making my own sunshine

I had several unfinished drafts, so I put them together for this post.

The weather has been sunny then turning cloudy or just plain cloudy and cold. I was feeling blue with the dreary weather, I guess people from Hawaii do need sun...so I made some sunshine.

Last week, I tried the recipe for Creme de Chocolat on the side of the Spicy Mariebelle cocoa can. It was really easy to make, just measure the cocoa and add the amount of water and follow the rest of the instructions on the side of the can. After the two hours, I made some whipped cream using what little cream that I had in the fridge. The creme de chocolat was quite stiff and reminded me of ganache. It was just enough to soothe my sweet tooth. Plus, the chili in the chocolate gave it a kick--coffee went nicely with this.

Yesterday, I made my own bark with some chocolate and trail mix. I tempered the chocolate then stirred in the trail mix. The chocolate was dark but not a very high percentage, so it was a little sweet. And the trail mix was a little salty, so it matched nicely with the chocolate.

Take a bite and you get powdered sugar all around your mouth.

Put the whole thing in your mouth and a little powdered sugar goes down the wrong pipe. You let out a little cough and powdered sugar goes everywhere.

Flaky, buttery with the crunch from the nuts paired with a glass of ice-cold milk...the ultimate treat.

These are my memories of this cookie. My mom uses toasted macadamia nuts in her version.

Melting moments, Russian tea cookies, Snowballs...whatever you call these cookies, I call them delicious.

I cut up some yomogi (mugwort) bread and added some dried figs to make a warm and fuzzy treat. (We actually had this for breakfast.)

Whew, that was a lot of sunshine...I'm feeling better, how about you?