Chocolate Crisis, Call Grandma!

Last night after yoga, I found myself in the midst of chocolate panic. I needed to make a chocolate dish for the 3rd Annual Chocolate Festival in Gardiner that my friend Jessi and I started so yes I did bring this panic on myself. Less than a week ago, we decided that the summer was almost over and we still had not had the Chocolate Festival. We even ran an add in the Gardiner newsletter inviting others to come join us. After two years of pure chocolate dessert gluttony at the previous Chocolate Festivals and feeling like I was on the verge of sugar diabetes for weeks, I decided that I needed to bring a main course that has subtle chocolate flavoring. The idea wasn't all that tempting in the midst of a chocolate craving but I knew it would taste better tomorrow. After frantic searching and calling reliable friends for recipes, I finally found one for chicken mole soup on the trusty world wide web.

At yoga my neighbor, Joanne asked me if I was making my chocolate mousse from last year.... tempting as it was to revert to my old standby I decided I would make both rather than give up my beloved chocolate mousse. Sooo I said no because I didn't have the ingredients ....she said, "Wha da ya need?" Well she had heavy whipping cream. I got home only to discover that I had forgotten to pick up an ingredient at Food Farm for both recipes. I was missing cans of tomatoes for the first recipe and chocolate chips for the mousse. At 10 O'Clock in Gardiner, I decided a side from calling every friend I had to ask if they had the critical ingredients, there was not much I could do except go to bed and hope Food Farm opened a 7.

So bright and early instead of going off to work, I took some vacation time to prepare my recipes. I woke up and felt like I had been hit by a car. Yoga did not feel that tough the night before but I sure felt tough this morning. My back hurt so much that I had to pound on it just to make sure I didn't have a kidney infection and not just a sore back (have watched too much House). My hip was throbbing and my biceps ached incessantly. Well decided I was just getting old and drove off to the store for my ingredients....thank you lord, the grocery store did open at 7AM. Of course, I never make just one trip to Food Farm, I always forget something so I knew I'd be back. At lunch I was back for paper plates and napkins.

I don't like cutting/cooking chicken so the night before I planned to have a little to drink to make this easier but with work on the immediate horizon, getting snockered to cook chicken was not really an option. So I took a deep breath, tried not to think of factory chicken farms where there feet grow into the cages (also had visions of them running around beheaded with blood squirting out their neck), pried open the plastic packaging on my 4 packages of chicken thighs (the recipe called for 8 thighs but it did not tell how many were in a package). I sliced up onions super thin with my new knives that I love (thank you Becky). I'm not sure where my fear of chicken comes from, I'll blame it on my mom because doesn't everyone blame their mom? All of my mom's warnings about salmonella started haunting me. There are two things I live in fear of thanks to my mother: botulism and salmonella....she seems to have unreasonable fears too of these things. I started to have visions of all of G town getting food poisoning that was on the scale of the great mayo scare on House. While the chicken cooked, I kept putting the onions further and further from the chicken (and no I did not chop up the onions on the same cutting board as the bird).

I decided that perhaps this crisis called for my mom to talk me through what to do with the onions...well I could not find her number at work and thank god I didn't have it because somehow I don't think the secretary would think this warranted interrupting kindergarten class. Of course the secretary finally could have gotten me through the crisis. That's when I decided to call my Grandma.... Thank goodness they are 1 hour ahead of Montana so it's not so early in the Midwest. My grandpa answered the phone and I explained to him that I was in the midst of a chocolate festival cooking crisis...he promptly put Grandma on the line.... My question I posed to my Grandma, was can you add raw onions to the same pan that the chicken is cooking in?? This of course sounds completely ludicrous now and not at all in need of crisis management but It was nice to hear my Grandma's voice and advice. It's not like her actually being there but it's the next best thing. Somehow I start thinking of all the time she has spent in the kitchen preparing wonderful delicious meals. I can almost smell her kitchen and taste the stuffing....It's a very comforting thought. She sounded vaguely confused and told me I just needed to make sure I cooked everything well and washed the dishes well. She also started to mention something about knives and bones but I didn't have the gumption to tell her that I had prepackaged chicken that was de-boned. She said good luck and feeling a new sense of Julia Child inspiration, I finished up the Chicken Mole Soup.

The Chocolate Festival was outside at Arch Park and of course throughout the day, the weather got progressively worse but not bad enough to keep us hardy Gardinernites inside. My great neighbors, Doug and Joanne even brought down their wash tub and started a fire inside to keep us warm under the pavilion. We all stuck around til 9. The Chocolate Festival treats included:
1) Hot Cocoa with almond extract and WHIP cream....very appropriate given the fallish weather
2) Cocoa Tea (perfect since less sweet than everything else and hot)
3) Chocolate pie with a chocolate graham cracker crust
4) Chili
5) Yummy swizzle sticks
6) Ice Cream!! yes and we did eat it
7) Strawberries dipped in chocolate
8) Chocolate Bark
What a great excuse to catch up with your neighbors!

The chicken mole soup
8 boneless chicken thighs
2 cans 14 oz chunky tomatoes or the kind for chili
1 cup chicken broth
1 onion finely sliced
cumin
2 T minced chipotle peppers
1 T Adobe paste
1 oz chocolate chopped

Cut up chicken, coat with cumin and fry in oil for about 5 minutes. Add onions. Bring broth, tomotoes, chipotles, chocolate, and paste to simmer. Add chicken and onions, simmer for 20 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked and paste thickens slightly. Serve over rice.


Chocolate Mousse
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 T Butter
1 oz dark Rum
3 oz espresso or dark chocoalte

melt this in double boiler

1 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp gelatin powder.

take 1/4 cup cream and add gelatin to it. Let it bloom for 5 minutes and then warm over flame but don't let it boil. Add to chocolate mixture after it's melted. Beat rest of whipping cream til stiff peaks form. Fold chocolate in in 2 batches. Let it chill.