Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

I am not embarrassed that I made this fudge.  I am proud.  I have reasons and justifications:

1. Mike Pollan, in In Defense of Food, argues that any food is okay to eat so long as you bother to make it yourself.  If its true for french fries and twinkies (his examples) then why not this?
2. It is not dissimilar from my planned late night dessert: chocolate ice cream with melted peanut butter.
3. Sweetened condensed milk is an excellent source of calcium

mise en place for this ambitious project

When I saw the recipe for this fudge on Chow, I was outraged.  It seemed like a direct plug for all Nestle products.  I doubted Aida Mollenkamp's integrity.  And since this recipe doesn’t involve actually baking anything (just throwing everything in a bowl, heating it, and then chilling), I felt the recipe was miscategorized under “bake sale treats.”  Nonetheless, when I wandered into my bodega, in search of JIF and hagan daaz 5 chocolate or vanilla, I remembered the recipe. It was 11:30 pm on a weeknight, not really the hour to start a cooking project.  But the ingredients were memorable and the idea of licking the pot while watching Mad Men seemed very appealing.

This type of recipe reminds me a lot of the foods my friends swore by in Michigan: puppy chow or casseroles involving mushroom soup, broccoli, and a potato chip topping. I was always pretty snobby about these foods; yet, they do have a place in world.  There shouldn’t be anything wrong with a quick assembly although I do have a problem with the high concentration of sugar from multiple processed sources.

Anyways, about the fudge.  This isn’t anything special.  It tastes exactly like the ingredients of which it is composed.  But sometimes it is fun just to melt a bunch of things together and pretend that you baked.  It really wasn’t much more work than my usual dessert, and, again,  is an excellent source of calcium.