Girls' Night

One of the things I love most is girls night. As often as can be arranged, with everyone's crazy schedule and such, a group of my girlfriends gather up their favorite snack, their foot-soaker, and their gossip and head over to my place to get together and "dish" over a glass or three of wine and an all-out chick flick. We keep it "no icky boys allowed" which gives boyfriends, husbands, or significant others' a night without us as well.


My little girls get into it, too. They invite their friends, eat pizza, have popcorn and a movie in their room and "entertain" each other with silly stories, funny songs, and crazy dancing. Basically, it's a fun night for all.

Our latest girls night was last Saturday. Long overdue, it was the perfect way to let off some steam and just be "girly". Since the goal is to keep it simple, our "nutritious" dinner consisted of veggies, hummus, guacamole, chips, salsa, monkey bread, and pumpkin mousse with white chocolate whipped cream. Ok, not so nutritious...but there WERE veggies involved, so yeah, I'll go with that...

My contribution was the pumpkin mousse which was hard to put down, but, light enough to be filling once we finally stopped eating!

Pumpkin Mousse with White Chocolate Whipped Cream



Prep Time: 1 hours, 10 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 15-oz can pumpkin puree
• 1 cup plus 2 cups chilled heavy cream
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

• 2 ounces white chocolate, shaved
Sweetened whipped cream

Preparation:

In a medium saucepan, stir together the pumpkin, 1 cup heavy cream, sugar, and pumpkin pie spice. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Chill for at least 1 hour before preparing the mousse.

Whip the remaining 2 cups chilled cream into peaks. Gently stir ½ cup of the chilled pumpkin mixture into the whipped cream. Once the ½ cup of pumpkin is almost fully incorporated into the cream, fold in the remaining pumpkin.

Serve it in baked puff pastry shells. Top with sweetened whipped cream with white chocolate chunks folded in and then sprinkle additional white chocolate over the top.

It is divine!

Makes 8 servings.