Chocolate Pistachio Fudge

Another hit! This is exactly how fudge should taste and feel in your mouth....smooth, velvety and decadent. Helps that you try to use only the best dark chocolate you can find. I found mine in Melbourne's The Essential Ingredient in Prahran Market. Callebaut make's one of the finest dark chocolate callets (chocolate bits shaped like lentils) in the industry. I got a packet of 57.8% cocoa and though that's semi-sweet, it didn't kill the fudge. While fudges are supposed to be sugar-coating the insides of your mouth, it doesn't need to be diabetes-inducing. The result was addictive. Can't have enough of it! I was also very pleased to use the slivered fresh pistachios in the fridge. Got that in I-will-not-go-to-Vic-Market-again. Pistachios in my opinion, are the Hermes of nuts. It's great for your heart, very high in anti-oxidants and one of the most expensive nuts in the market....yes, I think Hermes is also very good for my heart, thank you. So expensive that we only get old, waxy, dried ones here. Probably the lowest grade Iran can spare. But seeing that vendor with the pile of green gold amongst its pale earthy cousins, I had to buy some back. The chocolate fudge was a perfect catalyst to the pistachios. Now, THAT is food porn.

Instant Chocolate Mousse

Ack! Had to gulp down so much water just to rid the sweetness of this mousse! This recipe was from Nigella Express. A very good book and the recipes in there are truly for express cooks. I love cooking from there when I'm short of time or have limited supplies in the larder. While the upside with this book's recipes is food-on-the-table-in-a-jiffy, the downside is-quite a lot of the ingredients used are "instant" ie. processed, canned. Personally, I'm fine using such ingredients once in awhile because they're easily accessible and most of the the dirty work's done for you like pureed chestnuts, boiled and frozen peas, sponge fingers etc. But, they do tend to be artificially-flavoured, seasoned or sweetened. Which leads us to this Instant Chocolate Mousse. A packet of mini marshmallows (Kraft) was the main ingredient, hence no hand in controlling the sweetness level. I even used dark bitter chocolate with hope to balance out the marshmallow but it didn't help. Even Little Miss, who's got the sweet tooth, couldn't hack the sweetness...."it's like eating tablespoons of sugar and no chocolate taste at all mum!". Will need to have make-up Chocolate Mousse (made from cream) just to restore our love for this dessert.