V-Day

You're probably expecting a post about some elaborate meal and dessert I cooked up to celebrate Valentines Day. Well, I'm not ashamed to admit this, but Jack and I have somewhat of a boycott against Valentines Day. I don't want to come across as a V-day Scrooge. We just feel that we don't need a specific day determined for us where we become extra lovey dovey, go out to dinner along with the rest of the world, and buy presents to support the CEO of Hallmark's third retirement vacation home. It's more special if it's spontaneous. So ever since we were married we stopped celebrating. Or at least we went out the night before Valentines Day so it wasn't so crowded and we were still allowed to use coupons! I even felt a little guilty because our first married Valentines Day, we were snowed in, both "working from home" and we spent the day watching 8 episodes of 24 in sweats! But neither of us felt gypped (I don't think I've ever written that word before... thank you spell check).

Well I figured Jack would think of a special dessert as spontaneous because we don't ever do anything for Valentines Day, so I set out to make Chocolate Mousse. We're both trying to watch what we eat and exercise more, so I thought mousse would be a nice compromise between a plain rice cake and triple death by chocolate cake. Nice light fluffy chocolately mousse. So I scoured the internet and found a doable recipe. I halved it because I didn't want to end up with 8 servings! I ever so gently heated the heavy cream, egg yolks and sugar into a custard. I melted the bittersweet chocolate and carefully added so as not to scramble the eggs. I whipped the cream to stiff peaks and gently folded it in. I scooped it into two large wine glasses (giving us 2 servings each) and patiently waited while they chilled for the next 6 hours. I was so excited to surprise him with this "special anti-celebratory dessert" after Evan went to bed. I even whipped up some extra whipped cream to top it and sprinkled some cocoa powder on top. We cuddled up on the couch to watch our Monday night shows and my mouth was watering as I was about to dig my spoon into the fluffy goodness. My heart sank as my spoon hit the dense cocoa block. It was more the texture of a light fudge and the chocolate levels were through the roof. I'm not like most other women where there's no such thing as too much chocolate. I'm not even really that into chocolate! So oh what a letdown this was. And it was so much work that I'll probably never attempt it again. So I guess I'll have to just order it for dessert at restaurants instead! Or convince my sister-in-law to make me some... haha.