Ah, here it is, Summer! Outdoors season for Hubby and me has arrived! Whether it’s Hubby taking his bike up and down the surrounding mountains, me rolling out my Yoga mat beneath my favorite tree in the park or the both of us hiking the trails, having a healthy dose of backup energy stashed away in easy reach is always a good idea. Since I don’t do storebought energy/granola bars on principle, I have made a habit, as you guys might have noticed, of coming up with new energy ball combinations – while also whipping up our favorites, of course – on a very regular basis. That’s why there’s an fruity energy bite to be found in every single one of my chocolate boxes~!
Continue reading “Pineapple & Coconut “Virgin Colada” Energy Balls”
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Sometimes, turning on the TV can be a real challenge – in terms of controlling the urge to throw the silly thing out of the window. I suppose everybody gets the feeling that there’s about 97368287 different channels and theres actually nothing on, especially on weekends for some bizarre reason. Add the instant-claws-out reflex I have when there’s over-hyped “trends” involved to the short fuse concerning that particular TV-problem and… yep that’s me walking out the door with a boiling thundercloud above my head in tow, en route to one of our city’s gardens for a breather.
Ever since that little early morning holiday stroll through the city gardens and our visit to the baby goat’s playground I mentioned last week, a little voice in the back of my head kept telling me to whip up something on the goaty side of things. Now, if you’re not really a fan of goat’s milk, cheese ot meat to begin with and/or have had the questionable honor of getting a capital blast of full-force GOAT odeur at some point in your life, you might wonder how getting close and personal with a couple of these fragrant animals could possibly invoke an appetite for anything related to them.
Welcome to this year’s Spring Chocolate Bash a.k.a. My Easter Eggstravaganza~! Just like every year, I used the Spring Holidays as an excuse to dish out delicious little representatives of my “Summer Chocolates” recipe collection to every chocoholic and sweet tooth I know – and, just like every year, the recipes for each bite will appear here, one after another, starting with my personal pick and continuing in the order my chocolate-covered friends, family and of course you request them.
During the last couple of days, Hubby and I were lucky enough to have some time off to fully enjoy the fabulous Spring-sneak-peek mother nature blessed us with. Of course that first glimpse of warmer days to come also presented an irresistible invitation for me to update the contents of our freezer with a refreshing treat or two~!
Oh boy. Here it is! That uncontrollable nasty little urge to bite into a juicy, not too sweet, dark chocolatey piece of brownie that crawls out of the woodwork about once or twice a year… and of course it comes knocking down the front door when there’s no oven in sight. What to do, what to do?
Oh boy, it’s that time of the year again~! Certain markers, especially the smaller ones like the upcoming Valentine’s Day always startle me in a “didn’t we just do this like… yesterday?”-kind of way. The bigger holidays always seem sooo~ far away but, at least to me, the small ones really make the passing of time blatantly obvious. So, Valentine’s Day in just a bit over a week – as always a reason for Hubby and me not to do what extensive pink, flowery and chocolatey media bombardment expects us to do~!
And again working on one week’s post ended up having me leap right into the next one, so to speak… “Simple (but SO delicious) Things” led to Madeira’s signature soup which led me further on to the sweet peaks of the island’s cuisine, all things passionfruit. And that train of thought poked and prodded one of my little demons into mischievously chuckling awareness.
Now that the holidays are over, the “real” winter appears to be settling in around our corner of the world. Not just in the weather-related sense, but also in a more subtle way where the sudden lack of the all-encompassing fog of overly flamboyant Christmas-themed foodstuffs, -decorations, -music, -media coverage and the like leaves you with a sense of… focus? Awareness?
Oh yes! Approaching the most button-popping, feast- and party intensive, energy-draining yet most fun time of Winter! Indeed, it’s time for my annual Winter Box’o’Chocolates bash again as the Holidays are edging closer and closer. As usual, I prep my boxes a bit earlier than they actually need to be ready to make an appearance below splendidly decorated Christmas trees, on office desks, banquet tables or simply on the palms of the night owls amongst my friends and family, so you guys get a – hopefully inspiring – sneak peek as well as the chance to request a recipe in addition to my pick today to appear just in time to prep a batch for your Holiday festivities or personal pleasure~