106.5 - Last Minute Hearts of Love

As so often happens when I can't sleep, that switch in my brain gets stuck in the ON position and ideas and images begin swirling through my head at warp speed. Experience has taught me that it's just not worth the fight to try to make myself fall asleep, and besides, I do some of my best thinking when the world and my house is dreamily quiet. So, last night, at about midnight, I got up to make these for my family, since we'd already devoured all the chocolate covered strawberries I'd made over the weekend. And, as grown as my boys (that includes my sweet husband), like to think they are, they love candy treats as much now as when they were toddlers.

Scrounging around my pantry, I dug out a few old candy molds (available at any craft store), took a couple of bars of chocolate off the shelf, and presto - Last Minute Hearts of Love for the awesome dudes in my house...who loves you, babies?

Last Minute Hearts of Love

Candy molds of any shape
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate
4 oz white chocolate
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate

In a microwave safe dish, place chocolate in microwave at medium power (50%) for 1-1 1/2 minutes. Remove and stir. If not melted, return to microwave and repeat heating step, stirring ever 30 seconds, as scorching can occur. When small lumps remain, remove and continue to stir to complete melting.

Using a small zip-lock bag (snack size works well), fill with melted chocolate and snip a small end of the tip of the bag and carefully fill each mold to the top. Lift mold and gently tap it on the counter to release any air bubble. Refrigerate until set then unmold.

At this point, you can leave the hearts undecorated, or use a little more melted chocolate to pipe designs on the hearts.




Candy molds of any shape
4 oz 

Helen Roberts & the Kikkoman Test Kitchen

Chef Helen Roberts is the manager of culinary development and public relations at Kikkoman. She works on consumer recipes using the whole range of Kikkoman products from soy sauce to panko bread crumbs to soy milk and beyond. She used to work in product development and was hired because of her amazing ability to taste subtle differences in 16 different soy sauces! At the time she was hired, she had never even tried Japanese food.


I recently got to visit Helen and her test kitchen in downtown San Francisco. What a treat! Helen is friendly, enthusiastic and has a great sense of humor, and so it was no surprise to see that her recently renovated test kitchen in San Francisco is cheerful and lively as can be. The kitchen has a big island, two stoves and a large refrigerator. It also has a big flat screen television with cooking shows on all the time and the radio set to "old school." By the way, is there anything better than cooking with Prince playing in the background?


I had a great time cooking with Helen, whipping up some recipes for Valentine's Day. She was working on a version of a recipe she swears convinced her husband to propose to her. She fills puff pastry shells with a cajun spiced cream sauce (made with soy milk) and shrimp sauteed in butter. Helen made us a snack to nibble on while we cooked and shared tips with me such as use a splash of soy sauce in the water when you blanch vegetables instead of salt.

I made one of Helen's recipes for crab stuffed mushrooms which came out beautifully which is a testament to her skills, because I was so distracted chatting that I did not follow the directions as well as I should have.


The other recipe I made was from 1984, and it was not created by Helen. It shows how much tastes change. The original recipe for Artichokes with Zesty Blue Cheese Dip called for only one tablespoon of blue cheese! Needless to say, it needed a little more. Ok, a lot more. I've adapted it here if you'd like to try it. Helen's office mates liked it a lot. I think it's a great choice for Valentine's Day, after all, it has plenty of heart.

Note: since this recipe calls for boiling rather than steaming, and I found the artichokes I used cooked very quickly. If you prefer, you can cook the artichokes any way you like.

Artichokes with Zesty Blue Cheese Dip(adapted from the Kikkoman Kitchen)
4 servings

Ingredients

4 medium (about 8 oz. each) artichokes 

Water
1/2 cup mayonnaise 

1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mushrooms 

2 Tablespoons minced green onions
6 Tablespoons crumbled blue cheese 

2 teaspoons Kikkoman Less Sodium Soy Sauce 

Grated peel and juice of 1/2 fresh lemon

Instructions

To prepare artichokes, slice 1 inch off tops; discard. Cut off stems even with base; remove small outer leaves. Trim off sharp leaf tips (about 1/2 inch) with kitchen shears or paring knife or scissors. Rinse artichokes under cold water. (To prevent darkening, rub lemon half on cut edges of artichokes.) Arrange artichokes upright in saucepan. Add water to depth of 2 inches. Bring water to boil; reduce heat and simmer, covered, 20 minutes, or until leaves pull out easily.

Meanwhile, combine mayonnaise, mushrooms, green onions, blue cheese, less sodium soy sauce, lemon juice and peel.

Drain artichokes; cool enough to handle. To serve, spoon the blue cheese mixture into a bowl, and serve with the artichokes.

Enjoy!