Chocolate Cherry sauce

Yes, I'm serious.

Who thinks "I need to eat more chocolate?"  I do.  Chocolate (not milk chocolate, and not Hershey's) is good for you.

I sliced pork tenderloin into thin coins so it cooks quickly on a low-med heat in a well seasoned cast iron pan (I sprinkle them with salt and maybe if I'm feeling real crazy some paprika) and then set aside.  I'll pour off any liquid from the meat for my dog pal.

For the sauce:
3 heaping TBSP Cherry preserves (or 1/4 Cup sweet cherries pitted and halved)  Tart pie cherries are fine too you just need to adjust them with some vegan sugar.
2 TBSP vegan sugar (more if using straight sour pie cherries)
2 TBSP cocoa powder (straight real stuff not with anything added)
1/4 Cup water to dissolve sugar and cocoa powder in.

I put my sugar and water into a sauce pan and simmer it just until sugar is dissolved, you'll need to be constantly stirring.  After the sugar is dissolved I add cocoa and whisk it in to make it as smooth as possible.  Now the little teeny balls of cocoa is NOT a bad thing.

  * Tangent*Most cocoa powder is "Dutched" or Dutch process and that means they've removed the cocoa butter which then gets turned into chocolates and white chocolate and non-food things.  So those tiny annoying balls of cocoa form from the residual cocoa butter and oils in the cocoa - and try as you may to smash them, they are stubborn.  * Tangent over*

So once it is as smooth as I can get it I pour it over a tiny screen to filter out the lumps and let the sauce pour through into another little pan.  I'll use a steeping ball made of mesh to do this since the wire is a very fine mesh.  Then on very low I'll scoop in the cherries, or cherry preserves.  Blending everything until it become a warm smooth syrupy bliss.

This will be a thin sauce, like a glaze.

You can now drizzle this over pork tenderloin, chicken, duck, a roast.  I get all sloppy and just toss the meat in it so it coats it like a really fancytown bbq.  This sauce likes a darker meat, a gamey meat best... but unless you're rich or a hunter you may be limited.

If you're vegetarian this is CRAZY delicious over garlic mashed potatoes!  No kidding at all.
It is also an intensely wonderful thing to sop up with bread and biscuits!

There are a million variations you can do on this.  Like using a liquer, sherry, lavender blossoms etc.
Enjoy!

Bird Nests : cookies for Marni.

I made these to work on my obviously cookie deficient blog.
They are vegan and I recommend them highly to ANYONE who likes chocolate and coconut.

Preheat oven to 425.

The dry bits:

• 1 Cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 Cup unbleached white flour
• 1/4 Cup  Oat flour (rolled oats tossed into a food processor and pulverized)
• 1/4 Cup Baking Cocoa
• 1/2 Cup vegan sugar
• 1/4 Cup sugar in the raw or demerara sugar
• 3/4 Cup coconut
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp or hefty pinch cinnamon

Blend or finger sift everything together well!

The wet bits:

• 2/3 Cup - 3/4 Scant Cup olive oil  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (I add it to the olive oil to carry it throughout the mixture)
• 1/2 Cup warm {tap hot} water (this is added in small amounts after everything is well blended to bind everything together tightly)

After the mixture is blended with spoon or hands and the texture changes from grainy to like a sand castle building texture.  Just so it can hold its form enough.  Line a cookie sheet with foil.  Then make tiny 1 inch balls and press your thumb into their tops just to give them a little well for collecting your filling.  In the nest you can put a chocolate chip.  A filbert or macadamia nut.  I added a little dash more of coconut since that is what I had on hand.  Then pop into the oven.  These bake for no more than 5 minutes!   Once the shine from them is gone and the coconut is lightly toasted.  I made this with a mom in mind, so it's a time saver.  The recipe will make 48 tiny cookies.  Perfect for tiny hands. 

These will keep well for at least a week.  You can measure out all of the dry ingredients and put it into a mason jar with a masking tape labeled - Bird Nests.  Good gift for family and friends.  Jar them and give with a little instruction card  for the wet ingredients needed and oven temp and timing stuck on the lid.