Chocolate Cup Tarts

Want to WOW your family this holiday? These chocolate desserts are easier than they look.

What you need:

• Semi-sweet chocolate
• Plain Greek yogurt
• Cool whip
• Powdered sugar
• Fruit
• Balloons!

That's right, balloons. 

CHOCOLATE CUPS

1. Blow up balloons. The smaller the balloon the smaller the shell. I like to keep them small. Rinse balloons to remove any powder.

 2. Melt chocolate, dip and roll balloons in chocolate. The closer the chocolate gets to the "neck" of the balloon the harder it will be to peel later. The deeper you dip the balloon the more egg-like the shell will turn out.

 3. Set balloons on a plastic wrapped tray. After all balloons have been covered, place in fridge.

FILLING
1. Combine about 28 ounces of yogurt and 3/4 of the container of cool whip. Wish you had a larger bowl.

2. After mixing, add powdered sugar an vanilla to taste. I used about 1/2 a cup sugar.
*These amounts led to a LOT of filling, I'd recommend using half as much.

COMBINING
1. After the chocolate has solidified, cut the balloons, and carefully peel out the balloon.

2. Put filling in a zip-loc bag and cut of the end. Fill cups.

3. Decorate. I chose pomegranate seeds and blueberries. Granola, chocolate, candy and other fruit works well too. 

BONUS: If you comment on a post besides this one I will make these for you and your family for the holidays! Best comment wins.

Frozen Dragon Fruit

A few days ago I went to Wegmans. As usual I was spending too much time in the produce section where I found dragon fruits (irradiated from Vietnam!) and thought to myself "Screw it, let's do this."

Upon returning home I realized most recipes using dragon fruit were savory or using it as a sauce.  I was NOT about to go down that road. DRAGON fruit takes a backseat to no one. So the only dessert not completely outlandish was sorbet. After skimming several recipes and checking out the ingredients (ignoring the measurements) I assumed I could just wing it and make it work.

This is the result:

   I'm pretty legit

The ensuing ensuing experiment (at the beginning I thought FAIL) was due to my shrugging off the the fact every recipe asked for a food processor and ice cream maker. Puhleez did the old Vietnamese have those things? NO.

Procedure:
1. Cut a dragon fruit in half to show off what it looks like.
2. Scoop out dragon fruit
3. Try at least 4 different kitchen utensils to mash the dragon fruit since you're too stubborn to find the food processor.

4. Add remaining ingredients

5. Strain the dragon fruit through a strainer...give up and resort to mashing dragon fruit against strainer sides for desired texture. Combined liquid and mash.
6. Put in freezer and wait....

                                                                                                        Tadaaaa

As you can see it had quite a few crystals. Which I imagine would have something to do with not having an ice cream maker. I'm not sure I've never used one before.

Still a success. Dragon fruit tastes a bit like a kiwi but more flowery? Try it yourself.

Tips for next time: Buy a kitchen that is all cute for blogging and stop being so grumpy.

Greek Yogurt Tarts

                                                                                                                "Green Lantern" Themed Tart!

These are  the easiest and tastiest tarts I have made. Granted these are the only tarts I've made. I went to the store wanting to make something new and tarts are adorable. Then I thought "What is even in a tart Rachel?"

Frankly I still have no idea how to make a "real" tart. Nor do I want to.

The goal was to make something that tasted good with limited fat. So instead of cream cheese it made sense to grab Greek yogurt which is high in protein and has zero fat. It has the right thickness and adds the tartness desired. Next to sweeten it up I grabbed a tub of cool whip (why not?). Finally mascarpone cheese. A sweet french cheese often found in desserts. The cheese if you opted for fat free cool whip is the only part of the filling adding fat.

All you need to do is combine the filling in a bowl. Don't even bother thawing the cool whip. Use HALF the container of cheese. To fill the tart shells add the filling to a ziploc bag, cut off the corner and squeeze away. This amount filled 18 shells for me.

After that add fruit. Which between cutting and given my tendency to obsess over detail took the longest time. This whole recipe is easy and fun.

Based off of the 18 servings per recipe each tart is around 120 calories (NOT counting fruit as it will vary. The kiwi for example added 20 calories). Most of the fat coming from the cheese and the tart.

The beloved grocery store chain in my area sells tarts which are 210 calories. 120 from fat.

Take that pre-made super expensive tarts! Plus mine were super hero themed...which is so much cooler than those fancy tarts you have to offer. HAHA

Tip to try: Add some vanilla to make them even better.

(Note the calories for my recipes are estimated based off of the containers and may vary slightly)

Strawberry Citrus Pulp Cookies

The unfortunate part of juicing is that you waste a lot of fiber by creating pulp. Since juicing is so in and people love posting crap on the internet there is now a ton of recipes for pulp. Here is 1 more!

Strawberry Citrus Sugar Cookies

From a cookie making stand point any sugar cookie recipe will do. If you don't make cookies often the general procedure is as follows...

1. Cream the sugar and fat (butter or oil) together. This involves a mixer. This helps incorporate the sugar which will melt and the fat together
2. Add the other wet ingredients
3. Add the rest of the dry ingredients

Tip: try not to over mix.


Now it's pulp time

It may not look pretty but it sure makes things tasty! Don't have a juicer? I'd recommend finely chopping some strawberry and oranges or mashing them up with a fork.

Just gently fold it into the batter. Then you have cute confetti looking dough with real chunks of fruit.

 I baked mine for about 10 minutes, but again depending on the sugar cookie recipe YOU chose it may be different. In the end I made twice as many cookies as the recipe said it would yield.

                                                                    Delicious cookies!

The tiny bit of fruit made the cookies taste like fruity pebbles. I am not kidding. Who knew a little bit of fruit would make such a flavor difference. I added red food coloring to some which caused them to be a little too soft from the added liquid. The ones on the farthest right are just plain.

Future goals for my baking: try and make a batch of cookies that actually looks like one batch of cookies.

*just because these cookies have fruit in them does not mean they're good for you. Try not to eat them all!