Cooking with Brooke: Profiteroles with "no business being this good"

Sometime a few years ago I fell in love with profiteroles we had for dessert at Chez Danielle. We've returned on various special occasions, often with profiterole-virgins in tow, to eat this dessert. You'd think it be something terribly elaborate to entice us so, but in reality it's just a vanilla ice cream-stuffed cream puff shell with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. But, my friends, it is amazing.

We made it for our friends Derrick and Carrie this weekend and all came to the conclusion that it's really better than it should be.

Joe: "It has no business being this good."



Cream Puff Shells:

• 1 cup water

• 4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) butter

• pinch of salt, if you like

• 1 cup all-purpose flour (I used 1/4 a cup whole wheat)

• 4 eggs

Preheat oven to 375. Bring water and butter to a full boil, stirring. Add flour, stirring until it forms a ball in the center of the pan. Remove from heat and let cool slightly before adding eggs (so they don't cook). Beat in eggs one at a time.

Place on a greased cookie sheet aproximately 2 inches apart. Squish down any points. Bake for 25-30 min. without opening the oven.

Makes 12.

While they bake make the chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Chocolate Sauce:

Melt 6 ounces of good chocolate (we have an on-going feud in our house of milk v. dark, but agree on Ghirardelli) and 1/2 cup of water in a heat-safe pan over simmering water until the chocolate and water are combined and y
item, if you have a fast mixer.

Profiteroles:

Cut the cream puff shells in half, place a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream on the bottom half. Place the top half on top, cover in chocolate sauce and dollop with whipped cream (or use a pastry bag and tip to make it pretty, as I did).

And there you have it, a dessert so good you won't believe it.

Thanks for coming to visit Derrick and Carrie! And for anyone else who's been contemplating a visit, I hope this tempts your tastebuds.

Lake Mille Lacs Part Deux

We headed back to lake Mille Lacs while Joe's parents were visiting. This time we drove all the way around the lake, stopping for garage sales and view points. We attempted a hike but the bird-sized mosquitoes scared us off for now.

We also returned to the giant guided fish. Then stopped at roadside Happy's for some ice cream. If you're headed up I-169 I'd recommend a stop; they have outdoor and indoor play areas, a basketball court and, right now, bunnies!

Spring-time garden planting

Don't let the sweatshirts and winter hats fool you, it's spring. We were down at the Walsh Farm for Mother's Day where Truman got his first taste of wagon rides and good old Southeastern Minnesota soil.






















Truman training for the hands free phone usage portion of the Microsoft customer support training test:













More garden:








































As if we hadn't worked Josh hard enough in the garden:




The diaper Houdini strike again:


(notice he also has a phone in his hand.)

Chariot's Maiden Vogage: Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge

Joe has been playing basketball Tuesday nights, so Truman and I have been taking day trips fondly refered to as adventure Tuesdays.

Last Tuesday Truman and I took our new bike trailer (called a chariot) out for it's maiden trip — a jaunt around the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. Intense gusts of wind and the slippery sandy trail cut out trip short, but we did get a chance to stop and eat lunch near the eagle's nest. I think I need to do some longer paved drives before I attempt this again, but the trip was still exciting. I found an eagle look-out point and we saw a huge snake. SSSSSssssss is Truman's favorite animal sound, probably because it's also our sound effect for peeing.

Hmm, he must think snakes are always peeing.