Makeover Monday: Skinny Dark Chocolate Mousse

If you haven't heard the news already, Valentine's Day is tomorrow!  It's the perfect day to give your sweetie sometime sweet.  For the past week I have been sharing great chocolate-themed desserts, but they all take a little time to put together.  So if you want to make a delicious treat for your Valentine, but have been putting it off and need something quick, I've got just the thing for you.  And it's low calorie, but full of chocolate flavor!  

I saw this recipe for dark chocolate mousse on a package of Hersey's Special Dark Chocolate cocoa.  I have never made mousse before, and I'm not even positive that I've had it before.  But I love dark chocolate and this seemed like a nice, easy, tasty dessert that would be the perfect end to a special Valentine's Day dinner.

Dark Chocolate Sugar Cookies with Cocoa Butter Frosting

I think I have admitted before that I am a recipe junky.  I have collected more recipes than I could hope to make, and yet I continue to seek them out.  It's my cross to bear.  While flipping through one of my recipe binders recently, I realized that I have two different recipes for chocolate sugar cookies.  I used one to make chocolate Halloween cookies last fall, but the other one hadn't been tested yet.  I had been planning to make Valentine's Day sugar cookies and decided it was time to try out chocolate cookie recipe #2.

After testing, I am bumping #2 up to #1.  Taste-wise, it might not be a totally fair fight because I used dark chocolate cocoa powder this time, and I like my chocolate dark.  But where this recipe really gets the nod is in workability.  I remember the dough of my other chocolate sugar cookies being pretty sticky and hard to roll out.  I didn't have any problems with this dough.  These were probably the easiest sugar cookies I have ever made.  And they were packed with amazingly delicious dark chocolate.  Where have these been all my life?

Makeover Monday: Whole Wheat Dark Chocolate Banana Mini Muffins

With this post, I give you permission to eat chocolate for breakfast and not even feel guilty about it.  How great am I?  Actually, the real hero here is whole wheat dark chocolate banana mini muffins.  

This recipe is great for those of you who want to add more whole grains to your diet, but have picky eaters in your home who are not as open to healthy changes.  Thanks to the dark chocolate, the whole grain flour in these muffins is totally camouflaged.  And the cocoa powder itself is actually a source of fiber and powerful antioxidants.