There are days when all you want to do is wake up and eat chocolate. Ok, maybe not you, but I definitely have those days. Today, is one of those days.
My love of chocolate brings me to the crucial conflict of my existence: I truly believe that I can survive and be healthy, happy, productive, etc. on meat and vegetables alone; however, I emotionally cannot live without CHOCOLATE! I would probably drop five pounds, live five years longer, and have five less crinkles around my ever aging eyes, but I can't seem to do it! So, I choose chocolate. I will always choose chocolate (and wine), and frankly, I have to write this post to justify my need for chocolate!
You may call me strange because I actually do eat bars of unsweetened (yes 100% dark) chocolate, and I put cocoa powder in my chili, and when I'm feeling sad, I do self medicate with a chunk of chocolaty goodness.
The sad story of chocolate is that like meat and vegetables, it has become denatured, contaminated and abused in the modern era. For example, do you remember the days when you had to tenderly care for your chocolate bars, keeping them in a cool place to prevent temperature fluctuations? I do! When I was seven, we had a Sees candy bar drive; I must have sold 350 candy bars, but we had a good 50 left after the drive. For some crazy reason (which looking back, is probably the reason I have my entire chocolate addiction today), my parents decided to buy the remainder of the dark chocolate almond bars. I was eating chocolate bars for months! But as time went on, and the candy bars were exposed to hot days and cool nights, I noticed a white, chalky discoloration to my afternoon treats! Candy bars don't discolor like this anymore, because every single chocolate bar now a days has soy lecithin in to emulsify the cocoa butter and the cocoa, preventing the separation that causes that white discoloration. Its sad; soy , dairy, sugar, corn syrup, and more pounded into our treats to make them completely unavailable to us few and proud people who are super choosy about even our indulgences.
If you're like me, and you love chocolate, and you want a halloween treat that won't kill you because it's saturated with junk, try these amazing chocolate "peanut butter" hearts. You won't miss Reese's for a second!
1. 1 Ghirardelli 100% dark chocolate baking bar (unsweetened! and soy free!)
2. 1/4 C sunbutter
3. t Tbs honey
4. 1/8 tsp salt
5. 1/2 tsp honey
6. Sea salt for sprinkling
1. Melt chocolate in a double boiler.
2. With beaters, cream together honey, sun butter, salt, and vanilla
3. Sprinkle sea salt into each of the 15 chocolate heart molds.
4. Fill chocolate heart molds 1/4 full of melted chocolate. Divide sun butter evenly between chocolate heart molds.
5. Top off with the remainder of the chocolate.
6. Freeze until hard. Enjoy your paleo chocolate candy!