Happy Valentine's Day!

For Valentine's Day this year, I made chocolate truffles (as gifts for my family) and crème brûlée for dessert (see here for recipe). Mark and Emily are making dinner (hamburgers and cole slaw), and I am so excited. Not only do I love hamburgers and cole slaw, but I love it when someone else makes dinner. I know - that sounds crazy. Of course, since I love to cook, I want to cook every single night for dinner without ever an evening off and be terribly creative and nutritional at the same time. Believe it.

The milk chocolate truffles have a milk chocolate ganache filling in them, some of them nearly runny, others just a bit firmer with a touch of honey. The dark chocolate truffles have a peanut butter chocolate ganache inside. They're no good. Not at all. I haven't sampled more than one, and I'll probably throw them all out. Who likes chocolate anyway?

The crème brûlée (I can now make all those funny marks like ´,`, and ˆ with keyboard shortcuts, since I recently learned them, and I'm so very excited about that!) baked up perfectly and I can't wait to dip my spoon into one. I cooked them just until they were barely set in the middle - not watery-looking when I bumped it, more like firm jell-o. And I prepared them in very shallow dishes, while I usually use deeper ramekins, so I'm excited about that, too, because it means more surface area and more crunchy, caramelized sugar.

Hope you're all having a great Valentine's Day and enjoying a little chocolate or cream!