All the Things I Love

Valentine's Day, A Day for Lovin'


First, let me begin by saying that Sarah is much more responsible than me. For the past month or so, I've been slaving away working on a grant and teaching my crazy and awesome students everything from commas to time travel to how to write an essay all while helping them apply for college and commuting 4 hours a day. Enough complaining.


Work has been crazy but now that it's calming down, I can devote more time to my second love, besides my students, to food and writing about food.


The only thing that would my job better is if I taught cooking classes to my students. In 2 weeks, I'll make that a reality (more info to come). But for now, my only way to tie my two loves together is by cooking for my students and then forcing them to tell me how awesome my food is.

For Valentine's Day, I taught them about the brain chemistry involved in falling in love. Did you know that people with OCD are more likely to get themselves involved in co-dependent relationships? Just try explaining aphrodisiacs to a group of 15 teenagers. Following our brain lecture about endorphins, vasopressin, and dopamine, my students "mated" with celebrities and created Punnett Squares to determine what their offspring might look like should they have a child with Reese Witherspoon or Beyonce. Hey! Whatever it takes, right?

At the end of the day, my students got their treats. So cute!

Peppermint Bark

1 bag high quality dark chocolate chips
1 bag high quality white chocolate chips
coconut oil
crushed peppermints

Temper (or slowly melt) dark chocolate chips in a double boiler until smooth. (I use a sauce pan with steaming water and an aluminum bowl. Works just the sam.) Pour the chocolate into a casserole dish lined with wax paper. Cool.

Temper (or slowly melt) white chocolate chips in a double boiler until smooth. Pour the melted chocolate over the cooled dark chocolate and sprinkle with finely crushed peppermints. Cool. Break Apart. Devour.




Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Pretzels
1 bag high quality white chocolate chips
Festive sprinkles

Temper (or slowly melt) white chocolate chips in a double boiler until smooth. If the white chocolate gets hard, you've gotten the heat too high. Just take off the heat and stir and the chocolate will loosen up.

Dip pretzels into melted white chocolate, apply pretty sprinkles, and leave to cool on wax paper. I prefer to only cover half the pretzel. It maintains a nice sugar - salt balance and provides more color.

As always - Be productive, do good things!


-J