Christmas Candy II

Don't you love it when life gets in the way of your most well made plans? We've got a week's worth of Candies, another week's worth of Cookies and so far have gotten to posting practically none of it. Go us. Surprisingly our candy stocks have been hanging on this year. Last year, everything we made was gone practically by the end of the day but this year it looks like a lot of it is going to last until Christmas day. Whats not going to last are these babies: Cookie Dough Truffles. Now we both are well aware of the fact that raw egg can give you salmonella. We are also both well aware that there is raw egg in cookie dough. It is additionally not uncommon to see either of us sneaking little giant spoonfuls of cookie dough whenever its in the house. Eric has been known to snipe balls of dough right off the baking pan as its going into the oven. To say we like ourselves some cookie dough would be a major understatement, perhaps be biggest understatement since we declared our love for bacon. It was not surprising at all then when Charisse and Jen sent Eric and Dan off to do some Christmas shopping while they put these ones together. We broke out our candy for the first time to a larger audience last week when we hosted Charisse's company holiday party which turned out to be an adventure in and of itself. If you haven't caught the news, December has been pretty wet in California and the party landed right in the middle of a pretty bad storm. With dinner just hitting the oven and people due at the door any minute, there was a pop and all the lights went out... and stayed out. A visit to our local CVS to raid their candle supply (which very suddenly ran low) and the generosity of our friends Steve and Sarah who live nearby and let us borrow their oven to save the night. Charisse put out our candies for an appetizer and they were a hit.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

There are 3 major new things Eric loves to get. New hockey sticks. New socks. New cookies. Actually thats a lie. Eric's favorite cookie is chocolate chip. Period. Used to be sugar when he was growing up, but now, chocolate chip, every time. He also favorites mint chocolate chip ice cream, pepperoni pizza and a double cheeseburger. Ask anyone who's gone out for food with him, and you'll find that he likes what he likes, and doesn't see any reason to go with something he likes less just to conform (even if that means he gets to be the butt of half the lunch time jokes). Then along came Charisse and Eric's ordering went from "I'll eat what I've always liked, because I like it" to "You'll eat whats for dinner because your too darn picky, and you'll like it because I told you too". Hello marriage.

Eric couldn't be happier to have Charisse pushing him out of his "normal" zone, which in retrospect was rarely normal, and most often just plain weird. Except for Salami wrapped around cream cheese. An excellent, easy to prepare appetizer introduced to him by his sister Elaine. Devilishly simple, really good tasting as long as you like both salami and cream cheese. But this is not what Charisse used to pick up his spirits after his team got knocked out of the playoffs early. Oh no, Charisse put together one of the best comfort desserts ever made. Ever. This dessert combines Chocolate Chip Cookies with Brownies and Chocolate Ganache. It is literally the end of any diet known to man (or woman). Imagine, biting into the moistest chocolate chip cookie, feeling the chocolate chips melt on contact while the cookie dissolves into pure goodness between bites. This is washing down a brownie, fresh out of that pan that puts an edge on every piece, the flavor pushing through   with every crunching chomp. You better have a glass of milk nearby to wash down the chocolate ganache that coats the roof of your mouth with pure molten chocolate. Can you tell we're missing these already?