Chocolate Recipes for Valentine’s Day

I have to admit that I think Valentine’s Day is kind of hokey. Teddy bears and silly cards are cute enough, I suppose, but overpriced flowers and prix fixe restaurant menus don’t do much for me. But this Hallmark holiday does have one major redeeming quality: chocolate.

Who can be cranky about a holiday that prompts coworkers to share bowls of hershey kisses and husbands to bring home cherry cordials? Even better, of course, are the home made treats. Nobody can resist chocolates from your very own kitchen. And on this one day, all chocolate is calorie-free. True fact. So go to town!

Below are a few of my favorite chocolate truffle-like recipes.

I hope you enjoy!

Cake Ball Truffles

Nutty Goat Cheese Chocolate Truffles

Peanut Butter Balls

Fruit and Nut Popcorn Balls

My husband has a knack for gift-giving, but I’m not talking about flowers or diamonds. He knows that, to me, the popcorn popper he bought for Christmas is so much more exciting than any trinket. Thoughtful and sweet, his presents are enough to make up for the fact that he shrunk all of my delicates this week! My own fault, of course, for suggesting he take a stab at the laundry.

After I discovered that all of my underthings had taken a trip through the hot dryer, and was reasonably cranky, he made up for it with marshmallows.  Yeah, I’m easy to please.  But he knows how much I adore cocoa during a snow storm, and a mug of cocoa is not complete without a handful of mini marshmallows. 

Appeased and armed with pounds of popcorn and mountains of marshmallows, I dove into a sticky, gooey mess. Popcorn balls are fantastic fun. Playing around with tacky marshmallow drizzle would make for a great diversion for little hands.  And since you’ve got to work quickly to make the popcorn balls before the marshmallow hardens, I suggest a little help anyway.

You could certainly use any kind of dried fruit you like here, although the raisins and dried cranberries I had in the cabinet added just the right amount of chewy sweetness to the popcorn balls.  And if honey roasted peanuts aren’t your thing, cashews might be fun.  You could even go for almond or cashew butter instead of the peanut butter.  Basically, all of these ingredients are just suggestions, so get creative. Next time I think I’ll add a few chocolate chips.

Although perfect for snacking as is, if you make smaller popcorn balls you might enjoy them as part of a football Sunday spread.  When was the last time you had a popcorn ball?  Decades, I’d guess. Your friends will get a kick out of the nostalgia! Popcorn balls might also be a fun hostess gift all wrapped up with a bit of ribbon. 

Fruit and Nut Popcorn Balls

Makes about 12 2-inch balls

8 cups popcorn (popped without salt or butter)

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries

1/4 cup honey roasted peanuts

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tbsp butter

4 cups mini marshmallows

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Nonstick cooking spray

In a large bowl toss together the popcorn, dried fruit, peanuts, and salt.  In a large pot melt the butter over low heat.  Add the marshmallows and cook, stirring, until melted.  Add the peanut butter and stir until smooth.  Pour the marshmallow mixture over the popcorn mixture and incorporate quickly.  Spray your hands with nonstick cooking spray so that the mixture doesn’t stick to your hands.  Working very quickly, form the mixture into 2-inch balls.  Place popcorn balls on parchment paper to harden for at least 30 minutes.

Kitchen Disasters, Bad Juju, and Peanut Butter Cookies

There is something very, very wrong with the karma in my kitchen.  Either that or I have totally lost it (and by ‘it’ I mean my ability to cook). 

Yesterday was a long, exhausting day.  The kind of day for which comfort food was invented.  So sprinkled a whole chicken with some lemon zest and thyme, drizzled it with olive oil, threw it in the oven, and put on my fuzzy PJs.  Then I made biscuits – and honey butter. When I went to pull my chicken out of the oven, the skin was wonderfully brown and crispy, and as I was busy congratulating myself for my perfect roast, it took me a minute to notice the problem. 

You see, I had put the chicken in the roasting pan upside down!  And do you know what happens when the chicken goes in breast down?  I do!  What happens is that the breast does not cook.  Or, at least, the breast cooks very, very slowly.  I have rosted quite a number of chickens, and I have never, ever been absent-minded enough to put them in the pan upside down!  Well, until yesterday that is.  And by this time it was nine o’clock and we were hungry and cranky.  So we ate biscuits for dinner.

And then tonight, all I did was press down the toaster lever.  I put in my tortilla, set the toaster to ‘light’ and 30 seconds later there were flames all over my counter.  I grabbed the fire extinguisher, screamed my head off, tried not to breathe in smoke, and realized that I had no idea how to use a fire extinguisher.  Thankfully, Jeff was a bit calmer, and he snatched the fire extinguisher from me and with one quick burst took care of the toaster.  Normally, this wouldn’t have been a terrible omen, but since it was my second fire in less than a month, I’m a bit worried.  A few weeks ago, I saw a podcast on drying herbs in the microwave.  Sounded easy enough to me, but a paper towel and three sprigs of dill later, my microwave burst into flames. As I said, bad juju.

Of course, I couldn’t really leave it at that.  So I made cookies.  Easy, easy, easy cookies.  The simplest, most lovely, peanut butter cookies.  I have been meaning to make these for a while, and tonight I just needed to prove that I could do it, that could make my kitchen do its job.  In any case, they are sweet and crumbly and perfect, and you don’t have to actually tell anyone how easy they are. 

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for rolling

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix all ingredients together until well incorporated and smooth.  Roll the dough into balls, about one inch in diameter.  Roll each ball in more sugar before placing on a greased cookie sheet.  Press each ball down with a fork once, and then again at a 90 degree angle.  Bake for about 12-15 minutes until slightly brown around the edges.  Transfer to a rack and cool.