Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day... wieners need love, too :)

Hope it was a good one! I'm 1/3 of the way through my second semester, after taking two three-hour exams the past few nights. Yay, grad school :)

Night xx

Week 7: ...involves peanut butter

Can you believe it's already the seventh week of 2011?! In my quest to "try something new every week" this year, I've hit my 100th post today. Well, my 100th since switching to Wordpress from Blogger. I've actually been blogging since 2007, but I've posted 100 entries in just over seven months. Crazy, huh?

I digress. That is not my new thing, since I've blogged over 500 entries in that period of time. You'll remember that last week I whipped up two batches of home made peanut butter and this week I put it to good use making chocolate peanut butter truffles! Well, the peanut butter didn't make the truffles, I did. In all my years of being addicted to loving chocolate, I've never once made a truffle before this week.

So let's bring on this week's new thing:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles (made by yours truly for J.D.'s Valentine's Day gift)

I'll admit, the recipe I found seemed pretty intense at first (hey, I was reading it off my cell phone, it looked much longer than it actually was, haha -- that's what she said).

Ingredients:

• 1 c chopped bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips
• 1/2 c cream
• 1/2 cup peanut butter, creamy or crunchy
• 2 c chocolate candy coating, for dipping
• optional decorations: crushed peanuts, peanut butter cups, or peanut butter chips

Directions:

Place the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips and the cream in a medium microwave-safe bowl and microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. **Every time it says microwave, I went with a double boiler method. You could do either, obviously.

Once the chocolate has melted, add the peanut butter and stir until the mixture is entirely smooth. It may not look like it will come together, but keep stirring and you will eventually have a smooth, shiny chocolate mixture. This is your “ganache,” or truffle center.

Cover the top of the ganache with a layer of cling wrap, and place the bowl in the refrigerator until it is firm enough to scoop, at least 4 hours or overnight.

Cover a baking sheet with foil. Using a small cookie or candy scoop, or a teaspoon, scoop up small balls of the ganache and roll them between your palms to get a round shape. Return the balls to the refrigerator to chill while you melt the chocolate coating.

Place the chocolate candy coating in a small bowl and microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. Allow the coating to cool for a few minutes, until it is still warm but not so hot as to melt the truffle centers.

How cute is this pink spatula with hearts?!?!

Once the coating has cooled a bit, remove the tray of truffle centers from the refrigerator. Using dipping tools or a fork, dip a center into the melted chocolate until it is completely submerged. Remove it from the coating and allow the excess to drip back into the bowl. Place the truffle on the foil-covered baking sheet and repeat with remaining truffles and chocolate. If desired, you can decorate the truffles with crushed peanuts or peanut butter cup candies while the chocolate is still wet. Alternately, you can melt a small amount of peanut butter chips and drizzle the melted chips over the tops of the truffles. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

**Note, I realized that no matter what I tried, the chocolate covering was melting the truffle centers and ruining the consistency of the melted chocolate. This is where I started over and got smart, painting the truffles with a silicone pastry brush instead of submerging them, which led to the melted centers and a subsequent compromised candy coating.

Making truffles (for someone as inexperienced at pastry as I am) was kind of an ordeal! I became super frustrated really easily, but in the end I think it worked out! It was definitely worth it, and as with everything I've tried this year: I definitely want to try it again and see what kind of skills I can develop and if I can perfect the art of making chocolates. Who knows, maybe I'll make a whole "box of chocolates" with various truffle centers. Forrest Gump would be proud.

Sooooo, who wants to come help me eat some of these!? (And by me, I clearly mean J.D.). We have over 15 still in the fridge and I've already had an amount that certainly is more than two...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make a sandwich with my leftover coconut peanut butter and some pineapple mango jam. Très tropical...

Valentine's Day and then some

Yesterday, J.D. had the day off and the two of us explored the Phoenix area a little more. I'm starting to know my way around the area pretty well now! With Cactus League (MLB) Spring Training starting next weekend, we're going to have a steady flow of visitors coming and going throughout the month of March. I can't believe baseball season is almost here! In preparation for all the craziness March will bring, J.D. and I set out yesterday to purchase a few Spring Training tickets. We went to two stadiums in Phoenix, including the Arizona Diamondbacks.

I'm stoked out of my mind that we'll be hosting the 2011 All-Star game, and also, that I'll get to attend/work it!

The field (my new office). A pretty imposing building, if you ask me!

We walked around inside and I used my employee discount to purchase clothing with D-backs logos. Yep, I have to wear official merchandise for all the games, but at least I get a discount I guess. As you can imagine, all that running around made us pretty hungry. Out of impulse, we decided it would be kind of fun to do a Valentine's lunch instead of dinner, especially since we hadn't really made any plans or reservations. Instead, a recent episode of Man v. Food inspired our lunch in downtown Phoenix.

I guess I should back up and explain that downtown Phoenix is basically all the sporting venues (NBA, MLB) and a healthy mix of bars to accommodate the rowdy sports enthusiasts. We knew we HAD to try Alice Cooper's restaurant, Cooper'stown. I hope you recognize the pun within the name. What we really came for was in the episode of MVF I linked above. The Big Unit -- a 22" hot dog made to honor former D-back, future MLB hall of famer and generally gigantic man, Randy Johnson, whose nickname is the Big Unit.

I couldn't really make up my mind on the menu, but J.D. really wanted the 'dog. He put forth a valiant effort, yet could only finish all but 9" of the hot dog. In case you're wondering, I ordered a MASSIVE turkey burger with melted swiss and portobello mushrooms. And it still was dwarfed by the Big Unit! I couldn't finish mine either. Let's see that thing again, in all its meaty glory.

We each enjoyed our food with some beers on tap and took in the environment, which was sort of a mix of the Hard Rock Café and a well-packed sports bar. It was awesome! I imagine it's quite an untraditional place to celebrate Valentine's Day, but we were hardly the only ones there. And nothing says love like a 22" wiener! When we returned home, I was surprised to find these:

Beautiful and super fragrant roses delivered just for moi. We then heated up leftovers for dinner, popped open some wine and caught up on our DVR. Mostly, this week's Jeopardy! special -- the IBM Watson challenge! Call me a super nerd, but I have been pumped for this forever. Watson kicked ass, and I did fairly well myself against three super geniuses. All-in-all, I'd say it was a fun holiday!

We ended the night by grocery shopping, where I found some key ingredients to inspire this morning's breakfast, the Blueberry Coconut Green Smoothie. I'll have you know that until this morning my green smoothies never actually turned out green. What a way to transition out of Valentine's Day and into preparations for the next holiday in March...

Blueberry Coconut Green Smoothie:

• 1 c spinach
• 1 c Silk coconut milk
• 1 banana
• 2 handfuls blueberries
• 1/2 t chia seeds

It was so refreshing and tropical that if not for the color, I never would have guessed it was full of spinach! And there's another cup in the fridge for me to devour later :)

In my next post, I promise I'll show you what I did with this...