Soup

Fall is officially here.  The weather is cold and rainy and it is dark for most of the day.  On the upside, the leaves are beautiful! All this cold make me want to eat soup and sit by the fire.  We have not bought firewood yet, but I have already started making soups.  I tried a new recipe tonight, Butternut Squash Soup with Cinnamon Whipped Cream and Fried Shallots.  It was delicious!  I found the recipe on the Food Network website.  It took a long time to make, but it was worth it! 

If you want to give it try here is the link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/butternut-squash-soup-with-cinnamon-whipped-cream-and-fried-shallots-recipe/index.html.  Happy Fall :)

Chocolate!

I have always wanted to try making my own chocolate truffles.  I love chocolate and I figured making my own would be delicious and save me some money!  Sadly, it was one of those things I think about doing for a long time but never actually get around to trying.  Well, last week when I was shopping at Aldi (my favorite grocery store), I found these chocolate coffee beans.  They were not chocolate covered coffee beans, but coffee flavored chocolate in the shape of a coffee bean.  All I could think was, these would be perfect to put on top of a chocolate coffee truffle...

So, I decided to stop thinking about truffles and just try making them!  My technique is not at all perfect, and some of them look a bit funny, but they taste great!  So far I have tried a few different flavors: coffee, cinnamon, mint, vanilla, and plain dark chocolate.  I love them all! 

close up of the truffles as they dry

this is the cinnamon truffle filling

my tray of drying truffles