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Busy Family Meals
Do you know what to do to prepare for Thanksgiving?

Cooking Gadgets
This may just be the cutest way ever to serve your desserts!

Happy Holidays with High Density Foods for Healthy Eating and Weight Control
Here are some tips from Jean to help you enjoy all the holiday feasting with NO REGRETS come January.

Homemade Gift Ideas- Get Out Those Canning Jars
Layer this Pumpkin Pie Bar mixture in a jar, and add the mixing instructions for an easy homemade gift.

Layered Chocolate Cheesecake Bars
A decadent, rich, creamy cheesecake treat!

Pumpkin Pie Recipes
From homemade pumpkin pie to pumpkin ice cream pie to pumpkin pecan pie, there’s a pumpkin pie recipe here that’s bound to please the guests at your Thanksgiving dinner.

What Do You Do With The Left Over Turkey?
Add some salsa and spice it up with these tips and recipes.

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After last week’s Ferrero giveaway and the discovery that they’re now making a dark chocolate treat, I’ve kept my eyes open for them!

I finally found the Ferrero Rondnoir yesterday at Wal-Mart. They were part a large display of Ferrero chocolates near the holiday items and were a pretty reasonable $2.97 for a 12-pack.

I should have stocked up because I’m not sure these things are going to stay on the shelves for very long once people realize how amazing they are!

The wafer shell of the chocolate looks familiar for a Ferrero - chocolate coated with bumpy bits. You really can’t mistake these for anything else!

The inside is a very creamy dark chocolate with a dark chocolate “pearl” in the middle — you can kind of see it peeking through in the picture there. It’s a slightly firmer little piece of chocolate inside the cream and a very nice little surprise.

The whole thing is very satisfying, from the crunch of the wafer shell to the creamy center to the chocolate pearl. A very delicious chocolate craving pleaser!

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First off, pictures of pudding - especially rice pudding - never do the recipe justice.

Anyway, this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie was Black and White Rice Pudding (actually chocolate and vanilla!). I split mine in two batches, as was suggested in the recipe, because I knew my husband would appreciate the vanilla while the kids would devour the chocolate.

I’m also glad I read up on the Q&A for the recipe, otherwise I too would have ended up with rice soup instead of pudding and would have wondered what I’d done wrong!

I stirred the pudding every five minutes for about 50 minutes and it turned out perfectly. I didn’t put the full 1-1/2 teaspoons of vanilla in the white pudding because my husband likes it plain, but I may have put a little extra chocolate in the other one.

Maybe just a little.

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Oh you guys, I think I’ve found the most decadent chocolate dessert I’ve ever made. These bars are amazing. Over the weekend I was doing a search over at Food Network and this was on the front page. On a whim I decided to give them a shot because wow, that’s a lot of chocolate and I needed to try it!

So they were originally called Chocolate Cheesecake Candy Cane Bars. Here’s the thing: I’m not terribly crazy about hard candy — and especially candy canes — crunched up on top of softer desserts. I like them on their own if I’m in the mood, but otherwise no, leave my desserts alone!

So I substituted chopped walnuts instead and I honestly cannot imagine these with anything else. I really don’t think the candy cane would have worked as well unless you added a touch of peppermint extract to the top layer, but honestly even that I think would be overdoing it.

I think I’d also add just a touch more melted butter to the crushed Oreo crust because it crumbled more than I’d like after it was baked.

Anyway. On to some pictures!

My two eight-year-olds helped me with the “action shots” (in actuality it was nearly a fight to the death over who would get to take which shots, but as you can see it all worked out in the end. Yay kids in the kitchen!)

I didn’t take a picture of the crushed Oreos but this works. This is added to the cream cheese/sour cream mixture in the next picture:

I was so happy when I read that the recipe called for sour cream — I love cheesecakes with sour cream. Don’t mind the messy counter in the background - it was grocery day.

The processed cheesecake mixture was very thick and gloppy and heavenly and delicious.

The chocolate topping. Need a closer look?

That’s better.

After the cheesecake bakes you drizzle the chocolate topping on while the cheesecake is still warm. Let the whole thing cool down a bit more before putting it in the fridge and then let it stay in there until it’s completely chilled and set through.

My top chocolate layer cracked a bit after sitting in the fridge for a couple of days but of course that didn’t affect the taste at all!

Now that is a thing of chocolate beauty. The foil lining the pan makes it extremely easy to lift the whole thing out for cutting, and then it plops back into the pan with no problem when you’re done.

Want some? :D

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1. Heather Alexandria
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Winners have been notified by email as of 7:30 a.m. PST November 17 and have 24 hours to respond before a new winner is chosen.

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This is a fashion show I can get into it — all the outfits are made of chocolate!

The New York Chocolate Fashion Show is an annual event, and this year over 60 pastry chefs and chocolatiers participated and worked with a theme: superheroes! Watch the process — from creation to fitting to showing — in the video above.

I can tell you one thing, I would not be a thin little waif for long wearing one of these!

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