Kopali Organic Chocolates
Kopali Organic Chocolates are 100% organic with no refined sugars or animal products. Gluten-free, vegan, and fair trade certified, Kopali Organic Chocolates are pure, energy-packed, and nutrient-dense with an intense deep dark chocolate flavor in every bite-sized piece. Winner of the Socially Responsible Business Award, Kopali Organics supports sustainable farming in making five products that are “so much more than super delicious.”
Read more 
Kakawa Chocolate House
On a local street that winds around the historic district of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a small chocolate store called the Kakawa Chocolate House – an ode to all things chocolate and Santa Fe. Well known in warm drink circles as the place to go for hot chocolate, the store serves a variety of this rich intense elixir made from recipes that date back hundreds of years.Equally famous for their chocolates – truffles, caramels, mediants, and Chili d’Arbols, Kakawa is also known as an artisanal chocolate source where the chocolatiers make their own blend of 80% dark chocolate. Nary a milk chocolate in site, which is how the artisans dedicated to balancing tradition with cutting edge want it. Read more
10 Foods to Pack for an Easy and Healthy Lunch (or Snack)
Packing a healthy lunch for yourself or a child can be challenging at times because it’s hard to provide variety, taste, and wholesomeness day after day. One of the most important tips a friend gave me about packing a lunch is to purchase a lunch or meal transport system that is flexible and made to carry a variety of foods. Laptop lunches (www.laptoplunches.com) or Black and Blum (www.black-blum.com) are two companies that make top-notch lunch boxes and food transport pieces. In addition, I always keep a stock of “jello shot glasses” – small 2 ounce plastic containers (125 for about $10 through www.amazon.com) with a plastic lid that snaps on and stays on. Once you have the proper tools, packing a lunch or a snack on the go is infinitely easier. Read more
When Only a Perfect Ending Will Do….
Purists prefer to use fresh butter and eggs to make a homemade cake rather than buying a store-bought version but for those special occasions when an exceptional cake needs to be sent as a gift (and arrive as beautiful as it looks in a picture and taste better than a homemade cake), look no further than a Perfect Endings Vintage Cake. Perfect Endings of Napa, California makes a line of vintage cakes – Coconut, German Chocolate, Red Velvet, Banana, and Devil’s Food – reminiscent of what a layer cake should be: fluffy, moist, and delicious. That the cake looks as good as it tastes is….well….icing on the cake. Read more
Nicobella Dark Chocolate Truffles
Dark Chocolate should be its own food group.
Nicobella Organics makes all natural organic dark chocolate truffles in six flavors: Pure Cocoa Bliss, Ginger Green Tea, Pumpkin Chai, Walnut Flaxseed Crunch, Blueberry Almond, and Sunflower Banana Butter. Rich and decadent, these silky smooth truffles will melt in your mouth making it hard to believe dairy products are not used to make these decadent treats. Instead of milk and cream, Nicobella uses oat milk and coconut oil along with pumpkin seed butter, ginger, green tea, walnuts, flaxseed, blueberries, almonds, sunflower seed butter, raw agave, brown rice syrup, sesame seeds, vanilla beans, cocoa nibs and spices to make their truffles and then enrobes them in Theo’s 70% dark chocolate. The result: pure bliss. Read more
Chocolate Caramel Turtles
Valentine’s Day is just days away so there is no better time to talk about chocolate than right now. Many connoisseurs of the cocoa variety prefer their chocolate pure as in a bar, as a truffle, or filled with a flavored ganache but there is also a group of people who think there is nothing more decadent than putting three ingredients – chocolate, caramel, and nuts – together to form what is commonly known in North America as a turtle. Read more
Sandcastles
Sandcastles are an original take on an old Moroccan cookie recipe that utilizes rye flour and coconut oil instead of flour and butter as the basis for each of the four varieties of cookies: Deep Chocolate Infrared, Maple Dusted Cardamom, Vanilla Black Sesame and Marzipan with Toasted Almonds. Slightly suspect (because what can be better than butter and flour in a shortbread cookie?), I reluctantly purchased these cookies for my vegan daughter who was looking for a great tasting cookie that satisfied her dietary restrictions. Read more
Vegan Chocolate Cake
A good chocolate cake has to have big chocolate flavor and be moist with a tender crumb but to make a really good vegan chocolate cake, a bit of creativity is needed because by definition, a vegan product cannot contain the very ingredients – butter and eggs – that traditionally make a cake taste so good (making a chocolate cake from scratch is relatively easy with butter, eggs, and cocoa). Read more
Clarine’s Florentines
Clarine Hardesty is a pastry chef and owner of Clarine’s Florentines, a Berkeley, California-based commercial operation that specializes in the Florentine: a delicious mixture of toasted nuts and candied fruit held together by a honey and sugar mixture that hardens and forms a crunchy candy-like delicate cookie. To complete the treat, Clarine’s Florentines are dipped in bittersweet chocolate. Read more
Green and Black’s Organic Dark Chocolate
Most people have strong opinions about chocolate with the majority preferring milk over dark chocolate but times are changing. Americans consume about 12 pounds per person annually which equates to about a pound a month or 4 ounces a week. That may seem like a lot of chocolate but the Swiss consume nearly twice that amount which makes me feel less guilty when I tear the wrapper off my favorite candy bar – Green & Black’s Organic Dark 85% Cacao Bar. A 3.5 ounce bar molded into thirty small rectangles easy to break apart, this bar of chocolate is best enjoyed slowly by allowing a small piece to melt in your mouth releasing intensely flavored dark chocolate that will render you unable to speak lest the chocolate flavor subside. Read more
Paddock Post 