Also, I've had two days of not perfect sleep (I keep leaving my big fat mouth open), but much improved sleep. I'm having dreams. I tell everyone that the surest sign that I'm feeling good is that laundry is getting done. As lousy as I've felt, it's a miracle that my kids aren't running around naked, though we are running dangerously low on towels at the moment. I need to have a convo with the dryer.

Apparently, however, going to the garage may be a dangerous thing because there's a bird trapped in there. I shudder to think what the bird has shat upon. *sigh* We asked Russell to open the door, but he got scared. We reminded him that he could use the remote in the car and hopefully, the poor bird is out.

One of the chickens passed away. I think we have to do a serious demiting of them either tonight or tomorrow night. The best thing is to just go in while they're roosting and dust them. The problem is that with 50 birds, that's a whole lot of dusting. It also means you have to toss all the eggs from it. I'm sure that commercial places don't, but we're not commercial and I don't want to eat that stuff. I can't recall what it's name is, but it's the highly toxic stuff they make from chrysanthemums that the natural food places claims is *organic." It's a serious toxin.

No heart condition! WHEEEEEEE! Thus, the reason for the following.

Last night, I made the best damned bad thing for Sarah's birthday cake ever. I made her a Mocha Toasted Pecan Torte. The recipe I used called for semi sweet chocolate and honestly, that was a little bitter with the coffee stuff in it. I think it'd be better with milk chocolate or those swirled white and milk chocolate chips. I've reproduced the recipe below with my own comments and suggested substitutions.

Mocha Pecan Torte

1 1/3 c. of chocolate chips
1 cup of butter

melt these together til smooth on low.

6 eggs
1 c. of sugar/splenda
1.5 c. of pecans that have been toasted in the oven. (Just stick them on a cookie sheet until they make your kitchen start to smell yummy -- you actually should put an extra cup on for the prettying up later)

Blend these in a blender or food processor for a minute or two untile they're fully combined, i.e., until the nuts are chopped.

Take your chocolate mixture above, AND 1/4 c. of expresso or kahlua, one cup of sifted cocoa and mix everything together. Put a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of a spring form pan and grease and flour it. Pour the mixture on top.

Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. (Depends on your elevation) They said to do it until the edges were two inches taller than the sides, but it didn't work for me, but I also live at 5100 feet. *shrug* I just did it till the edges started to crackle.

Then you make the glaze.

Mocha Glaze: In a medium heavy saucepan heat 3 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon light-colored corn syrup over low heat, stirring occasionally until butter melts. Add one cup chocolate pieces; stir till melted and smooth. Remove from heat. Add 3 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons coffee liqueur or strong coffee; whisk until smooth. Again on the chocolate, they call for semi sweet, but it makes for a really bitter thing -- don't do it unless you're into dark chocolate. While it's still warm, get it frosted onto your cooled torte.

The final thing is that you take a chunk of baker's white chocolate and put it in a baggy and melt it in the microwave. I used the defrost mode for about 2 minutes, which melts it without hurting the bag. You snip a corner off and then squeeze white chocolate in a big circle in the middle. Then you do concentric circles coming off the center. Then take a toothpick and pull the white chocolate -- it'll look like a spiderweb and very FANCY.

Then you're supposed to take another cup of roasted pecans and chop them up and put them on the sides. What I did instead was just to press pecans on the sides because it was prettier.

I personally think that if I had this recipe to do again, I'd replace the coffee flavor with frangelico and replace the pecans w/hazelnuts, and I'd use milk and/or white chocolates. For something fancy, I might see if I can find Godiva cocoa, too.

This stuff is so rich, it'd make Howard Hughes look poor, baby, so not for the low-cholesterol diet, though perfectly fabulous as a flour-free recipe, though I tell myself because I'm using brown homegrown eggs, it's okay.

It's really good with a scoop of coffee ice cream, but probably better with a glass of skim milk. ;) I'd really like to try it with splenda to have the reduced sugar version. I happen to think it would also be nice with a small snifter of port or a glass of nice fruity red zinfandel. That would also help clear your arteries afterwards!

Martha Stewart may be back, but I'm still wiping the floor with that witch.