Flourless chocolate cake

I made this cake last night for our family dinner.  Oh. my. yumminess.  There is only one little piece left that I'm saving for Josh to have tomorrow after he eats lunch.  I altered the recipe a bit by using dairy free margarine in the cake.  For the salted caramel sauce I used margarine and Silk dairy free creamer.  I also used dark baking chocolate for half of what it called for, and I accidentally used 1 cup of brown sugar in the cake instead of the called for 1/4 cup.  Oops.  It worked though, probably because the chocolate was darker than what was called for.  The called for time for baking was 90 minutes, but I had to leave the house with about 10 minutes of baking left, so I turned off the oven and left it in to finish baking while the oven cooled down.  I turned it off at about 1:30 and came back to the house to get it at 5.  I was SO nervous that it would either be burnt or underdone, but it was actually perfect!  Now I just have to figure out if I do that again or try baking it the full 90 minutes.  I will definitely be making this again!

You put the lime in the coconut..

Tonight after dinner I made pina coladas, virgin, of course.  I looked online at recipes and didn't really find one I liked, so I came up with my own.  I didn't measure everything, so this is kind of an estimate.

I put half of a very ripe pineapple, chopped, into the blender.  Then added the juice from one lime.  After that I added about 3/4 cup of canned coconut milk, add just a bit more if it is too thick.  Then I added about a teaspoon of vanilla, followed by about a half cup of sugar.  I put a bunch of crushed ice on top, and blended until smooth.  I added ice a few times until it was nice and frosty.

The kids loved it, and even bummed some of mine after they finished theirs.  The next time I get another pineapple, I'm making more!

Rice pudding

We've been getting some super great goodies in our Bountiful Baskets lately.  One of my favorites was the vanilla beans in the tropical pack.  I looked through a ton of recipes that called for them, and decided on this rice pudding.  It was easy, and I was looking for a recipe that a lot of people might like, since it was for book club.  In fact it was so good that instead of making creme brulee with the other vanilla bean, I think I'm just going to make more pudding!  Here's the recipe.  Enjoy!  Oh, and if you're ever on Pinterest, check out my Good Eats and Yummy Treats board.  Super yummy recipes on there.  I feel slightly nerdy that I love looking up recipes online so much.