Tight on cash and/or don't quite buy into Valentine's Day? Nevertheless, you're making a decent dinner tomorrow night and want to top it off with a special dessert? But this idea occurred to you at the last minute, and you don't want to buy/spend a whole lot of time or money on ingredients?

Crockpot Chocolate Fudge Pudding Cake by About.com's Linda Larsen sounds like just the decadent yet effortless recipe we're aiming for. Just plop all of the basic ingredients into the crockpot in the morning and torture yourself and your neighbors with the smell of cooking chocolate all day. We haven't tried it yet, but how can you go wrong? We're doing some crockpot baking first thing in the morning!

For those who are even lazier busier, you can just buy instant cake and pudding mixes and sour cream (yum, sour cream) instead.

It's hard to go wrong with Mac and Cheese, so we decided to pick the most gluttonous version we could find, Deep-Fried Mac and Cheese, by Ms. Paula Deen. (Well, actually, there's an even more gluttonous version of this recipe, which includes a strip of bacon wrapped around each serving, but we thought that was going a bit too far.)

In the words of Food Network commenter, Kodi from Verona, WI, "THIS IS GREAT AND SO EASY TO MAKE IF NO ONE LIKES THIS THEY MUST BE FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY. THANKS PAULA." So, if you don't like this recipe, you're un-American!

Note: This recipe is made in two parts. Paula's Lady's Cheesy Mac must be prepared and refrigerated over night, and then deep fried the next day. So, if you're too lazy to fry it on Sunday, you still have regular Mac and Cheese already made. For the deep frying portion, you'll need a dutch oven. No, we're not talking about that kind of dutch oven, although you'll have ample opportunity for that after consuming all of that Super Bowl fare.

The big game is on Sunday, which for us non-sports fans means hovering over the snack table in between space-out sessions in front of the TV. (Except this contributor is a bit more invested this year since it involves our home town team, the Colts.) In order to make that snack table as appealing as possible, we'll be posting recipes for some classic comfort foods for the rest of the week.

Below is a yummy Sloppy Joe recipe from one of our favorite food bloggers, Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes.

Although this recipe makes normal-sized Sloppy Joes, we suggest making bite-sized mini sandwiches for this occasion and maybe adding some spicy cheese, if desired. This recipe would also be tasty with vegan ground beef, since it's all about the texture and the sauce. And if the ingredients list looks a bit daunting, it's probably safe to cut out the celery and some of the spices, as well as the red wine vinegar. Enjoy!

In all honesty, we had no idea what sugar plums were until after watching Alton Brown's Good Eats Christmas special the other night. We'd heard of sugar plums in lore -- psychedelically dancing in the heads of children in the "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," and in fairy form in Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker -- but we didn't know that the old timey Christmas treat was, in fact, just a dragée of dried fruits, spices, honey and sugar rolled into a ball. (They're sweet, decorative, and keep you regular. Genius.)

Try them yourself. Brown's recipe is as follows:

Sugar Plums
6 oz toasted slivered almonds
4 oz dried plums
4 oz apricots and figs
1/4 teaspoon anise seeds
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 honey
pinch of salt
1 cup course sugar

In a food processor chop the almonds, dried plums, apricots and figs. Toast the anise seeds, fennel seeds and caraway seeds. Add the toasted seeds, cardamom, confectioners sugar, salt, honey in a bowl and mix together.

Form into 1/4 ounce balls. Dry the balls for a few hours or overnight, covered with a towel. After drying, roll the balls in our hand to warm and coat in course sugar.

In September, Kathryn Hill of Apartment Therapy's "The Kitchn" brought to you a DIY Pumpkin Spice Latte, which was strikingly similar to Starbucks' famous autumnal treat.

Now, Hill brings you a Starbucks-ish DIY Peppermint Mocha recipe. (For those of you who prefer the Seattle chain's Gingerbread Lattes or Eggnog Lattes, you'll have to wait until Thursday and Friday, respectively, for those do-it-yourself recipes.) Here you go. Enjoy:

DIY Peppermint Mocha
Makes 1 drink

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
3 tablespoons powdered cocoa - run it through a sifter or fine wire strainer to remove lumps
3 tablespoons warm water
1/2 cup hot espresso
1 1/2 cups hot milk or soy milk (you can microwave it or heat it on the stovetop.)
Whipped cream (optional)

In a small saucepan, stir together the water and sugar, bringing to a soft boil, stirring frequently, until the sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to a low simmer and add the peppermint extract, and simmer for 20 minutes.

In a large mug add the cocoa and water and mix together until a creamy paste forms. Add the espresso on top, then 1 1/2 teaspoon of the peppermint simple syrup, and stir to mix. Top the mug off with the hot milk and stir. If desired, add whipped cream.

Read more at The Kitchn.

by Tiffany Maleshefski

This next cocktail goes out to all those steel-hearted folks who role their eyes at the very first note of "Jingle Bell Rock." Yes, all you uncompromising guys and gals who refuse to drink our egg nog, de-lint our reindeer sweaters, and go out of your way to push down the little kids at the Union Square skating rink: we love you too. And because you deserve to get schnockered like the rest of us this holiday season, we've found you a cocktail that isn't too different from your standard bar fare. Save for the cranberry part, this little gem is just like a good ol' mojito, except there's a little bit of tart (just like your heart). Who knows, after 1 or 10 of these, you might be the loudest caroler on the cable car and spending the rest of December down at the Dickens Faire. We got a muffler with your name on it.

Christmas Mojito
1 ½ oz. Flor de Canas 7 year dark rum
½ oz. simple syrup
2 oz. cranberry juice
1 fresh-squeezed lime
Handful of mint leaves
Splash of soda water

Muddle together rum, mint, lime, and simple syrup to a pint glass. Add a few non-muddled mint leaves to make it all purdy. Pour over ice and add soda. Garnish with rum-soaked cranberries.

Do: Remember that just because you hate the holidays does not make you
hipper than those that do.
Don't: Take yourself so seriously.

by Tiffany Maleshefski

Lately, our heads have been even so cluttered with competing schedules, to-do lists, complaints about Muni, and people who have just SO pissed us off, we've barely gotten a chance to complain about the tourists that have taken over Union Square. Of course, there are the more important things we should really be directing our capacity to bitch: the economy, seemingly endless war, auto industry bailouts, and daily reports of more folks getting laid off. But frankly, we're flat out exhausted and only have time to focus on the pettier things in life. Fortunately, bartenders Scott Brody and Camber Lay over at Epic Roasthouse gave us some focus with their Fog Lifter. Hot, delicious individually dripped coffee spiked with a bit of yummy rum, alcoholic cream, and the thickest dollop of whipped cream on top; it certainly cleared our heads (or at least got it out of our proverbial rear).

So now you're probably judging us, thinking, "Well, la-dee-da, Epic. Must be nice to just swing on over to Epic Roasthouse whenever you're feeling down and casually drop $70 on happy hour." Well, the big secret here is the restaurant's upstairs lounge, aka Quiver Bar. Here you'll find hella rad views of the bay and a super sweet happy hour menu. Plus, if you recall, we're showing you how to bring all this joy into your kitchen and living rooms, so stop judging us already!

Fog Lifter

½ oz. Plantation rum
1 oz. Lauria Alpensahne Alpine Cream liqueur
Approximately 4 oz. of coffee.
Whipped cream

Rinse coffee glass with hot water. Add liquor and coffee. Top with whipped cream. And if you are somehow hooked up with Teecino (herbal coffee with crushed almonds) sprinkle it on top.

Do: Savor every delicious mouthful of cold cream hitting hot coffee.

Don't: Think just because there's coffee in it, you can start every morning off with one.

The San Francisco world of restaurant gossip columnists went head over heels when Grace-Ann Walden retired from the Chronicle and the Inside Scoop column. She had all the info, friends in all dining rooms, ears in all the kitchens, she was our go-to-writer every Wednesday for all the tips on new restaurant openings, closures, chef musical chairs and overall juicy gossip. Who was going to dish it to us? We are thankful that Marcia’s Tablehopper stepped in the void Grace-Ann left for our fix of rumors and tidbits.

Grace-Ann did not let her tight relations with the best chefs in town cool down. Quite the contrary, they are sizzling. She went to each of them and collected recipes to put onto recipe cards. Recipe cards! Just like the one that our mom used to cut out of Elle Magazine back when we were kids and we would cook with at Christmas. They come in a boxed set, and each card features a restaurant in San Francisco. There are 86 cards, thus the name of the project: 86 San Francisco (there's "86 New-York" already and more in the works).

We want you to cook with cards, it’s better than a book. See, you don’t have to turn pages, back and forth, back and forth, when you process two recipes in parallel for that fancy dinner party. You can take them with you, just take the ones you need, it’s portable, it’s convenient, it's classic. So we have 3 sets of cards to give away for three of our lucky SFist readers!

Please enter your name and contact info in the fields below before May 16th, and the winners will be contacted by email directly. One submission per reader, please, you insatiable things.

If you can increase your chances of winning something by also entering the (unrelated) contest NY vs. SF Food Challenge organized by 86 recipes: write in 100 words or less why SF is a better food city than NY, and you can win a trip to NY to check your theory first hand.

Recipe for a nice nap: A beer and a whopping bbq turkey sandwich from Tommy’s Joynt followed by last night’s SFIAAFF film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, actually titled Syndromes and a Century.

We’d looked forward to a little excitement after our long day, but there was none to be had until we’d left the theater last night. We struggled through the first half of the film, which was plugged as a Buddhist love story, sans much dialogue or plot, meeting the questioning “can we leave yet?” glances of our generous friend (generous because he endured the film with us) every fifteen minutes or so.

And just when it seemed promising because the setting changed, we discovered we’d encountered a really dry version of Groundhog Day.” Once the very limited original dialogue began repeating itself, we realized we were listening to the same (still dry) conversation about the downfalls of a monk’s poultry diet again.

We’ll give Syndromes this, though – the film’s lighting and scenery were indeed at times dreamy and intriguing and certainly set the stage for a pleasant nap.