chocolate |

Mint Chocolate Cupcakes with Red Currant Preserves

24 July 2012 by local kitchen

Today is my friend Nadine’s birthday. In addition to a yearly tradition of my suffering through an early-morning yoga class with her (this year at the Bedford Post Inn Yoga Loft, which I will admit is a lovely space), I usually make her a birthday cake. It’s always chocolate, since she is a certified chocoholic, and often incorporates a seasonal berry, because what’s a July birthday without wineberries or blackberries or currants? This spring and summer have been so busy for me […]

Categories: chocolate, currants, dessert, mint, preserves, summer, year round • Tags: chocolate, cooking, dessert, food, gluten free, local, quick & easy, recipes

Pumpkin Soup with Chocolate & Chipotle

13 May 2011 by local kitchen

Pumpkin soup in May. I know what you’re thinking: she’s finally lost that last (lonely) marble. But hear me out: I realized yesterday that June is nearly upon us; and with June comes the first onslaught of seasonal produce. My CSA will start, and with it kale, chard, cabbage and all those gorgeous Spring greens. Strawberries will show up in June as well, ripe for the picking. And then the summer squashes and cucumbers start coming, and cherries and raspberries, […]

Categories: chocolate, fall, hot chile peppers, main course, soup, vegetarian, winter, winter squash • Tags: chiles, chocolate, cooking, food, local, main course, pumpkin, recipes, soup, vegetarian

Flourless Chocolate Chipotle Cake

2 April 2011 by local kitchen

Have you noticed a lot of non-local ingredients cropping up on the blog of late? Citrus jam, orange chicken, honey roasted nuts? While I don’t make it a goal to eat 100% from my local foodshed (in part because I believe it is harshly restrictive for no good reason, but mostly, I suspect, because I don’t like rules) I do try to limit the non-local ingredients to occasional luxuries rather than every day ingredients. They’ve been showing up more often of […]

Categories: baking, cake, chocolate, dessert, hot chile peppers, year round • Tags: chiles, chocolate, cooking, dessert, food, gluten free, quick & easy, recipes

Red Raspberry & Dark Chocolate Refrigerator Jam

5 August 2010 by local kitchen

“So what convinced you to sacrifice good chocolate to a jam?” Nadine said. I had to laugh. My friend Nadine is a certifed chocoholic, as am I, and like most chocoholics, tends to like her chocolate in its purest form: chocolate. Whether it be melted into a cake center, heated as a drink, or a sweet square morsel after dinner, good quality chocolate is so purely indulgent, in and of itself, that it seems the ultimate in lily gilding to gussy […]

Categories: berries, chocolate, dessert, jams, preserving, summer, year round • Tags: berries, chocolate, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

Quadruple C Cookies

4 May 2010 by local kitchen

Chocolate, cherries, cashews, coconut. Yum. I’ve been tweaking my chocolate chip cookie recipe for a while, trying to achieve the ultimate combination of texture (crispy outside, soft, chewy inside), sweetness (enough to satisfy the sweet craving, but not so much that you actually taste the sugar) and a good balance of flavors for all of the stuff that I can cram into a cookie. In this batch I eliminated granulated sugar altogether and repaced it with brown sugar; I also dialed back on the amount […]

Categories: baking, cherries, chocolate, dessert, quick & easy, snack, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: baking, cherries, chocolate, cookies, cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes, whole grain