Preparing Valentine’s Day And Super Bowl Treats

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• Seeking Recipes For Valentine's Day? Or Super Bowl? Look No Further

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  Preparing a menu for a Super Bowl party? Or thinking of treats for your loved ones on Valentine’s Day? Food magazine editors from Taste of Home have some spot-on recipe ideas for this time of year.

  There are certainly a number of offerings available from Taste of Home, editors said.

  Valentine’s Day

  One recipe Peggy Woodward and Ellie Martin Cliffe from Taste of Home’s Simple & Delicious magazine suggested as a Valentine’s Day treat comes from Taste of Home’s “Chocolate Delights” cookbook. These dark chocolate bacon cupcakes include baking cocoa and bacon among the ingredients, along with buttermilk and strong-brewed coffee.

  Another chocolate option, Woodward said, is chocolate lover’s pudding. It’s a recipe she said would be great to make for a family on Valentine’s Day.

  “It’s a really nice pudding, it’s got 2 percent milk in it, it’s got a couple egg yolks in it to make it nice and rich and thick. And it’s made with semi-sweet chocolate,” she said. “It’s really a fun recipe. You could eat it warm or chilled.”

  Or for anyone looking for something more decadent, try chocolate cherry truffles, which Woodward said are “actually pretty easy.” The recipe has dried cherries which are soaked in cherry brandy.

  “They get nice and soft and plump up and you combine that with dark chocolate and heavy whipping cream,” she said.

  The trickiest thing, Woodward added, is dipping them in melted chocolate, but Woodward offered advice about that:

  “Just set it up on a fork and dip it right down into the melted chocolate, lift it up, and let the excess kind of drizzle off,” she suggested, adding that it should be then set on wax paper. She noted that she likes to put her wax paper on a baking sheet because she can easily move it if needed while the truffles set.

  Other recipes from the “Chocolate Delights” cookbook include caramel nut-chocolate popcorn cones and chocolate brownie waffle sundaes.

  Super Bowl

  Woodward and Martin Cliffe also shared some sufficiently rich and fun recipes to enjoy during the Super Bowl on Sunday.

  One suggestion was a recipe for blue cheese potato chips from Simple & Delicious with just five ingredients.

  Cliffe Martin described them as an “awesome handheld” snack, and said she’s excited to serve them herself.

  “Those, basically, are nachos that you cook in the oven,” she said.

  Another option for a Super Bowl spread is vidalia onion Swiss dip, which Cliffe Martin called addictive.

  “It’s like your classic Swiss dip with a little bit of kick because it has some horseradish in it and some hot pepper sauce,” she said, suggesting that the dip could be served with crackers, or fresh vegetables.

  “You got to throw a little health in there,” Woodward added. “At least give your guests an option to grab some veggies.”

  While vidalia season has ended, another sweet onion can be substituted. Woodward said that most grocery stores have some type of sweet onion.

  Other crowd pleasers they suggested include mini mac & cheese dogs, which should be a hit with both children and adults, and chipotle chili sloppy joes. While the recipe provides six servings, it’s one that can be easily doubled for a big bash, Woodward noted.

  One more suggestion, which is included in the latest Taste of Home issue, is Quentin’s peach-bourbon wings.

  “Those are sweet, they’re spicy, and they’ve got some bourbon, so they have a little kick from that kind of heat,” Martin Cliffe said.