Quite a few artisan chocolatiers are also pastry chefs. Rachel Ferneau makes chocolates as Dear Coco, but was previously the proprietor of Eden Cake, a made-to-order kosher pareve bakery serving metro Washington, D.C.

While we’ve missed the opportunity to try her desserts, she was kind enough to send us some chocolate.

Everything from this artisan chocolatier is 100% handcrafted in small batches. The chocolates are completely dairy-free, all natural and certified kosher pareve by Star-K.

In both her baking and her chocolates, flavors of the world are evoked with coffees and teas, exotic salts, fine herbs, flowers, fruits, roasted nuts and spices.

Recently, Dear Coco launched a creative line of vegan-friendly artisan chocolate bars: Toffee Chocolate Bars. Eight unique bars are embedded with toffee and the spices that evoke each of the eight globally-inspired locations.

The toffee is made with vegan butter* in order to be pareve† and lactose free. This substitution, so that the bars can be enjoyed anytime by kosher observers, makes them vegan-friendly as well. Yes, it cuts down on the butteriness of the toffee; but there is so much other layering of flavors that no one will notice.

The Oaxaca bar invokes the moles of Oaxaca, Mexico with cinnamon toffee and pepitas. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

NEW & SPECIAL: TOFFEE CHOCOLATE BARS

All of the bars are made with dark chocolate and a touch of sea salt.

The 3.5-ounce bars are $7.50 each. A gift set of eight (all the flavors) is $54.00.

Get yours at DearCoco.com.

 
*Products like Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks are made from expeller-pressed oils that have 0g trans fats. More information.

†Kosher law prohibits the consumption of dairy and meat products together. Pareve is a classification of foods that contain neither dairy nor meat ingredients, and can be eaten with both groups. Pareve foods include eggs, fish and all foods that are grown—cereals, fruits, nuts, vegetables, etc.
  

Here’s how to add fiber to a meatloaf and have fun with it. The recipe is courtesy Popcorn.org, the website of The Popcorn Board.

Don’t expect pieces of popcorn popping up in the slices of meatloaf. The popcorn is ground in the food processor and used instead of breadcrumbs, which (unless they’re whole wheat breadcrumbs) contribute zero fiber.

See if anyone can guess what the “secret ingredient” is. (Food fun: You can tip them off by garnishing the meatloaf with a sprinkle of popcorn.)

Preparation time is 10 minutes; baking time is 1 hour.
 
 
RECIPE: POPCORN MEATLOAF

Ingredients For 6 Servings

1. PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Spray an 8 x 4-inch loaf pan with cooking spray; set aside.

2. PROCESS popcorn in a blender or food processor until finely ground; pour into a large bowl. Add ground beef, celery, onion, milk, egg, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix until thoroughly blended.

3. PRESS meat mixture into pan; spread chili sauce over top.

4. BAKE for 1 hour, or until cooked through. Allow to cool 15 minutes before slicing.
  

A tasty first course: a roasted bell pepper wrapped in prosciutto. Photo courtesy Westside Market | NYC.

This recipe fits right in with a pink food party, Valentine’s Day, Easter or Mother’s Day.

RECIPE: PROSCIUTTO WRAPPED BELL PEPPERS

Ingredients For 4 Servings

1. WHISK together olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Add peppers and marinate for 1 hour.

2. FILL each pepper with a piece of mozzarella. Wrap a slice of prosciutto around each pepper.

3. TOP each with a basil leaf and olive, held together with a toothpick.
 
It’s that easy!

Carrots—standard size and baby—are available in six different colors: the familiar deep orange plus burgundy red, deep purple, tangerine (light orange), yellow and white.

They’re a delicious way to add color and crunch to appetizers, salads and entrées. Kids and adults alike love them for their unusual colors—and for helping make family nutrition fun.
 
CARROT HISTORY

The original wild carrots were white, like parsnips. According to Colorful Harvest, marketer of these rainbow carrots, the cultivated purple and yellow carrots—mutations—were eaten more than 1,000 years ago in what is now Afghanistan.

Other colors are the product of generations of traditional plant breeding. Orange carrots were first successfully bred in Holland from an orange mutation by Dutch farmers. Here’s the history of carrots.

Deeply colored produce are rich in nutrients, including antioxidants. Different antioxidants produce the different colors or carrots:

Rainbow carrots from Colorful Harvest. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

WHERE DO CARROTS GET THEIR COLOR?

Studies indicate that these phytonutrients are also more bio-available and easier to absorb from fresh fruits and vegetables than from other sources.

So they’re not only cute, tasty and good for you: Rainbow carrots are extra-cute and extra-good for you.

Because you’ve got to love people who send you delicious chocolate chip cookies. In thanks, you’ve got to write about them. So here goes:

DoubleTree guests know that a warm chocolate chip cookie will be waiting for them on arrival. In its 25 year history, more than 300 million cookies have been handed out at DoubleTree by Hilton hotels around the world.

The popular cookies are also sold in the hotel gift shops and online

Three and a half inches in diameter, in a soft and chewy style, the cookies have no nuts but a hint of cinnamon. It’s a nice touch that we must remember to try the next time we bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Each cookie is approximately two full ounces, filled with an average of 20 chocolate chips. More than 580,000 pounds of chocolate chips are used each year in the 21 million cookies given out.

DoubleTree has donated more than one million cookies to communities where it operates hotels: to doctors and nurses, homeless shelters and orphanages, food banks and firefighters.

If you’re a Hilton Honors member, you can enter the Cookie Care sweepstakes on Facebook to win cookies for yourself and the person(s) you’ll share them with. Not an Honors member? You can sign up via the Facebook page.

Coming soon, the cookie dough will be available for sale online, so those who have become very fond of the cookies don’t need to check into the hotel in order to have a warm one.

Now for the burning question: Why can’t airlines serve these cookies in First Class instead of the thanks-but-no-thanks oil-based, butterless cookies they serve?
 
*Publications chart their schedule of articles on an “editorial calendar,” a calendar which shows what will be published every day (or, for weekly and monthly periodicals, every week/month).