Happy Valentine's Day!

Every year, Alex and I give up sweets for Lent. Since Lent starts on Ash Wednesday, this coming Wednesday Feb 17 this year, we tend to go a little overboard on sweets for the week+ before. This past week, Alex made chocolate tapioca pudding, I bought Alex See's Chocolates, and then Alex offered to make me ANY recipe I wanted in the Death By Chocolate cookbook. I had just decided on the namesake, "Death by Chocolate," when I read the Author's note. "Each slice of Death by Chocolate contains 1,353 calories." YIPES!!!

We settled on Danielle's Temptation, a flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. It was to be covered in chocolate curls, but I convinced Alex that doing so was over the top, so he used sliced almonds instead. And Alex ingeniously conceived of adding a puree of berries (no sugar added, we buy a three-berry medly from Costco), which added a perfect balance to the dessert. And we drank red wine. Mmmmmm.... Here is Alex's masterpiece:

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And here is Magdalena in her (hand-me-down) "My First Valentine's Day" bib:

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She only wishes she could have some:

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Lucia did get some, but not till after she consoled Magdalena by covering her up:

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Now it's time for a diet!