About a week before Easter, I was driving through my supermarket parking lot, when I saw something that literally made me slam on my brakes. A new chocolate shop had opened up, practically in my own backyard! Forget the supermarket! I pulled into the closest parking space and headed inside.

The name of the shop is Peterbrooke Chocolatier. The store is part of a franchise which includes almost thirty locations throughout Florida, Alabama and Georgia. Founded in 1983 in Jacksonville, Florida, owner, Phyllis Geiger, named her business after her children Peter and Brooke. The company still maintains its base of operations in Jacksonville.

According to the company’s web site, Peterbrooke creates its mouthwatering masterpieces by skillfully blending special milk, dark and white chocolate to create delightfully delicious confections with lusciously creamy fondant centers, fruits, nuts, cookies and even potato chips and Rice Krispies treats! Perhaps the most popular item in Peterbrooke’s repertoire is their phenomenal chocolate covered popcorn, which Geiger describes as a “pure gift from God”, and was invented purely by accident! Peterbrooke offers a large selection of sugar free products as well.

From the moment I stepped into that bright and inviting shop, I knew that I would return often. It was like being in chocolate heaven! There were shelves upon shelves of tantalizing chocolate displays, each more beautiful than the next. The shop’s proprietor, a lovely woman named Diane, welcomed me with a friendly smile, and more importantly, lots of free samples! Let me tell you, that chocolate is GOOD! In fact, it is INSANELY GOOD!

I purchased some lovely Easter baskets for my nearest and dearest, as well as a hefty stash of chocolate for myself. A girl’s gotta eat, you know! I wished Diane good luck with her new shop and promised I’d be back soon. Really soon, as it turned out. I’ve been back twice already to stock up on that amazing popcorn!

In addition to all of their different molded, enrobed and hand-dipped chocolate creations, Peterbrooke also offers bags of chocolate buttons for cooking and baking. I picked up one of the dark chocolate bags and began putting it to good use by making a great chili recipe that I found on their web site. I’ve provide the recipe below, but you could certainly use your own favorite for this.

If you don’t have a Peterbrooke Chocolatier near you yet, don’t fret. The company also has an online store where you can fulfill your own chocolate fantasies.

PETERBROOKE CHOCOLATE CHILI
Adapted from Peterbrooke.com

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 vidalia onion (chopped)
1 lb chopped sirloin
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes and green chilis
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
1/2 ounce dark Peterbrooke chocolate
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 cup beer
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon tabasco
1 tablespoon chili powder (or to taste)
1 15 oz can dark red kidney beans

Directions:

Put olive oil in a large iron skillet.

Add chopped onions & cook until tender (not brown) and opaque.

Add a pound of beef, cook till lightly browned.

Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, chocolate, beer, salt, tabasco, cumin & chili powder. Cover & simmer 30 minutes.

Add kidney beans & heat thoroughly, season to taste.

Serve topped with diced & shredded cheese.

Enjoy!

I know that this is going to qualify me as a bona fide nerd, but I have to confess it. I enjoy grocery shopping. I do. I really do! I love wandering up and down the aisles, imagining all of the mouthwatering dishes I can make, while loading up my cart with goodies. It’s kind of therapeutic. Sometimes, the food just calls out to me.“Hey you! Over here! Pick me! PICK ME!!!” or “Hey, baby! Want some company? I’ll make a mean casserole for you!”

I especially love it when I discover a new product that I’ve never tried before. Sometimes, it will turn out to be a dud, but sometimes, it will be something worth talking about. I found one such worthy product the other day in the form of Late July Organic Sandwich Cookies, from Late July Organic Snacks of Massachusetts.

Late July Organic Snacks was started up in 2004 by the the Bernard family, founders of the Cape Cod Potato Chips Company. According to Nicole Bernard Dawes, Late July’s President and COO, the company’s mission is to “produce snacks that kids and parents think taste great using simple, responsible, high quality, organic ingredients”. The company takes traditional snack favorites and makes them organic and trans-fat free. Initial products offered by the company included organic cheddar cheese crackers, saltines and rich crackers made without trans-fats, hydrogenated oils, preservatives, and artificial flavors or colors. They subsequently introduced peanut butter sandwich crackers to their product line, made with their classic rich and chedder cheese crackers. All of their crackers are made with organic red winter wheat and organic palm oil. and contain no highly refined sweeteners, like corn syrup.

The newest kids on Late July’s block are their organic sandwich cookies, launched late last Summer. They come in two varieties - Dark Chocolate and Vanilla Bean with Green Tea. According to the company’s web site, these cookies “are like the sandwich cookies you remember as a kid, but all grown up”. While on the surface, the cookies look suspiciously like Oreos, upon closer inspection they are vastly different! Like the other members of Late July’s family of snacks, these cookies are also made without trans-fats, hydrogenated oils, preservatives or artificial anything, instead relying on whole grains, real Madagascar vanilla beans, rich dark chocolate, and other organic ingredients. Just for the record, however, the nutritional label on the Oreo package does also claim that there are no trans fats used in the product.

Okay, you say. That is all well and good, but, how do they taste? To find out, I put together a panel of taste-testers consisting of five adults, two teenagers and two five year-olds, all of whom are Oreo afficionados. To make it interesting, I made it a blind taste test, keeping the cookies in unmarked containers. To really keep it fair, I also offered the “other” sandwich cookie for comparison.

I have to be honest here or else, what would be the point? I don’t think that Nabisco has anything to worry about. When presented with a side-by-side comparison, several of my taste-testers did prefer the Oreo cookies. Surprisingly, it was the adults who chose the Oreos, while the teens liked the Late July cookies better. The five year-olds loved them both. I think they were just so happy to get to eat all those cookies!

The deal breaker seemed to be the actual cookie itself. Most felt that the Oreo cookie was crunchier and had more of a chocolate flavor. Even though Late July’s cookies boast organic dark cocoa powder, it is number six on the ingredient list (compared with number eight on Oreo’s list), so I don’t know how much is actually used. That being said, everyone also really enjoyed the Late July cookies too. Their creamy centers got very high marks from all the tasters.

The results were not surprising to me. Most of us grew up on Oreo cookies. The brand has been around for a long, long time. Oreos are comfortable and familiar, often evoking warm and happy childhood memories. As a newcomer on the cookie scene, Late July hasn’t yet had the opportunity to develop that kind of consumer loyalty. I think the company is off to a good start, though. They have an excellent product that addresses the health concerns of discriminating moms everywhere. After all, the moms are the ones buying most of the snacks. If they’re happy, everybody’s happy. Right?

What did I think about the cookies? Well, I must admit, I do really love Oreos, but I thought that Late July’s cookies were delicious. My favorite was the Vanilla Bean with Green Tea. That filling was wonderful! It was rich and creamy with a burst of true vanilla flavor. You could tell that there was nothing artificial in them. I feel certain that Late July’s popularity will only grow with time.

Late July Organic Sandwich Cookies are available nationally in natural foods stores, gourmet stores and supermarkets. While I have seen Late July’s products in stores like Whole Foods for some time now, I had never seen them in a traditional supermarket until recently. Hopefully, this is a trend that will continue.

For a complete list of retailers, visit www.latejuly.com.

The other day, I was shopping at Williams-Sonoma, looking for a heart-shaped cake pan. Surprisingly, I didn’t find one. What I did find, was an interesting-looking product called Sprinkles Cupcake Mix. I had seen these mixes in the store before, but the flavors never called out to me, so I just passed them by. This particular one, however, was sweetly singing my name. It was a mix to make Red Velvet cupcakes. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I thought that Red Velvet cupcakes sounded like a pretty good idea. I also liked the fact that the ingredients were all packaged inside a self-contained tubular box. So, I bought a box and went home to make cupcakes.

Sprinkles Cupcakes is a mini baking empire that started with pastry chef, Candace Nelson’s very popular, original cupcake bakery in trendy Beverly Hills, California. She and her husband, Mark now have four other boutique cupcake shops with plans to open around a dozen more.

For those unlucky ones who don’t live near a Sprinkles Bakery (like me), Nelson offers these mixes as a consolation prize of sorts. Each mix includes high quality ingredients, including rich Callebaut cocoa and Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon vanilla. Also in each mix is Sprinkle’s signature confectioners’ “dots” used to adorn the cupcakes. While there is no frosting mix in the box there is simple recipe for a cream cheese frosting included. The only place I’ve ever seen Sprinkles Cupcake Mixes is at William-Sonoma and on their web site. I didn’t find any other retailer information on the Sprinkles web site.

Now, let me tell you right up front that this cupcake mix is probably not like the “add water and stir” cake mixes you might be used to. There actually is a bit more work involved. In fact, I was surprised to find that the directions were quite detailed. There are also several additional ingredients required in order to pull these cupcakes off. But, since all of the dry ingredients are already combined in one nifty plastic bag, you won’t have to mess with measuring any of them out.

I really liked the way the finished cupcakes turned out. Instead of being Day-Glo red, they had the most beautiful and natural looking, dark beet red color. They were dense, moist and flavorful, very much like homemade. I could definitely taste the cocoa in them. With a swirl of rich cream cheese frosting on top, no one would ever guess that you didn’t make them from scratch. Betty Crocker, move over!

Winding down at the end of a hectic week doesn’t have to mean settling for take-out in a cardboard container.  Instead, treat yourself to this ridiculously simple, yet luxuriously elegant dish.  Go on.  You’re worth it!

Smoky Seared Sea Scallops

1 lb. “dry” sea scallops*
3 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp sea salt salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
3 scallions, chopped

Melt the butter in a large saute pan over medium heat.

Mix the salt, pepper and smoked paprika in a small bowl.  Sprinkle over both sides of the scallops.

Increase heat to high and sear scallops until brown and carmelized on both sides, about 2 minutes per side.

Cover and cook about 1 minute more to make sure the scallops are cooked through. Remove scallops to a serving platter.

Saute the scallions in remaining sauce for about a minute. Pour over the scallops.

Serve and enjoy!

*Sea scallops are often soaked in water and preservatives to increase both their shelf life and their weight, sometimes by as much as much as 25%.  Unfortunately, this also dilutes their flavor. Dry sea scallops are not treated with any additives and are not soaked in water. They are better. Period.

This is a hearty main dish that is both quick and easy to prepare. Also, its ingredients are very forgiving, and it can be modified to suit almost anyone’s dietary parameters. Vegetarian? Switch out the sausage and chicken broth for white beans and vegetable broth. Gluten-free? Use rice, spelt or one of the other many gluten-free pastas on the market. Don’t like broccoli? Well… that might be a problem, although, I’ll bet you could find a suitable substitute.

Most of the ingredients for this recipe are probably already hiding out in your kitchen. Any kind of pasta will work, but I recommend a short variety, like penne, rigatoni or gemelli. All of the cooking can be synchronized so that the pasta and the sauce are both ready at the same time. Toss together a quick salad to go with it, and you’ll have flavorful, satisfying and healthy meal in no time flat!

Pasta with Broccoli and Sausage

1 lb. penne pasta
1 lb. Italian sausage links (hot, sweet or a combination of both)
3 tbsp. olive oil and 1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil, divided
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced lengthwise*
2 14 oz. packages frozen broccoli cuts
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)
grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese

Fill a large stock pot with salted water and bring it to a boil. When boiling, cook pasta until al dente. Drain and set aside.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a broiler pan or baking sheet with the sausages. Drizzle a few drops of oil on top and toss. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove and slice the sausages into 1/2 inch rounds. Do this in the pan to retain the juices. Set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the 4 tbsp. of olive oil in a large skillet or saute pan over medium-high heat. When hot, reduce heat to medium and gently saute the garlic until fragrant and lightly golden.

Raise the heat back up to medium-high and mix in the broccoli. Cover and cook until the broccoli is slightly browned and very tender. This will take about 12-15 minutes, depending on your stove. You will have to keep watch and stir often to make sure that it doesn’t burn. If the broccoli mixture does start to burn, add more olive oil, a little at a time.

Add the sausage, pan juices and chicken broth. Continue to cook, uncovered, until the liquid reduces by about 1/3.

Add salt and pepper flakes to taste.

Turn off the heat and add the drained pasta to the pan. Toss it all together and drizzle in a little more olive oil. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top.

Serve it right from the pan.

Enjoy!

*Slicing the garlic lengthwise gives it a larger cooking surface, thereby reducing the risk of burning it. It also looks prettier!