How Do You Incorporate Chocolate With Your Family?

Vanessa , today's guest post author, is a mother of two girls and the founder of I Never Grew Up, a website to help parents educate, care for and entertain their children. She is a contributor at Blissful Kids at Blissfully Domestic, Little Window Shoppe and Today's Mama.


As a family, we love to cook together, it is a wonderful time to have fun and bond as a family. Our family's favorite ingredient to cook with, hands down, is chocolate. When we plan our celebration for Valentine's Day we think of chocolate first! Our favorite chocolate desserts to cook as a family are: Flour-less Chocolate Cake, Molten Chocolate Lava Cake, Chocolate Brownies, Chocolate Chip Cookies and Chocolate Truffles. Cooking with your children has numerous benefits: It teaches your children mathematics, gives your child a sense of pride and accomplishment, will help your children try new things and they are also more likely to eat what they help make. (Not that it is to hard to talk your children into eating chocolate. :) )


In our home we have a silly tradition of "dolling" ourselves up for cooking special treats. We wear fun bright aprons, put on our favorite lip gloss and dance around to our favorite music. Our last chocolate recipe that we made with love was Chocolate Oreo Truffles.




Tips for Cooking with Your Children

1. Prepare by reading the recipe together and gathering the ingredients and tools before beginning to cook.
2. Allow your child to choose a recipe, to give them a sense of control and self worth.
3. Laugh and Have Fun! Try to be patient, have a sense of humor and enjoy yourself!

Check out these fun Valentine's Day ideas from Vanessa at INeverGrewUp.net to help you have a wonderful holiday with your children:

* Heart Photo Arrangement
* I Love You So Much Game
* Family Heart Game
* Chocolate Oreo Truffles

How Does Chocolate Affect Your Emotions?

Introducing Guest Author: Erin Chase! She blogs about healthy eating and frugal meal planning at 5DollarDinners.com. Besides saving money and cooking, she enjoys running, scrapbooking and yes, the occasional truffle!

I Love me some chocolate. I do.

• I love the dark stuff (healthy, right?).
• I love the milky stuff.
• I love truffles.
• I love it in coffee.

In fact, it's the only way I drink coffee; heavily "choco-lated!" I love watching it bubble and cascade in a chocolate fountain. I enjoy dessert fondue with angel food cake and strawberries dipped into perfectly rich chocolate dipping sauce. If it's got chocolate on the label, chances are I will not be able to say no!

Here is a little glimpse into my love affair with chocolate:

1. Chocolate makes me HAPPY. Biting into a raspberry filled truffle fills my mind and body with thoughts and feelings of jubilation. Just thinking about my favorite truffle makes me salivate. The flavor, the texture, the whole experience of eating my favorite piece of chocolate makes me Happy. In moderation, chocolate makes me Happy.
2. Chocolate makes me MAD. Occasionally the "need" for a peanut butter cup or a chocolate kiss turns into a bag full binge-fest. I will be the first to admit it. I have eaten an entire bag of chocolate chips. In one sitting. With no raging hormones involved! Not eating chocolate in moderation makes me Mad.
3. Chocolate REWARDS me. It really is a beautiful thing to treat oneself to something enjoyable. Chocolate can be very rewarding. A way to congratulate yourself for a job well done. I am thankful that I can be Rewarded by chocolate.
4. Chocolate CONFUSES me. I am befuddled by my "need" for chocolate. When both mind and body are taken over in a powerful hormonal wave, leading you WAY out of your way to get your hands on some. Even just one little piece. Or better yet, an entire bag. Your body screaming at you for more. Then the craving is satisfied. The guilt sets in. Why? Why did I just eat that entire bag? Shame. My body craved just one piece, but would not be satisfied with nothing short of an entire bag. I'm left Confused.

Why is it that chocolate can affect us in so many different ways? With yet another "chocolate" holiday just around the corner, I hope to eat just 2 or 3 truffles and feel HAPPY. And I hope you can too!

Photo Credit: FoNgEtZ

Do You Have a Love Affair With Chocolate?

Emily Hill guest posts today for Mom it Forward. By day she is the mother of four children; by night (okay, and day too) she is the co-owner of georgie tees and a contributing writer for Boutique Cafe, Polliwogged and her company's blog, freshly baked. She also does freelance communications work for a variety of clients including Rain.

In my opinion, if you have to ask yourself this question then the answer is "no." Those of us who have a true addiction to love affair with chocolate don't stop thinking about it or indulging in it long enough to question our relationship with it. I have no idea when the affair first started but I'm sure I was underage when it happened. When other kids were sucking on their Now and Laters and chomping on that disgusting individually wrapped bubblegum, I was hitting the chocolate Charleston Chew pretty hard. I then moved on to 3 Musketeers, Twix , Almond Joy (I switched to Mounds later in life when I grew to appreciate dark chocolate) and those tasty Junior Mints. And that's just candy.

I've managed to keep this love affair going for over 30 years now. My secret? The same secrets to keeping any relationship strong:

• trying something new (still not a fan of white chocolate);
• mixing it up (from scratch or the box, either will do when a brownie craving hits);
• even experimenting a little here and there (braving chocolate-covered potato chips was SO worth it!).

Oh, and I almost forgot about the all-important date night.
Chocolate and I try to have at least two—okay, who am I kidding—seven date nights a week. The one-on-one time is a great way to reconnect with each other and for me to wind down after what is usually a very long day with the kids.

Chocolate is there for me even when my tastes start to change. I used to be big into milk chocolate but as I matured so did my palette. Somewhere in my 20's I started making my way over to the dark side, and that was before all the health benefits about dark chocolate came to light. (Antioxidants are one of my favorite ways of justifying the affair.) Treats like Dove Dark Chocolate squares and Costco's Truffettes de France (French truffles) have only strengthened my desire for all things dark...chocolate. But before you think I am just a candy kind of girl I want you to know I'm very open minded when it comes to my love affair with chocolate. I'm happy to indulge in decadent fudge-filled layer cakes, triple chocolate brownies, Breyer's Brownie Mud Pie ice cream (I could eat the entire carton), chocolate mousse pie and even the occasional chocolate cheesecake. Did I mention low-fat Oreos (low fat means you can eat more, right?),Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies and s'mores?

I could go on and on but I like to keep some parts of my love affair private; it really is better for everyone involved. One thing I am sure about, my addiction to love of chocolate didn't skip a generation. Just look at how excited my youngest daughter was on her first birthday just before she covered herself in her chocolate-drizzled birthday treat. Yep, she gets that from me.

Photo Credit Coolmitch

How Does Chocolate Compare to Social Media?

Jessica Smith guest posts today for Mom it Forward! She is Chief Mom Advisor and the woman behind the idea for MomForce.com, Chief Mom Officer for Wishpot.com, and works with big brands including Walmart and Ford. Jessica offers a personal glimpse into her life as a mom and virtual executive at JessicaKnows.com. Jessica enjoys the best of both worlds, motherhood and career, at home in the DC Metro area with her husband and young son.

With Valentine's Day just over a week away, many are thinking of gifts and many of those are going for the class stand-bys: flowers, jewelry, and chocolate.

While I love receiving any of the three, it's the latter that I get excited about the most. Chocolate has been one of my best friends for quite some time now and I'll take it any way I can get it: milk, dark, swirled with caramel, in my coffee, chipped, truffled, and mint. (My favorite? Dark, the darker the chocolate the better.)

So it's no wonder that social media does the same for me that chocolate does.

You know those boxes of chocolates with all different shapes and sizes? It's the type of box with a "map" of the contents, a guide to the delectable fillings and nuts inside? Sometimes I study the different flavors and deliberately choose which confections I'll try that day. However, other days I'm feeling adventurous and I pay no attention to the inside top of the box. Sometimes diving in, eyes practically closed, and risking a flavor you're unfamiliar with is the way to go. In fact, you might discover that if you had looked at the box and saw "Cayenne Pepper Jelly" you would have thrown that chocolate out with disdain. But because you took the risk, took a blind bite, it's now the one chocolate that you seek out.

The same idea applies to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Sure, if you're a cake baker you'll naturally seek out other cake bakers and people that like to eat cake. However, you might find that the snake charmer that just started following you on Twitter the day before is the one that makes you laugh more. This could result in you stressing less, sleeping more, and ultimately being able to make more cakes!

Like chocolate, social media can brighten your day, give you a boost, comfort, and inspire. The jury is still out though if too much can give you heartburn.

photo credit wikipedia

We're Talking Love & Chocolate at #GNO!

RSVP for the Sweetest #GNO of the Year!

#GNO promises to be a sweet treat this week. Join us for your favorite girl's night out fix!

• What: GNO (What's GNO? Click here to find out!)
  
  
• Where: Tweet Grid (#gno)
  
  
• When: Between 6 & 10 p.m. PST (9 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST)
  
  
• Who: Welcome our first guy guest tweet Chris Perrin from @blogwelldone
  
  
• Why: To chat about love and chocolate (Mmmmmmmm!)
  
  
• Important: Want to win big? Enter to win one of our three giveaways.
  
  
• RSVP: Use Mr. Linky below (enter the twitter URL and your twitter ID (e.g., http://twitter.com/jyl_momIF).
  
  

Note: This does not enter you for the giveaways.