today's theme: chocolate desserts made by other people

Because I'm getting lazy. Which is what happens to old ladies. First the memory goes, then the bladder, and finally the will to bl*g. Luckily, GFD reader JFON whipped up a batch of Mexican Chocolate Pudding after reading about it here and sent photos.

JFON found the pudding easy to make and delicious, but he somewhat belligerently refuses to call it pudding: "I realize that it technically is a pudding because it does not have either eggs or cream in it, but its consistency to me is much more like a mousse, so I'm calling it a mousse."

I present to you JFON's Mexican Chocolate Don't-You-Be-Calling-It-Pudding Mousse.

i'm in the wrong line of work

I went online yesterday to make a credit card payment and decided that I'd like someone else to pay my credit card bill for once. Namely, the person who charged $1500 at a Home Depot in Ozone Park, New York, to my card but is not me.

I'm mad at the Ozone-Park-Not-Me not only for stealing my credit card number and buying a super fancy grill (or whatever the Ozone-Park-Not-Me purchased), but also for making me so late I didn't have time to make food or go to the grocery store before work (unlike Ozone-Park-Not-Me, I have a [albeit very part-time] job, and because I work from 2 p.m. until 9 or 10 at night, I have to bring dinner with me or I'll die of starvation cry). Flustered and late after my long conversation with the credit card company, I grabbed random food items from my refrigerator and left the house with the following:


So while the Ozone-Park-Not-Me spent the evening grilling steaks on the Cadillac of gas grills, I sat in a windowless, fluorescently lit room proofreading classified ads and eating hard-boiled eggs and pudding.

Did you hear that, Ozone-Park-Not-Me? PUDDING. Jealous?

sweet

I got these little carrots at the farmers market, and they're pretty sweet. I mean that literally, not as in, "Pretty sweet, dude," like some hippie says when talking about the new Phish reunion show dates, or whatever it is Phish people talk about.


The point is, I feel pretty virtuous when I eat them, in spite of the fact that they taste a little bit like candy, just as I feel pretty virtuous when I don't yell at white people with dreadlocks for being white people with dreadlocks.


I only feel slightly less virtuous for having eaten a third of a pudding after eating my virtuous carrots. I figure that if the pudding is made of tofu and the carrots taste like candy, I'm practically a saint for not yelling at Phish heads.

cooking bender, part 4

Mexican Chocolate Pudding That Happens to Be Made With Tofu

Just eat it, bitches. This shizz is delicious. Creamy and chocolate-y and cinnamon-y. If I hadn't told you, you would NEVER EVER have known this was made with tofu. And because I'm not a vegan, the next time I'll top it with a little whipped cream.

This recipe is via Bitten, and I made no substitutions. For example, I did not use cream and eggs instead of tofu. Just trust me.

Read the whole article and watch a video of Mark Bittman making it here.

Or start cooking now:

3/4 cup sugar

1 pound silken tofu

8 ounces high-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon chili powder, or more to taste

Chocolate shavings (optional).

1. In a small pot, combine sugar with 3/4 cup water; bring to a boil and cook until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally. Cool slightly.

2. Put all ingredients except for chocolate shavings in a blender and purée until completely smooth, stopping machine to scrape down its sides if necessary. Divide among 4 to 6 ramekins and chill for at least 30 minutes. If you like, top with whipped cream and/or garnish with chocolate shavings before serving.

I'm having tofu for dinner.