Groundhog Day Desserts

Look ma! Two posts in one day! LOL!

Despite my earlier musings about Groundhog day, I decided it was as good an excuse as any to have a little fun with dessert. My dear neighbor was making lettuce wraps and Thai chicken from an alleged Cheesecake Factory recipe and wanted to share. Who am I to turn down free food? She cooked all day and it was YUMMY! And I get it...if you're going to go to all that work, it would be nice to share it with someone who appreciates it, as opposed to the moody teens and preteens that populate both of our houses.

So it was my job to provide the table (my house is bigger), beverages (Brazilian limeade) and dessert. I found this adorable little guy on Family Fun, but really, who are we kidding? Martha Steward, I am not, and that's without the gluten-free issues.

But that gave me an idea! Remember "Dirt and Worms" with chocolate pudding, crushed Oreo cookies, and gummy worms? I ran with that.

First, though, I had to solve the gluten issue. Oreos are yummy, but they are definitely NOT something Shannon can eat. I thought I'd find some gluten-free cookies like that, but the more I thought about it, the more expensive that got to be. GF prepared foods are not cheap, so I choose carefully if I'm buying them.

In the baking aisle, it hit me! Chocolate! Shaved, chopped, shredded chocolate. Bonus, I already had chocolate chips at home (a side effect of my addiction to clearance shopping).

So, here you go. First I tried my Pampered Chef chopper. But it really didn't work. Probably because the chips were frozen (I thought that would make them more brittle and therefore more breakable. Notsomuch). After pounding forever, all I really had was a mess.

But I was not dissuaded just yet. I've got all manner of Pampered Chef tools, so I knew I had to have something that would do the job. I found this one, designed to shave little pieces of garlic. Turns out, it works pretty well on frozen chocolate chips too! In no time, I had a pile of chocolate shavings (and sore arms--this one you have to press and turn and the chips were still, after all, frozen).

Next, we must make the pudding. I had two different kinds, to serve a total of 12 people. My children, strange beasts that they are, don't like chocolate pudding. So I had some chocolate for the normal people and some vanilla with cholate chips for my odd bunch. I made up the chocolate pudding using what we call a "boing boing." I'm sure it has a more official and kitcheny sounding name, but I grew up calling it that, so there you have it. Descriptive, yes?

Chocolate pudding, check! Poured into little clear cups and awaiting decoration. On to the vanilla/chocolate chip pudding. But wait......this box says just 2 cups of milk where the chocolate box said 3. Sneaky folks at Jello! The boxes are the same size, but the chocolate pudding makes 6 servings, and the fancy pudding only makes 4. There are 11 of us. The math doesn't add up! Uh-oh!

But, once again, my shopping saves the day as I had a smaller package of vanilla pudding hiding in the cupboard. Phew! Crisis averted. (See, look, silly me thought that the same size box would make the same amount of pudding!)

Then it was time to make the sunshines. NO, those are not flowers, shilly people. I was kinda hoping for a "didn't see his shadow/cloudy day" result because I was going to smoosh marshmallows to make clouds. But nope. Sunshine it was.

Seriously, I wandered all over the store tying to come up with an edible (and affordable) sunshine. Dried apricots? Too orange. Maybe some lemon slice candies stuck together? They don't have the gel frosting I wanted to use. Hmmmm.....okay, so how about a gummy peach slice with a gum drop in the middle? That's getting expensive and slightly silly (yes, only slightly). Then I remembered the MOUNTAINS of scrapbooking tools, supplies, and paper I have here at home. Duh!

So here you have the final product. Pudding, with chocolate "dirt," a gummy bear "groundhog," some spring sprinkles because a.) I'm an optimist and they'll be blooming soon, and b.) Phil is often wrong about this whole predicting thing. Topped off with a sunshine on a toothpick.