Valentine’s Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

February 7, 2014

Ahhh, Valentine’s Day; you either love it orrrr you hate it. I happen to quite like it, but the fact that I have a boyfriend and have had the same (awesome) one for the past 5 years may have helped with that 🙂

Unlike other special days though, when one thinks of Valentine’s Day, you tend to think of two things: the color red and chocolate. These two factors directly influenced what I made for you all today. Which is …… Valentine’s Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate!!

Valentine’s Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Okay okay, I know they are not completely guilt free, but hey. Gotta live a little once in a while. Plus, raspberries are high in fiber and low in calories, whilst dark chocolate (when eaten sparingly, not every day people!) allows our bodies a greater capacity to absorb antioxidants found in chocolate, whereas the milk in normal milk chocolate actually interferes with our bodies absorption of antioxidants from chocolate. I added in cacao as well because that has also been shown to have a high amount of antioxidants. Reality check though people, eating mass amounts of dark chocolates will not necessarily ward off disease .. it will more likely make you gain lots of weight, so be sensible and eat it in moderation pleeeease 🙂

Alright, so let’s get down to making this stuff! You will need the following:

Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Alice Williams

A perfect Valentine's Day Treat!

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Ingredients

1 bar of unsweetened dark chocolate
1 bar of dark chocolate or cacao
1 6 ox box of raspberries

Instructions

Step 1: Start boiling a pan of water (fill your pot about 1/4 to half way full) with boiling water. Get two bowls out. Fill one bowl with your raspberries and then put them aside as you will come back to the bowls once you have melted your chocolate.
Step 2. Once you have your water boiling, quickly turn down the temperature of the flame to low. Too high of a heat will cause your chocolate to melt. Get a big metal bowl, or a bowl that fits easily on top of your pot and is heat resistant. Break up the bar into small pieces and slowly add them into the big metal bowl (it will not melt well if you just chuck the bar in).
Step 3: Merrily stir the chocolate slowly until it melts. it really does not take long, it took me a grand total of 3 or 4 minutes.
Step 4: Mmmm, the best part. Get a towel or something to grab a hold of the bowl with and then scrape out the chocolate into your bowl (that I told you to get in step 1, remember). Then, get your skewer (thank you Alyssa!) or fork, whatever, and pierce one of the raspberries and simply … dip into the bowl of hot chocolate!

Valentine's Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Ahh, it melted so fast!!!

And there you have it, the finished product!! If you find that you would like it sweeter than this, feel free to add some honey, stevia or brown sugar and let me know how that makes it taste. If you have celiac’s disease use pure unsweetened chocolate and pure cacao (mine is 75% so not pure). If you want it completely sugar-free .. I am afraid that will not happen, because fruits have naturally occurring sugars in them.

Nutritional Details (for whole bowl of chocolate and raspberries)
Calories: 1222 (as you can see it is NOT low calorie, so eat sparingly)
Carbohydrates: 122g
Sugar: 81g
Fat: 79g
Protein: 9g
Fiber: 22g

I know these numbers seem daunting, and I could’ve chosen not to include them. But you know what? I do not want you to be ignorant. I hate how people have gotten the notion in their head that healthy automatically means that you can eat as much as you want … NO. No foods should ever be abused in this way (except perhaps celery). Eat too much of anything and you will gain weight, although the quality of the foods you eat will certainly make a difference. I have said this a lot: eating 500 calories of grilled chicken and quinoa is so much better for you than eating 500 calories of ice-cream and pizza. Okay, rant over guys, sorry!!! Love you really, I just want you to be aware 🙂

I hope you have all enjoyed this weeks Friday Fare!! If any of you make this, please let me know how it goes. And feel free to make any suggestions as to things you would like to see in the future. Hope you all have a great Valentine’s Day next week.

Honestly yours,
Alice

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Sunday Summary

February 2, 2014

Another Sunday has arrived, and another week has passed by. Time flies so quickly, I really cannot keep up sometimes! And then sometimes it just doesn’t … like during finals week haha.

The spring 2014 semester at SF State began this week so I have been pretty busy with classes. I am hoping I will still be able to stick with my plan of going to the gym 4x a week, but we will see. Some weeks I probably won’t be able too, so it is good to be realistic about things. So because I am so busy, what did I decide to do? Make myself even busier by starting a 6 week program that will help me move from being an intermediate yogi to an advanced one! I found it online on a website called www.doyogawithme.com and it is such a fantastic resource. All of the video’s are free, although they encourage you to donate since this is their primary method of raising money. They have several programs which you can download which give you specific videos to practice to help you reach your goals. It is just such a breath of fresh air to find a way to do yoga where you do not have to pay a fortune, as I am sure you all know if you have ever gone to a yoga class before. I recommend you all check them out, and I will keep you updated on my progress! I started practicing yoga seriously (as in every day) about a month and a half ago although I have been doing yoga on and off for the past 8 years. My Dad is really into yoga so he introduced me to it at a young age (thanks Dad!).

Sticking with the progress theme, my goal for 2014 (as you may, or may not know) is to be able to do 10 consecutive pull ups and chin ups. I am still in the negatives stage (where you hold yourself up and then slowly yourself yourself down), but it is still progress. I have definitely noticed that my upper body has gotten stronger so I am excited to see what I can do at the end of February.

I have also been in the works of experimenting with several sugar free treats for you all. In terms of taste, it is going well, but I am definitely having trouble with keeping the texture of the things I am making nice and moist. Are any of you expert bakers (or even just relatively knowledgeable bakers)? If so, please leave me a comment or email me so I can get in touch with you! I am thinking I need to add butter … and guys, butter is good for you every now and again although it is high in calories!

So that’s a summary of my busy week! What have you guys been up too? Have you set any goals for February? I want to know, so leave a comment below or feel free to get in touch with me via the many social network channels I am on (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest).

Honestly yours,
Alice

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Sunday Summary

January 26, 2014

I love and hate Sundays; I am happy because it is still the weekend, but sad because Monday looms ahead (although I love Mondays during the holidays hah). I am currently enjoying a big mason jar of lemon water as lemon water has many wonderful benefits such as improvement of digestion, vitamin C which boosts mineral absorption, and an antioxidant called d-limonene. Drinking it from a mason jar is fun, and practical because when you finish the lemon water, you can just add some more water to it, put the lid on and store it in the fridge for later!

I tried out a new workout class in San Francisco on Thursday called ‘Elesculpt’ and I am really excited to tell you all about it! I have also stocked up on baking goods (thank you Whole Foods bulk food bin) and have bought an electric hand mixer so now I can finally experiment in making some healthy desserts for you all 🙂

I am continually amazed at the support Honestly Fitness has received, from comments on the blog to support from social media networks. It is so exciting to be engaging with you all and posting about topics that I think are current and relevant. I have a lot in store but as always, I want to know what YOU want to read, so please feel free to leave me a comment, or to contact me privately by going to my ‘Contact’ page and filling out the form.

This week I have been loving the newest ab workout video that Blogilates posted called ‘5 minute ab express.’ I usually try and do some moves targeting my abs at the gym, but I do like to do something different every once in a while so my body doesn’t get used to the same old thing. Even though this was only 5 minutes, jeez, it is a killer!! If you have never heard of Blogilates, I suggest you visit her page ASAP. She is very real and honest, and posts some incredibly difficult but very fun workouts.

I have also been doing a lot of yoga (as per my New Year’s resolution!) and although I have a lot of yoga video’s on my external hard drive, again I like to do something new and not do the same old routine again and again. I absolutely love Tara Stile’s, and her ‘Morning Yoga for Flexibility‘ video has been a long-time favorite of mine. It is under 10 minutes and since you can find the video on Youtube, you can quite literally roll out of bed and do the video. Now that I have made yoga a daily necessity, I do not know what I would do without it. I plan to do a post on yoga in the future because I think there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding yoga and what it can do for you. Quite frankly, I do not believe it should be practiced with the sole intention to ‘get skinny.’

Hope you have all enjoyed Honestly Fitness this week, and hope you all had a wonderful weekend! What did you do for the weekend? And to all of you in Australia, hope you had a great Australia Day!

Honestly yours,
Alice

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