The Power of Chocolate

One of the biggest changes I'm experiencing while being abroad is having to cook for myself. I'm not going to win Iron Chef anytime soon but I am getting better. One of my food highlights was when I finally made the cake I promised to Charlie when he made the jazz band (only after about a week of Charlie's stink eyes and Vuong's sexist comments).

True, much thanks needs to go to Betty Crocker:

BUT, there is much, much more going on here than what meets the eye.

I was stirring and mixing, doing my thang, when I ended up with more eggs than I knew what to do with. Now, an extra egg rolling around on the counter or in the fridge is a recipe for disaster in 4/6 (see Katchit! post below for some potential ideas) and there was no one around to eat it. So I just popped that sucker into the mix. But, the mixture suddenly became far too eggy and liquidy. Not good. I looked around in mild panic hoping for inspiration. I found it in the bars of chocolate I bought for the icing. I broke it up and just added it in. Problem solved!

The exciting part (at least for me) was when I made the icing. From scratch!

After reaching the end of the directions, I ended up with this:

Looks good, yes, but if I was making chocolate soup. It was not icing. Another "oh dear" moment. The answer to this conundrum? More chocolate!!!!

Ah, much better.


The final product!:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory :)

So, the point of this post is: chocolate will solve anything. Middle East? Here, have another chocolate bar and hug it out.  Global warming? Scare people that cutting down the rainforest will result in no more chocolate. Just plain stressed? Give yourself some lovin' and grab some of this brown, sugary goodness.

Happy Kim!

As for "real food" posts......yeah. Maybe next time. Or maybe not.