want the recipe and not have to go to another site, so I posted it below.

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P.F. Chang's Mongolian Beef Copycat Recipe:

(Recipe adapted from Food.com)

2 teaspoons vegetable oil 
½ teaspoon ginger, minced 
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped 
½ cup soy sauce 
½ cup water 
¾ cup dark brown sugar 
vegetable oil , for frying (about 1 cup) 
1 lb flank steak 
¼ cup cornstarch 
2 large green onions, chopped

Directions: 

Sauce:
Heat 2 tsp. of vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over medium/low heat.  Don't get the oil too hot.
Add ginger and garlic to the pan and quickly add the soy sauce and water before the garlic scorches.
Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce, then increase the heat to medium and boil the sauce for 2-3 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Remove it from the heat.

Beef:
Slice the flank steak against the grain into 1/4" thick bite-size slices. Tilt the blade of your knife at about a forty five degree angle to the top of the steak so that you get wider cuts.  Dip the steak pieces into the cornstarch to apply a very thin dusting to both sides of each piece of beef.  Let the beef sit for about 10 minutes so that the cornstarch sticks.  As the beef sits, heat up one cup of oil in a wok (you may also use a skillet for this step as long as the beef will be mostly covered with oil). Heat the oil over medium heat until it's nice and hot, but not smoking. Add the beef to the oil and sauté until brown. Stir the meat around a little so that it cooks evenly.  After a couple minutes, use a large slotted spoon to take the meat out and onto paper towels.  Dab excess oil off meat with a paper towel and add to medium saucepan with the sauce in it.  Put the pan back on the oven over medium/low heat.  Add chopped green onions and let sauce simmer until warm. Serve over rice.