Tag Archives: chocolate

S’mores Sea Salt Martini

I’m a birthday girl. Meaning I love my birthday. Not only is it the one day of the year where I can truly do whatever I want without any outside influence from anyone else, but I also get to celebrate another year of my life. I’ve never been one to moan and groan about my age. It is what it is and I can’t do anything about it. Rather than be sad or depressed that I’m yet another year older, instead I look at it as I’m a year younger than I’ll be next year! Some people don’t like a big fuss about their birthdays and that’s fine. And honestly, I don’t like a lot of fuss about mine either – I just like to celebrate it. When my birthday falls on a weekday, I always take the day off. Period. My boss makes fun of me, saying he doesn’t know anyone who likes their birthday as much as I do but the reality is that I just know that working is the last thing on Earth that I want to do. Even if I have no other plans, you won’t see me at work. My birthday is this Sunday so since I’m already off, I’m taking a nice long weekend. I’m heading to the beach today and then heading to Baltimore with my girl friends tomorrow just to get out of Dodge for a while and let off some steam. And I’m planning on taking these S’mores Sea Salt Martinis with me.

S’mores flavored vodka is mixed with half-and-half and served in a chocolate-sea salt rimmed martini glass. I’m a big fan of Three Olives Vodka so when I saw the S’more flavored bottle, I didn’t know whether to be excited or frightened. But I went for it because if I were on a deserted island, I would want to have s’mores with me. So why not a s’mores cocktail too? This cocktail is good but I think I’m going to experiment with it a bit. I’d probably omit the salt, mix chocolate syrup in with the half-and-half, and maybe add in some Baileys or chocolate liqueur. There are all kinds of possibilites with this.

Anyway, having your birthday in the middle of the summer could be a real bummer as a kid. For people whose birthdays fell during the school year, I got to watch as they had their lockers decorated, cookies were brought in, and people chimed “Happy Birthday!” as they passed in the hall between classes. Not only that, but if they had a party planned for the weekend, it became all everyone talked about on Friday at school. When your birthday is in the summer, you don’t get any of that (although a co-worker made me brownies and decorated my office with streamers yesterday). On the bright side, I never had to go to school and I always got to go to the pool. So there. My mom always made my birthdays special so they are still special to me. She doesn’t get anymore birthdays so I will celebrate each and every one of mine for as long as I can. Now as an adult, around where I live, everyone disappears for the shore in the summer. So it’s kind of like being a kid all over again. But that’s ok, I’m used to it. Later on today, I’ll be at the shore too. Have a great weekend, everyone!

The ingredients:

Dip the rim of martini glass in chocolate syrup and coat with sea salt. Drizzle the chocolate syrup inside the martini glass.

Pour vodka and half and half into a martini shaker filled with ice.

Shake and strain into martini glasses.

Garnish with toasted marshmallows if you prefer.

Additions: None

Omissions: None

Substitutions:

Fat-free half and half

Overall Rating: Like It

Source: Three Olives website

Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Muffins

I’ve been getting into bad breakfast habits again. I find myself getting a calorie-loaded egg and cheese bagel more often than usual or I’ll end up skipping breakfast altogether and be so starving by 10am that I’ll eat handfuls of miniature Reese’s peanut butter cups out of the candy bowl in the office next door. It’s terrible. I decided it was time to make some muffins that I could keep stored away for a quick grab-and-go each morning. Rather than deprive myself of that morning chocolate I’ve been getting used to, I thought these Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Muffins would be a perfect transition back into normal breakfast eating.

A simple muffin batter is jazzed up with a splash of red wine vinegar and chocolate chips, which are also used to top of these puffy cocoa gems. I used regular chocolate chips in place of mini-chocolate chips because I had them on hand but I can only imagine how rich and chocolatey these muffins would be with little bits of melted chocolate in every bite. These muffins satisfy any chocolate urge you get and are perfectly light enough to eat with your morning coffee. Now I can actually feel a little less guilty about eating chocolate for breakfast.

Also, I want to take a moment to wish my cousin-more-like-a-little-brother Ben a very, very Happy Birthday today! Check out his novel, Harvitz, As To War, here.

The ingredients:

Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Make a well in center of mixture.

Combine water, red wine vinegar, canola oil, vanilla and egg in a separate bowl, stirring well. Stir in half of the chocolate chips and add mixture to the well in the flour mixture. Stir just until moist.

Coat 12 muffin liners with cooking spray and divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Top remaining chocolate chips evenly over batter.

Bake in a 400°F oven for 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in pan on a wire rack.

Additions: None

Omissions: None

Substitutions:

Whole-wheat flour for 3/4 cup white flour
Regular chocolate chips for minichips

Overall Rating: Love It

Source: Cooking Light Magazine

Strawberry-Chocolate Paninis

June 1, 2012
Shannon
0 comments
chocolate, dessert, food, sandwiches, strawberries

I’ve been on a little bit of a strawberry kick ever since one day last week when I went to this relatively new eatery in Philadelphia’s Suburban Station called Yoshi which sells – wait for it – yogurt and sushi. The thought of yogurt and sushi grosses out the majority of us but I finally got to a point where I just couldn’t listen to another person rave about the yogurt (not one word on how the individually wrapped sushi is selling) without trying it myself. I grabbed a co-worker and stepped into this vibrant little shop which offered several different kinds of non-fat yogurt (like vanilla, peach, cheesecake, chocolate, and mint) and all kinds of toppings. From Oreo cookies, gummy bears, and peanut butter chips to kiwi fruit, blueberries, and lychee, you can make your treat as good or as bad as you want. I was in a fruity mood so I chose peach yogurt with fresh slices of strawberries. I generally choose other berries to snack on over strawberries but that day, they seemed to go well with the peach frozen yogurt and the whole dessert was fresh, light and tasty. Now, I can’t get enough of those plump little berries.

Since then, I’ve been craving strawberries and bought a pint earlier this week that never seems to end. Looking around my kitchen and noticing some whole-wheat buns that I probably wouldn’t finish and a few ounces of cream cheese that I had nothing to eat with, I decided to make a Strawberry-Chocolate Paninis using my sweet, sweet strawberries as the star of the show. Cream cheese is spread on whole-wheat bread and topped with slices of fresh strawberries and semi-sweet chocolate chips before being smooshed and toasted in a panini press. The cream cheese provides the slightest bit of tang to balance out the sweetness from the strawberries and chocolate. Any kind of bread will do here (like sourdough or French) and dark chocolate could easily be substituted too. My ingredients below made two sandwiches but you can easily double everything to make more. This is a nice little dessert panini that’s perfect for when plain strawberries just won’t do the trick. I mean, who doesn’t like strawberries and chocolate?

Strawberry-Chocolate Paninis (makes 2 sandwiches)

2 whole-wheat hamburger buns or any 4 slices of preferred bread
4-6 medium sized strawberries
2 ounces cream cheese, reduced-fat or regular, preferrably room temperature
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat a panini maker over medium-high heat. Spread 1 ounce of cream cheese onto the bottom sides of each bun. Layer strawberries slices over the cream cheese. Evenly sprinkle the chocolate chips over the strawberries. Top each with the remaining bun halves. Grill sandwiches in the panini press until golden on both sides (about 2-3 minutes). Halve sandwiches and serve.