Valentine's day recipes for everyone you love

Valentine's day comes with Roses, chocolates, pretty little gifts, champagne and something sweet and special for those who share and those who need the whole thing.

And because everyone deserves some love (even if it's from you to you) I created some recipes for everyone to enjoy.

Heart shaped Arepas

Arepas are warm, pillowy, love filled bread(s?) that are served as the star of a meal or as a side in south America. With one main ingredient, cornmeal ( and to help out those who are not familiar with the product, is not a fine powder, but almost Sand-like).

There are 3 popular cornmeal products and those are

1. Harina de Maiz precocido, for arepas and empanadas ( just check the packaging),

2. Polenta, which is an Italian staple cooked to a creamy and buttery ( mashed potato like) side dish

3. Masa harina, a Mexican blend with cornmeal to make tortillas and tamales (again, read the packaging)

Why is it so important to read the packaging?

Not all cornmeal is created equal and each one is tailored to one specific thing.

I've tried making arepas with polenta and.... Let's just say it didn't go well.

On the other hand, you could try to make arepas with Masa Harina, the Mexican blend, but the flavour will be different and you may need more or less water and well as more or less time to cook compared to Harina de Maiz precocido.

Now that we cleared those out, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

100 grams Harina de Maiz Precocido

100g Passata ( you can also buy already made pasta sauce and skip some steps, but it's totally worth it to make your own sauce)

1 cup water approximately ( how much water you should add depends on A LOT of factors, so add little by little and check. If it's lumpy and breaking apart you'll need more water, you want this dough to feel tacky, not sticky or dry and crackly [ yea, it's an art and it may take some time to get the water and textire right, yet, you will impress that special person who loves them, so think about it]

if you bought the sauce you can skip this ingredients:

1 clove of garlic

1 shallot ( or a small onion)

1 tsp olive oil

1 pinch of dry oregano

Salt and pepper

Directions :

In a small pan on medium heat pour the olive oil ( you want the pan to be hot by then), add the shallot, finely chopped ( you want it to sizzle when it hits the pan) and cook for 1 min before adding the garlic, crushed and oregano. Add the Passata, salt and pepper and let it simmer for 5 minutes (keep an eye on it).

Feel free to taste and add more salt and pepper if needed, you can also add some sugar if it's too bitter.

Let cool.

Pour the sauce into a bowl and dump the cornmeal along with a pinch of salt, add about 1/4 cup of water and mix (with your hands, yes. Return to ingredients if you are unsure about the texture and water).

Once ingredients are mixed and texture is right, let it rest for 3 minutes.

To make into hearts make a ball with the dough, gently press and form into a flat circular shape ( that's a regular arepa shape). Place on parchment paper AKA baking paper, pinch it ( its should look something like this C>, like an ice cream cone, somewhat..) then make and indent and that's it! It should look like this ❤️ (like you wouldn't know 🤦‍♀️)

Fry on a pan, deep fry or air fry!

It's up to you.

3 to 5 minutes per side should do it.

Fill with anything you like or serve it as a side

Serve warm. ❤️❤️

Low carb - vegan - gluten free peanut butter truffles

This are great for any occasion, really. BUT would it be valentine's day without chocolate?!

So far, I haven't met anyone who doesn't give or are given chocolate in valentine's day.

And making them yourself, not only makes them more delicious, but much more special.

And the best thing is that they don't take that long either.

Ingredients:

300 grams of dark vegan chocolate

100g grams all natural peanut butter, basically just peanuts crushed into a paste, ( I went for crunchy peanut butter for texture)

A pinch of salt (don't skip this one)

Food coloring or icing [optional but cute]

Directions:

Melt 100 grams of your chocolate and mix in the peanut butter and salt. Chill until firm, scoop some filling and roll into balls placing on parchment, chill again ( or freeze). Melt the rest of the chocolate and let cool, dunk the little balls and place them on the parchment again, chill, preferably all night, and decorate [if you want] by adding some food coloring in the rest of the chocolate and drizzling or use icing to draw and write things (🔥)

Wrap them or plate them 😍

I prefer to store them in the fridge and they will last about a week ( if they even make it by then 😋)

Heart shaped gelatin

It's low in calories, it's sugar free and it's heart shaped..

Ingredients:

1 package of sugar free gelatin (feel free to use a vegan substitute)

Fruit ( I'm using kiwis here because they look pretty)

You will need a heart shaped cookie cutter, or if you're very determined you can cut each and every piece of fruit into little heart shapes (doable, not recommended 😂, been there done that if you can tell by the images)

Directions :

Make gelatin as instructed in the package, pour one layer, chill until solid and put some fruit shaped hearts on top, pour more gelatin on top and chill again. Repeat until you have various layers of hearts in your gelatin.

You can go an extra step and serve your gelatin shaped as a heart ( I tried and failed to accomplish this, so if you could do it coment below and send me a pic !)

Enjoy!

I hope you like this recipes, share them with your loved ones and stay tuned for my next post!

Happy Valentines's, Galentine's or Alone-time's

Clau.