Fun

Time for Chocolate!

It’s February. It’s the Love Month. It’s the Every Excuse to Eat Chocolate Month. Okay, well that might be my hubby’s thought on February!

I’ve often wondered why it’s only February we celebrate love. Or chocolate for you chocolate fans out there.

But we’ll leave this with the chocolate is for all the time for this post! In my newsletter that went out today to my subscribers. Wait. What? You’re not a subscriber? Well, you could be if you pop over to the Home page and scoot over to the top right of the right side bar and sign up!

Sorry – squirrel!

In today’s newsletter, I gave a recipe for the Chocolate Molten Lava Cake you see in the pictures below. What I didn’t share in the newsletter, is how many of these I’ve made, especially right after cooking school and we learned how to make Molten Lava cakes. This recipe is a bit different than the school’s recipe, smaller quantity for our family.


The funny story about these little gems is the year after learning how to make them, I think I had to have made close to two hundred of them. No, we didn’t eat them all. But I seem to remember people asking for me to make them for them once they heard I knew how. They were pretty popular at restaurants and everybody wanted them.

I’d always tell them how easy they were to make, but they said mine were better. Yeah, right! Better because you don’t have to make them. I’m not lying to you, though, when I say these are super simple to make and would be a perfect quick dessert to have with tea/coffee if a friend or friends popped in to visit. I’m serious.

I even had this discussion on how simple they were with our daughter’s friend one time when she dropped in to hang out. The two of them came up from the basement and were plundering around the kitchen.

“Mom do we have anything good to snack on?”

“You know where everything is in the pantry, go dig.”

Her friend was already in there.

“Kristen, we should go get a cupcake at the store. Oh, we had these gooey chocolate cakes at the restaurant last week. But I don’t want to go to Cleveland for that.”

“Do you mean a Chocolate Molten Lava Cake?”

“YEAH.”

“Well, I can make you some of those in less than 30 minutes.”

“No you can’t. Those must be difficult to make.”

“Nope, I’ll make them if you two get the ingredients out of the pantry while I get the stuff going over here.”

By this time, I had made them so many times, I rattled off the ingredients and they dug them out and set them on the counter.

Kristen’s friend set the timer on her watch to see if I could really get them done in less than the 30 minutes I said I could.

Thirty five minutes later they were scooping ice cream onto their slightly cooled Lava Cakes! BAM! And THAT’S Love, my friends.

I made these the other day for hubby (and for photos!) and you can tell in the photo below I didn’t wait long enough before putting the whipped cream on them, they oozed right down the side! There are regular strawberries as well as the new Pineberries – the white ones in the picture. In case you thought I fed my husband very underripe berries. The pine berries are like a cross between a pineapple and a strawberry. They are sweet, that’s for sure.

If you’re not a subscriber and didn’t get the recipe, just email me at tammy@tammykarasek.com and let me know. I’ll be glad to email it to you. Besides, it’s Chocolate Day, er, I mean it’s Valentine’s Day this month and you might need a chocolate treat for the loves in your home!

Happy Tenth Blog-aversary

Tenth Blog-aversary!

Happy Blog – aversary to me!

Today marks ten years since I began writing. Well, writing for other eyes to see the words I’d scribbled down on paper. On January 11, 2011 I started writing on my first blog TickledPinkTammy.Blogspot.com. That was a mouthful to tell someone when they’d ask where they could find where I write.

At that point, the blog morphed into this website where’s there’s a little more than just a blog. And a much shorter web address. Thank goodness.

Life happened as it does for us all, and I wasn’t always writing on the blog. Well, on my own blog anyway. Some of the guest posts I’ve done were on blogs or websites that are now long gone. I’m still writing on other sites and have added a tab up top called My Writing. When you click on the tab, you’ll go to the page where I’ll list those other places I’ve hung out and shared some thoughts.

But now I’m coming home in 2021! If 2020 taught me anything (and it taught me a lot!), it’s the importance of family and friends—both very dear to me. And you are that to me as well.

You’ll see more from this blog and a new addition to my work, a newsletter. In the newsletter I hope to encourage you, share some fun and funny topics, and maybe even a recipe or two! I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the books I’m writing and share the books I’m currently reading or have read that I would recommend you read, too.

I hope you’ll sign up for the newsletter and stay connected. I will not be sending you a newsletter email every day. You’re welcome. HaHa! But I’ll send at least one a month and on occasion another one or two if there’s something exciting I just can’t wait to share.

I’m always just a click away when you go to my Connect with Me on the top menu or reply to a newsletter.

I’ve missed you and look forward to hanging out with you again

As always,