VALENTINE'S DAY-PERFECT Chocolate Dipped Strawberries & Healthy Chocolate Cheesecake!

                                                            

One tradition I started when Michael and I first got married is making chocolate dipped strawberries for Valentine's day. When he proposed on Feb 13, along with the ring was a gorgeous box of Godiva chocolate strawberries. So, besides being pretty to look at and tasty, they are symbolic in our marriage. I started out doing it just the regular way of melting chocolate bark and dipping it in. Have you ever found that when you do that, you take one bite and ALL the chocolate falls off the strawberry? 

A couple years ago, I was cooking some other candy at Christmas with a recipe out of an OLD cookbook. It had something mixed in with the chocolate that I thought was crazy! But I tried it, and have made everything chocolate dipped that way to this day. Works out perfect every time!

The secret is adding a little something called Gulf Wax. Our granny's used it back in the day when they canned as a sealer. You can find in the baking aisle by the canning supplies and it is cheap! It binds the chocolate together and to the strawberry so the experience is not messy and you get a bite of chocolate with every bite of strawberry!

Ingredients:

1 lb fresh strawberries

1/2 bag of chocolate chips of your choice- I like Hershey Special Dark the best

1/3 block of Gulf Wax (it comes 4 blocks to a package, the rest will keep in your pantry for ages!)

wax paper

toothpicks

Prep:

1. Rinse your strawberries and lay them out to dry on a clean towel. They have to be REALLY dry.

2. Lay a piece of wax paper on a cookie sheet next to where you will be dipping the strawberries.

3. Make sure your strawberries are dry before starting to melt chocolate. Insert a toothpick into each strawberry through the top.  Chop your 1/3 block of wax into 3-4 pieces.

4. Place wax pieces in a medium saucepan  and turn on med heat. (I use an old cheap, stainless steel one so chocolate doesn't melt onto my nonstick ones. I also finds it melts quicker and more evenly in a old thin one instead of new fancy heavy one.)

5. When wax is almost melted, turn to med low heat and and chocolate pieces. Stir with a wooden spoon until is all is melted together. 

6. Once everything is melted, turn your heat to low. 

7. To dip, pick up the toothpick with one hand and the pan with the other. Dip in the strawberry just right up to the green. Hold over the chocolate and swirl to let excess drip off. 

8. Place on wax paper. Repeat until all strawberries are dipped. Place cookie sheet in fridge to set. Should be set in 1-2 hours.

*I usually have enough chocolate left to dip a few bananas and raspberries or any other fruit I may have around. Pears are amazing too! You could even dip some graham crackers or other cookies if you have them!

As for the cheesecake recipe, I can take NO credit for this. I printed it off the Eating Well Website. It is totally sinful and amazing and much lower in fat & sugar than your traditional cheesecake. It puts the Cheesecake Factory plain Splenda cheesecake to shame!

The only things I changed were instead of the chocolate coffee beans for garnish it calls for, I used a little lite Cool Whip in the can and fresh raspberries. And for the 'chocolate wafers' it calls for in the crust, I wasn't sure what they meant so I used chocolate graham crackers. You will need exactly 1 of the plastic packages inside of a full box. 

EatingWell Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake

                

Strawberry Spinach Salad

It seems like every nice restaurant has a take on this salad. Strawberries have been way cheap recently so I made this last night to use them up before they went bad. We try to do a main salad for dinner probably once a week. Instead of putting everything in a big bowl, I just put out all the ingredients salad bar style- in individual containers. That way, we can pick and choose what we want on it AND leftovers taste better b/c they haven't sat together and gotten soggy! Also, you can prep everything during the day, and when it's dinner time, everything is ready to go!

1 bag fresh spinach

1/2 pint strawberries, sliced

reduced fat Feta cheese crumbles

Spiced Pecans (see recipe below)

Sweet Onion Balsamic Vinaigrette (see recipe below)

Simple Pan Chicken (see recipe below)

Spiced Pecans (healthy!!)

Most versions of these are loaded with salt, sugar, and fat b/c they are usually coated in butter to get the spiced to stick! I came up with this version to satisfy the taste, but not have all the calories. You could use it on almonds or walnuts, too. By toasting them in the oven instead of sauteing on the stove, you get this nice toasty flavor. 

Michael's PawPaw has a pecan tree and he is always sending us fresh, home grown pecans. I constantly have a stash in my freezer. If I know I need some, I just set a few out on the counter for an hour or so and they are good to go! 

1 cup pecan halves

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray

3/4 tsp garlic salt

2 tsp Splenda

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp curry powder

1/4 tsp chili powder

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper powder

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground ginger

1. Heat oven to 350. 

2. Place pecans in a ziploc baggy. Spray with 4-5 sprays of the butter spray. Close bag and shake to coat evenly. 

3. Mix all dry ingredients together in a small bowl. Sprinkle over pecans and shake bag again to coat evenly. 

4. Spread out on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 7-10 mins, shaking pan every 2-3 minutes. 

5. Allow to cool on pan about 10 minutes or so, then chop coarsely. 

Sweet Onion Vinaigrette

1/4 c minced onion

1/3  c olive oil (or your favorite oil)

1/4 c sugar free pancake syrup

1/4  c balsamic vinegar

2 TB dijon or spicy mustard

1. Place all ingredients in food processor or Magic Bullet and mix until blended! Can store in the fridge for 3-4 days. 

Simple Pan Chicken

I learned this method of cooking chicken from this book. In my opinion, it's the best method for cooking chicken if you are serving it on a salad. It gets the outside nice and crispy like you pan seared it, but it keeps the moisture in b/c it's partially poached as well. You can experiment with different seasonings, but this version is simple b/c of all the great flavors in the salad.

chicken breasts

garlic powder

Lowry's seasoning salt

1/2 tsp oil per chicken breast

1/4 c water

1. Place a skillet over 'almost high' heat and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, chicken breast between 2 pieces of plastic wrap and pound with a meat cleaver to thin out evenly. If you don't have a meat cleaver, you could use a rolling pin. 

2. When skillet is hot, add oil to pan- 1/2 tsp per chicken breast. Swirl to coat.

3. Remove plastic wrap from one side of chicken. Sprinkle evenly with garlic powder and seasoning salt. 

4. Place chicken, seasoned side down, in the hot skillet. DO NOT MOVE for at least 3 minutes. 

5. When you can see the edges turing white from the other side, turn chicken over. Add water to pan, turn skillet to medium, and cover. 

6. Allow chicken to cook about 5-7 more minutes (add more water to pan if necessary).

7. Remove from pan and let cool for 5 minutes before slicing.