This recipe has become one of my “go-to” recipes when I need to make something quickly to take to a pot luck dinner at church, for small group, family dinners, etc. I make a chocolate bunt cake (usually Devil’s Food or a HM chocolate cake – check out Gayle’s site recipes for a good one) and then pour this sauce, very warm, over the still warm cake. It makes for a very rich, moist, and delicious dessert that takes very little time to make. Everyone loves it and asks for it! They think that I’ve spent lots of time in the kitchen slaving away when the stove/oven did most of the work for me.

Chocolate Sauce

Yield: 3 cups

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup Cocoa
1 3/4 cups sugar
A dash of salt
1 can evaporated milk (12 oz)
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium sauce pan, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add cocoa and stir until smooth. Add sugar, salt, and evaporated milk, and stir until well blended. Continue stirring until mixture comes to a boil. Beat with whisk until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Serve warm over cake, ice cream or other desserts.

Cover and refrigerate left over sauce.

Reheat: Microwave on high for a few seconds at a time until warm.

Variations:

Chocolate-Nut Sauce: At the end of cooking, stir in 1 cup of coarsely chopped toasted nuts.

Chocoate-Mint Sauce: Stir in 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract with vanilla extract.

Don’t forget to check out The Grocery Chart Challenge for more great recipes this week!

1. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Beat in condensed milk, pudding mix, cold milk and vanilla until smooth. Fold in 1/2 of the whipped topping.
2. Line the bottom of a 9×13 inch dish with vanilla wafers. Arrange sliced bananas evenly over wafers. Spread with pudding mixture. Top with remaining whipped topping. Chill.

I found this recipe at www.allrecipes.com.  It’s very easy and very good.  Here’s the original recipe.  Sorry!  I didn’t think to take pictures!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pound dry great Northern beans
• 8 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 ham hock
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1/2 stalk celery, chopped
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon mustard powder
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cups chopped ham
• 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Rinse the beans, sorting out any broken or discolored ones. In a large pot over high heat, bring the water to a boil. Add the salt and the beans and remove from heat. Let beans sit in the hot water for at least 60 minutes.
2. After the 60 minutes of soaking, return the pot to high heat and place the ham bone, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, mustard and bay leaves in the pot. Stir well, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 60 more minutes.
3. Remove ham bone and discard. Stir in the chopped ham and simmer for 30 more minutes. Season with ground white pepper to taste.

My variations:

I put everything in the crock pot and cooked it on low for 8 to 10 hours.  After it was done, I took out the bones and discarded them.  Next, I took out about 3 cups of the beans, pureed them, and mixed them back in.  This thickened the soup a bit.  It was very yummy, and my family loved it!    Since I put everything in the crock pot, I also added extra beans, about 3-1/2 to 4 cups of ham (all that I had left), and enough water/broth to cover. 

This recipe is definitely going in my “Keep” folder!

Don’t forget to check out The Grocery Cart Challenge for more great recipes!