The weather in the mountains has been incredible – 70s, sunny and breezy.  Compared to 100+ in Savannah, it is such a welcome relief.   We have been enjoying the sunset sky which has been particularly gorgeous lately.  This picture does not capture the variety of colors, but it hints at the beauty.

We have friends coming to visit us this weekend, so I have been doing a ton of cooking.   I went on the hunt for recipes for relatively healthy sweets.

I found a recipe for healthy peanut butter oatmeal cookies here:  Healthy Food for Living.  The recipe calls for no refined flour, no sugar, no butter or oil – perfect.  The only change I made to the recipe was to add 1/4 of a cup of  all natural chocolate chips.  Delicious.

I also found a recipe for chocolate candies on WebMD.

Ingredients
12 oz. Dark Chocolate Chips (milk chocolate if you prefer)
1 1/3 Cup Puffed Millet, Rice, Kamut (found in the cereal isle)
1 Cup Dried Cranberries, Chopped
1/2 Cup Toasted Pecan Pieces
Sea Salt

Instructions
Place chocolate it in a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water. Do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the water. Allow it to melt slowly, giving it a stir to distribute the heat. In the meantime, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.

Remove the chocolate from the heat and gently add in the puffed grain of choice, dried fruit and nut and fold everything to combine. Allow everything to sit for about five minutes to cool.

Using a spoon and your fingers, dollop hefty tablespoons of the chocolate mix onto the baking sheet. Repeat, washing your fingers every now and then because it will be easier to work with the chocolate. This step gets messy, but as they cool you can form their shape better. Sprinkle them liberally with sea salt.

Put the tray in the fridge for about 15 minutes for the morsels to set completely.

Total Servings: 12

I found chocolate that was 72% dark chocolate, which is the highest ratio that I have seen.  I did not have a glass bowl, so I slowly melted the chocolate in the microwave.  I was a little worried about my final product for two reasons:  (1) it was a little runny; and (2) I made 24, not 12 chocolates of good size.   I continued to put them in the fridge and left them about 30 minutes.  They turned out beautifully – and yummy:

As I was doing my baking this morning, I was reminded of how I used to love baking with my mom when I was a kid.  My family still teases me about how I used to announce, very officiously, that cooking was hard work and it sure made me thirsty!  The implication was that it was not my hard work that made me thirsty, but my tasting of the final product (well someone had to test it!).  Looking back at myself at that age, I think they were probably right.  I don’t think I missed many opportunities to taste test.

Apparently old habits die hard.  Where did I put my water….