Living in SF means you don't always have outdoor space and this is sadly the case for my current apartment. What's cruel is that my place looks out onto my neighbor's gorgeous backyard garden, which I have zero access too. Not fair not fair. It even has an outdoor shower...and yes I've unfortunately caught my neighb showering it in once. #icannotunseethat As far as having my own garden goes, I only have two options. 1: sneak into my neighb's garden and help myself or 2: create an indoor garden. I opted for the latter, since I'm not great at scaling walls, and refer to it as my "house garden."

My HG consists of one plant right now- a chocolate mint plant. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? It's kind of the perfect plant for me. It was given to me by my coworker who has these taking over his <outdoor> garden. He actually has the nerve to call them "weeds" though <shakes head> Not me. They are far from weeds to me, they are the "leading man" of my garden. So this coworker gave it to me because he thought I could make something dessserty with it. Challenge. Accepted.

Mint Chocolate Truffles
Recipe from adelightfulhome.com
Yield: Roughly 40 delectable balls

Ingredients
1 1/4 cup heavy cream
6 sprigs of fresh chocolate mint or peppermint (sprigs should be about 3 inches long)
16 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate (I used my current fav Scharffen Berger)
1/2 cup good quality cocoa powder

Directions
Step One: Infuse the cream
• Pour cream into a small saucepan and warm over medium-high heat until it comes to a boil.
• Add the herbs and submerge them in the cream, pushing them below the surface with a spoon.
• Remove the pan from the heat immediately and cover with a plate or lid. Leave to steep for 30 minutes.
• While the cream is steeping, chop chocolate into small pieces that are less than 1/2 inch in size.
• Once the 30 minutes is up, strain the cream through a fine sieve to remove the herbs.
• Check to see if the cream measures 1 1/4 cups. If not, add more cream until it reaches 1 1/4 cups.
• Pour the cream back into the saucepan.

Step Two: Prepare Ganache
• Add chopped chocolate to a food processor.
• Warm the cream again until it comes to a full boil. Once it boils, immediately pour the cream over chopped chocolate in the food processor (Careful! Safety first!) Put lid on food processor.
• Let sit for one minute.
• Turn on processor and blend until smooth.
• Use a rubber spatula to transfer the ganache to a small container or casserole dish.
• All to cool to room temperature then move to the refrigerator to harden for about 2 hours.

Step Three: Form the Truffles
• Use a melon baller or rounded teaspoon to scoop the ganache into balls (about 3/4 inch in size).
• Roll quickly between the palms of your hands to form into a ball. (This can get very messy. But it’s worth it!)
• Try to get a nice shaped ball, but don’t be a perfectionist.

Step Four: Coat the Truffles
• Put cocoa powder in a bowl and toss truffles gently (two at a time) to coat.
• Optional: After coating truffles, place truffles in a strainer and gently knock the side of the strainer with you hand to remove any excess cocoa powder.
• Allow truffles to harden in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.
• Stop reading this and pop one of those suckers in your mouth!
• Truffles will keep in refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Dessert Fiend