Chocolate – Page 2 – Fervent Foodie

10 Calorie Iced Mocha (yes, really).

August 8, 2011 7 Comments

The other day, I came home to THIS on my doorstep:

Jealous?!?!

This goodie box was sent to me as part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program with Godiva Coffee.

It’s the simple things in life, I tell ya.

It’s been so stinkin hot, that I figured I could put the Godiva Chocolate Truffle coffee to good use by making some iced coffee. Give me iced coffee and a straw and you’ll have yourself an empty glass in approximately 13 seconds.

Early in the morning, I brewed up a big ole pot of the Chocolate Truffle coffee, and proceed to drink 2 glasses of it hot. I couldn’t get over the strong chocolate smell! I put the rest of the pot into the fridge to chill out, and it made the whole fridge smell like delicious cocoa.

Later that afternoon, I filled a glass halfway with ice:

DSCF7251

Then added 6 ounces of the brewed coffee, plus 1 packet of no-cal sweetener, plus 2 ounces of some fat-free unsweetened vanilla almond milk (the kind I buy is 40 calories a cup).

Isn’t it pretty?

All mixed up:

10 calories to caffeinated joy!

If you are feeling extra sassy, you could even add a squirt of your favorite chocolate syrup to the mix. Your call my friend. Your call. 😉

Ramblings

Weekend Fail.

February 7, 2011 8 Comments

Going into the weekend, I had one goal: to find the new Luna Bar flavors and devour mass quantities of them. For those who aren’t maniacally obsessed with luna bars …. For those who have been living under a rock!!! … ahem… for those who aren’t aware, the new flavors are Chocolate Chunk and the highly coveted Chocolate Dipped Coconut.

Saturday afternoon I was out running errands when I got wind of a winter storm a brewing. So I decided to high tail it to Whole Foods in Cleveland so that I could snag the new Lunas. I even called the store ahead of time to make sure that they had the new flavors in stock. As an added bonus, I planned to swing by Trader Joes which is right down the road from Whole Foods. It’s not often I make this trip up to Cleveland, so I had already started mentally drafting a lengthy list of goodies to pick up.

About 20 minutes into my drive the freezing rain started. No worries I thought. I’ve got this. Zoom zoom Mazda, zoom zoom.

A few miles passed.

Ok Mazda, perhaps a little less zoom.

Let’s creep like a turtle instead, shall we?

The closer and closer I got the Cleveland the WORSE AND WORSE the weather got. At one point traffic was stuck at a dead stop for a good 15 minutes, which I soon realized was due to an accident that had resulted in a car completely flipped over on the snow embankment. I counted four accidents on my journey north. And I’m not talking fender benders. I’m talking the kind of accident you drive by and say “holy cow! how the heck did that happen!??!?”.

Perhaps this was a bad day to go to Cleveland…

When I finally arrived at Whole Foods, I was literally shaking. I bolted inside and headed for the Luna Bars. I quickly spied the Chocolate Chunk and grabbed two with gusto. As I reached victoriously into the Chocolate Dipped Coconut box I realized, to my utter horror, that the box was empty. They were sold out. They were sans coconut goodness, if you will.

I had just risked my life, and they were sold out.

I stood in front of the Luna Bars motionless as defeat washed over me.

As I turned to leave, I remembered that I was also super excited to try out the new blueberry muffin LaraBar. Just as I headed to grab one, an old lady swerved her cart into the aisle and picked up the ENTIRE last box of blueberry muffin Laras and dumped them into her cart.

I kid you not. It was like a scene from Walmart’s toy aisle on Black Friday.

I turned away concealing my internal rage, bought my 2 chocolate chunk bars, and headed to the car.

I immediately tore into the Chocolate Chunk Luna Bar.

This Luna Bar was definitely tasty, like a big chocolatey chewy graham. It reminded me of the smore Luna a little too much though….

After all that nonsense, I decided to just go home. No TJ’s shopping spree. That’s right. I drove all the way to Cleveland in an ice storm for 2 Chocolate Chunk Luna bars.

Fail.

Recipes

Wow Balls

November 28, 2010 9 Comments

You may know them as Cookie Balls, Oreo Balls, or perhaps Oreo Truffles.

I know them simply as Wow Balls.

Why “Wow Balls”? Because that was the first and only word I was able to utter as I enjoyed my first delicious bite of one of these glorious goodies.

Wow.

Chocolate haters beware – this recipe is not for you. These balls are rich, decadent, and oh-so-delicious. In a word: WOW.

The ingredients are simple:

1 package oreos (minus two for munchin while you work)
8 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 packages Baker’s Chocolate
Toppings of your choosing

First up, dump the Oreos into a food processor and pulse away until they are completely chopped up into little bits. Then dump in the softened cream cheese and vanilla extract and mix together with a blender.

Once everything is combined and you can no longer see any white bits of cream cheese, use a small cookie scooper to scoop out bite size chocolate balls. (I was able to get 3 dozen out of mine):

Pop the tray into the freezer for about an hour. This will make dipping them in chocolate MUCH MUCH easier.

Next, get your double boiler ready. Or, if you are like me and don’t have a double boiler, you can make do with a large pot of water and a glass mixing bowl. Fill the water in the pot up high enough that the bowl sits in the water when you place in on top of the pot. Also, make sure the bowl is large enough that no water will splash up into your chocolate. Water + melty chocolate = bad news bears.

Dump all of the Bakers chocolate into the glass bowl and let it slowly melt.

Now it’s time for dipping! I worked in batches of 5 (so that the balls didn’t start to unfreeze), and I found the fork and spoon method to work best. Basically I plopped one ball in the melted chocolate at a time, used the spoon to roll it around, and the fork to lift the ball up out of the chocolate and drain off the excess chocolatey goodness.

I set the dipped chocolates on wax paper to cool and immediately topped with a variety of toppings I had on hand, including pecans, chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles, coconut, and crushed cookies:

When the chocolates had hardened, I slipped each on onto a mini muffin liner.

I had several people ask me if I bought these in the store—they really did look quite professional!

I can’t wait to make these with peanut butter cookies!!!!

Thank you Jessie for bringing these lovely treats into my world!

Wow Balls Ingredients List (makes 3 dozen)

1 package oreos
8 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 packages Baker’s Chocolate
Toppings of your choosing

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